Twenty-First Century British Fiction – A Symposium Friday 11th and Saturday 12th May 2012, Birkbeck, University of London
Keynote speakers: Professor Robert Eaglestone (Royal Holloway) & Dr. Joseph Brooker (Birkbeck)

CFP DEADLINE EXTENSION MARCH 23RD 2012

Twenty-First Century British Fiction seeks to consider and promote current perspectives on the fiction of British writers in the twenty-first century.

We invite submissions for 20 minute presentations. Papers on individual authors and single works are welcome, as are essays on broader trends that explore the cultural, historical and stylistic contexts that have produced twenty-first century British fiction. These might include, but are not restricted to, the following topics and themes:

Authenticity – Writing after theory – The waning of postmodernism – Science and medicine in literature – Transnational belonging – Postimperial/global imaginaries – Genre/post-genre fictions – Post-devolution writing – Narrative multiplicity – Provincial/urban voices – Fictions of suburbia – Hysterical Realism – The post-9/11 novel in Britain – Ecocriticism – Digital media and the novel – Graphic fictions – Adaptations and appropriations – Class, power and marginality – Literary inheritances – Fictions of alterity – Children’s/young adult literature – Gender, sexuality and feminism – Post-millennial utopian/dystopian spaces…

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words, with brief details of biography and affiliation, to Bianca Leggett and Tony Venezia at 21stcentury.symposium@gmail.com no later than 23rd March 2012. We are planning to publish a volume based on the proceedings of the event. The symposium is sponsored by the School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London. Keep up to date with us on Twitter @C21st_symposium.