CALL FOR PAPERS: "Creativity and Commerce in the Age of Print"

University of Edinburgh (26 July 2014)

‘What an insane thing it is to make literature one's only means of support!... 

To make a trade of an art! I am rightly served for attempting such a brutal folly.’

- George Gissing, New Grub Street (1891)

Hosted by the Centre for the History of the Book at the University of Edinburgh, this interdisciplinary conference will explore the sometimes-fraught connections between the ‘art’ and ‘trade’ of books from the Western invention of printing to today. Are the interests of authors and publishers always opposed, or can they lead to productive forms of collaboration? Does work undertaken for the marketplace necessarily compromise its moral and cultural standing? How does literature become property, and how has authorship evolved between the starving writer of ‘Grub Street’ and the modern book festival circuit? Can the requirements of the printing and bookselling industries constitute a form of de-facto censorship, determining the types of work that are published and circulated?

We are currently seeking papers from postgraduate and early career researchers interested in questions such as these, with potential topics including (but not limited to):

• Authorship and other creative professions
• The printing and bookselling industries
• Author-publishers relationships
• Dissemination networks
• Subscription and patronage
• Book advertising, illustration
• Serial publication
• ‘Tie-ins’, merchandise, and material culture
• Libraries and book collecting
• Commerce and censorship
• Originality, copyright, and intellectual property
• Book piracy and its national boundaries
• Creative work and gender
• The impact of new technologies for production and dissemination
• The ‘rise’ or ‘death’ of print.

Proposals in all relevant subject areas and historical periods post-1450 are welcome. Please send a 200-word abstract to Natasha by 5 May 2014. Limited travel bursaries may be available; indicate if you would require one to attend. The conference will take place in Edinburgh on 26 July 2014, with registration opening in June.

Dr. Natasha Simonova
4.03, 18 Buccleuch Place
Career Development Fellow
Department of English Literature
University of Edinburgh

CALL FOR PAPERS: 'Reforming Shakespeare: 1593 and After'

3 June 2014, De Montfort University, Leicester, England

This is a one-day scholarly symposium on the kinds of alteration that have occurred to Shakespeare's writing as it has made its journey from author to readers and playgoers. 'Reforming' may take the sense of being given new shape as authorial or non-authorial adaptation, rewriting, borrowing or allusion and arguments about any of these processes in connection with Shakespeare fall within our purview. 'Reforming' can also suggest correction and improvement, including censorship, editing, and tidying up of text to make it conform to new conditions of reception, and contributions on those topics are also welcome. Send proposals for 15-minute papers to Prof Deborah Cartmell and Prof Gabriel Egan.

Prof Graham Holderness (University of Hertfordshire) and Prof Richard Wilson (Kingston University) are confirmed keynote speakers. The rest will be chosen from submitted proposals.