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This conference, open to scholars, authors, and non-specialists alike, aims to promote the study of transgressive (auto)biography by investigating the transformations and cross-continental influences that have proven central to the development of (auto)biographies that bide between genres. Especially in the last two decades, there has been a global renaissance in the production of texts that purposefully and self-reflexively blur the distinction between fiction and nonfiction in order to examine the multiple ways lives are written and selves are constructed. The principal objective of this conference is to situate the latest postmodern and postcolonial alternatives into what appears to be a well-established tradition of transgressive (auto)biographical writing in English.
On October 28th, the conference will begin with a round-table discussion by a range of practicing (auto)biographers and scholars in this field. Among the participants will be Rebekah Bloyd (USA), Sharon Butala (Canada), Donna Coates (Canada), Amanda Hale (Canada), Theresa Kishkan (Canada), Raili Marling (Estonia), Thomas McConnell (USA), Libora Oates-Indruchová (Czech Republic), Richard Pickard (Canada), Randall Roorda (USA), Christopher Stuart (USA), and Aritha Van Herk (Canada). A special issue of the bi-annual scholarly journal "Brno Studies in English" (a print and open-source, peer-reviewed publication of the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University), an issue devoted to papers by these individuals and others, will be published and made available by September 2010. This publication will serve as the object of consideration during the round-table discussion.
The two-day conference that will follow will be comprised of seminars and workshops on Transgressive (Auto)Biography. Some of the areas that will be addressed are biography in fiction, dialogic (auto)biography, fictionalized biography, innovative biography, literary biography, metabiography, pastoral biography, and personal nonfiction.
Although there is no registration fee, please send an email by 15 September 2010 letting us know that you will be attending.
If you are interested in presenting a paper, an (auto)biographical essay, workshop materials, or a poster at the conference, please send an abstract by 1 June 2010.
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