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Two years after the conference “Noted at the Margin— Annotation Practices in Literary Texts“ (June 2006), and its forthcoming publication, the topic of annotation practices in literary texts is still not exhausted or has lost any interest. Likewise there has been no decrease in recent literary publications that make extensive use of annotations (for a list of the latest releases and research on annotations in literature, see the bibliography and the web site www.amrandebemerkt.de).
To the cfp of 2006*
> * Since showing up for the first time, annotations
> in literary texts have had various functions. They refer
> to bibliographical sources, give quotations and additional
> information, comment on obscure or missing parts of text,
> and explicate passages otherwise difficult to understand.
> Annotations and notes explain uncommon technical terms,
> illuminate opaque meanings, and translate foreign
> languages—but in some of their most interesting varieties
> also constitute and sometimes interrupt narrative lines and
> by-lines. Trough these multi-functional possibilities
> they also tackle concepts of linearity and completeness
> traditionally related to literary texts. Likewise they
> challenge current definitions of textuality and
> paratextuality and interrupt a linear concept of reading,
> sometimes trough empty notes, false annotations or notes
> without text.
> Annotations are marginal textual elements that occupy a
> liminal position, always equipped with ambivalent
> functions: they connect and disconnect, enable and disable
> correlations between text and text or text and readers,
> they control hierarchies and valuations, and they draw
> distinctions between high/low, up/down, entral/marginal—
> often making these distinctions collapse again.
> Annotations and notes are therefore characterized by a
> paradoxical rhetorical oscillation: they amplify texts
> like parentheses and insertions, included material,
> enlargements and amplifications; on the other hand they
> also reduce and concentrate texts to the essential, by
> sorting out and setting apart the secondary, ephemeral,
> marginal, subordinate, unimportant and negligible. Notes
> and annotations consequently reduce and enlarge literary
> texts in equal measure. Literary texts making use of
> annotations tend to support polyphony, complexity, and
> intertextuality, inviting and compelling to
> unconventional, nonlinear and cursory ways of reading.
> The conference deals with the functional varieties of
> annotation types and their semiotic and functional
> possibilities in literary texts.
might be added that submissions are not restricted to any particular philology, literature, epoch, genre or annotation type. This time we are particularly interested in proposals for the following three panels:
1 Inclusion and Exclusion of heterogeneous material
— different typographic structures to distinguish textual layers (parentheses and brackets and other internal annotation types vs. external footnotes, marginal notes or endnotes, comments and annotations of all types) and their different functions
— Questions of authority and hierarchy of text and commentary and the constitution or dissolution of margin and center
2 Extremes and impossibilities
— Quantitative and qualitative annotation excesses
— Notes in dramatic and lyric texts
— Notes in impossible places and notes without text
— Meandering and circular structures and infinite texts
— Texts that “break the frame”: mediality and the unity of the book and the connection of textual and other medial elements
3 Actual developments and new releases since 2005
— Recent footnote novels and uses of notes and annotations in other literary new releases: imitation of/distinction from predecessors or something completely new?
— Newest approaches in theory and literary criticism related to annotation in literary texts
Organization: Sabine Zubarik & Bernhard Metz in cooperation with the Promotionszentrum der Philosophischen Fakultät, University of Erfurt
Place: University of Erfurt
Date: October 8 –10, 2008
Application: Please send an abstract (no more than 5000 characters) until June 15, 2008 via e-mail to the conference organizers
Conference type: Workshop/conference: handing in of a paper (no more than 50.000 characters), which will be given to all participants, until August 15, 2008
Key notes: Sabine Mainberger (FU Berlin) & Andréas Pfersmann (UNSA Nice)
Conference fees: Conference registration is free. Simple accommodation (single room with shower/WC) will be provided by the organizers
URL: http://www.amrandebemerkt.de
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