[Commlist] CFP Conference "Art & Action"

*Art and Action: Literary Authorship, Politics, and Celebrity Culture*

*20-21 March 2020*

The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)
Radcliffe Humanities, Woodstock Road, Oxford

Writers and writers’ organisations have a long history of using their 
public standing and cultural capital to promote causes that transcend 
the literary sphere, from abolition and gender equality to free 
expression, anti-war agitation, and environmental issues.This two-day 
conference explores the intersections of authorship, politics, activism, 
and literary celebrity across historical periods, literatures, and 
media. It examines the forms and impact of authorial field migrations 
between literature and politics and the ways in which they are situated 
within, and shaped by, structural frameworks that include academic 
institutions, prize-giving bodies, publishing industries, and literary 
celebrity culture.

Authors have at all times been fiercely outspoken campaigners for a wide 
range of socio-political causes. At the same time, debates have long 
revolved around literature as a form of political intervention in its 
own right, thus undermining the seemingly clear-cut distinction between 
politics and poetics. This conference hopes to foster such debates and 
address a wide range of questions: What are the strategies employed by 
writers in the construction and performance of their public personae as 
political office-holders, activists, and cultural critics? How do they 
negotiate the tension between ethics and aesthetics in their public 
interventions, the potential conflict between authorial and activist 
selves? How have writers’ literary/political border-crossings been 
perceived by their audiences and to what extent have they affected their 
(posthumous) reputations? What are the risks faced by the politically 
engaged and outspoken writer?

Interrogating the ideological dimension of literary celebrity and 
highlighting the fault-lines between public and private authorial 
selves, ‘pure’ art, political commitment, and marketplace imperatives, 
this conference joins current debates on authorship and literary value. 
It brings together writers, academics, literary activists, and industry 
stakeholders to explore the wider implications of authors’ political 
responsibilities and cultural authority in today’s heavily commodified 
literary marketplace and age of celebrity activism.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

·*Authors as political office-holders / activists / public 
intellectuals*: forms, manifestations, agendas, challenges of, and 
responses to, literary/political ‘double acts’ across historical 
periods, literatures, and cultural contexts **

·*Literary celebrity and identity politics*: how are the intersections 
of literary celebrity and politics inflected by categories such as 
gender, class, and ethnicity? To what extent do they map onto different 
national and cultural spaces? **

·*Writers’ organisations, cultural institutions, and their political 
agendas*: how do writers’ organisations capitalise on the celebrity 
status of particular writers and what are the potential pitfalls of this 
practice? What is the relationship between individual and collective 
agency?**

·*The politics of market activism*: what is the role of industry 
stakeholders (e.g. publishers, agents, translators, literary festivals, 
etc.) in enabling or inhibiting authorial migrations between literature 
and politics?

·*Literary prizes and politics*: literary prizes as cultural 
consecrating agencies; literary award ceremonies as platforms for 
political intervention; (celebrity) prize judges as gatekeepers; the 
impact of literary awards on the cultural capital of winning and 
shortlisted authors

·*Authors’ political interventions and the media*: the impact of 
transformations in media cultures, industries, and technologies (e.g. 
digital media) on the articulation and dissemination of critical stances 
and ideas within the public sphere

·*Literary celebrity, politics, and life-writing*: How is the interplay 
of literary celebrity and politics negotiated and articulated across 
different life-writing genres? In which ways does the genre (e.g. 
memoirs, lectures, interviews, broadcasts, social media posts) shape 
these interrelations and the construction of authorial personae?

·*Authorship and political responsibility*:What is the author’s 
political responsibility and cultural authority in today’s 
celebrity-driven media society? Is there a need for writers to step 
outside the literary medium? How do they reconcile their activities with 
a view of literature as political intervention in its own right?


*Keynote contributions: *

-Benjamin Zephaniah (performance poet, activist, Professor of Poetry and 
Creative Writing, Brunel University London)

-Antjie Krog (writer and scholar activist, TORCH International Fellow)

-PEN roundtable discussion with Jennifer Clement (PEN International 
President), Carles Torner (PEN International Executive Director), Margie 
Orford (former South African PEN President), Rachel Potter (University 
of East Anglia), Peter McDonald (University of Oxford)

Please send your proposal (no more than 250 words) for 20-minute papers 
along with a short biographical note to (sandra.mayer /at/ univie.ac.at) 
<mailto:(sandra.mayer /at/ univie.ac.at)> by *29 November 2019*; applicants 
will be notified by *20 December 2019*.

Selected contributions will be considered for inclusion in a 
peer-reviewed collection or special journal issue.

*For more information, and to register, please follow this link: 
*https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/call-for-papers-art-and-action-literary-authorship-politics-and-celebrity-culture

This conference is convened by Sandra Mayer (University of Vienna / 
Oxford Centre for Life-Writing) and Ruth Scobie (Mansfield College, 
Oxford) and supported by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities 
and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) in collaboration with the Oxford 
Centre for Life-Writing (OCLW).


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