Relations Forms 4 – Literature and the arts since the 1960s: Protest, Identity and the Imagination

1968 is a momentous year in the global socio-political memory: it has come to be seen as the culmination and epitome of a series of processes involving protest, and the affirmation of previously silent or subaltern causes. Such processes and causes were predicated on challenges to established powers and mindsets, and hence on demands for change, that have had rich consequences in literature and the arts. This conference proposes to address this imaginative wake of the rebellious late 1960s, with a particular but not exclusive focus on word-and-image relations. Of the various strands of socio-political memory associated with the period that this conference is designed to commemorate and ponder, some attention will be given to the developments marking the beginnings (c1968) but also the proclaimed end (1998) of the Northern Irish Troubles. This particular instance of legacies of violent conflict but also fraught peacemaking will be interrogated at a juncture in European history in which national and regional identities are in various ways on the frontline of political discussion once more, with consequences and outcomes that remain unclear.

In sum: the conference avails itself of a commemorative design to consider the impact on literature and the arts of a much mythologized historical period. We want to showcase and discuss the impact of its defining causes, hopes and regrets on the creative imagination, preferably from a comparatist perspective.

As indicated by the number in its title, this conference is the fourth in a series of academic events that reflect the ongoing concerns of the eponymous research group (Relational Forms), based at CETAPS (the Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies).

Please visit our conference website at https://cetaps.wixsite.com/relational-forms-4

The organisers will welcome proposals for 20-minute papers in English responding to the above. Suggested (merely indicative) topics include:
– Empowering the imagination: the late 1960s and beyond
– The art of protest: words and images in action
– Literature – and the world out there: conflict and violence in public vs literary discourses
– Narratives of dissension: fiction, youth and conflict
– Staging protest: drama and the political imagination since the 1960s
– Screening protest: film, television and the political imagination
– Poetry, protest and identity/ies since the 1960s
– Action, reaction: stereotype and iconoclasm (verbal, visual)
– Disruptive, constructive?: tropes of conflict and the making of contemporary societies
– Take my song for it: vocal music and fraught selves since the 1960s
– Translating dissent: protest represented across languages
– Urban sights and sounds: street art and writing since the 1960s
– Subaltern identities and gaining/giving voice: hybrid constructions
– Protest through affirmation: picturing alternate communities
– Remediating protest since the 1960s: from audiovisual to digital media

Deadline for proposals: 31 May 2018
Notification of acceptance: 30 June 2018
Deadline for registration: 15 October 2018

For further queries please contact:
CETAPS – Centre for English, Translation and Anglo-Portuguese Studies
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
Via Panorâmica, s/n
4150-564 PORTO – PORTUGAL

Organizing Commitee:
– Rui Carvalho Homem
– Jorge Bastos da Silva
– Miguel Ramalhete Gomes
– Jorge Almeida e Pinho
– Márcia Lemos

Keynote Speaker:
– Edna Longley
– Manuel Portela
– Martin Halliwell
– Michael Longley