Archive for calls, 2009

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[ecrea] cfp - Fiction and British Politics

Thu Jul 09 13:18:46 GMT 2009





Call for Papers
Fiction and British Politics
Organised by the Centre for British Politics, University of Nottingham
To be held at the British Academy, Friday 11 December 2009

Since at least Shakespeare?s time, fictions - whether depicted on the screen, stage or page - have addressed a wide variety of political subjects; they have as a consequence helped inform how Britons think about power, those who seek it, exercise it, and are subject to it. Traditionally, fictions were thought to merely reflect wider values; today their constitutive role is often emphasised. Indeed, while in the Cabinet Hazel Blears blamed predominantly negative depictions of politics for discouraging people from being politically engaged; and called for a ?British version? of the West Wing, hoping more optimistic dramatisations would challenge popular cynicism.

There certainly seems to have been a dramatic shift in emphasis in how fictions treat politics. In Can You Forgive Her? (1864), Anthony Trollope wrote that to be an MP was to have done ?that which it most becomes an Englishman to have achieved?; the 2005 film V for Vendetta ended with the Palace of Westminster being blown up by a modern-day Guy Fawkes, to signify the people?s liberation from oppression.

The purpose of this conference is to draw together academics interested in different aspects of the relationship between fiction and British politics, both past and present, as well as those who have written fictions with political themes (amongst whom will number Trevor Griffiths), to assess its significance.

Papers are especially invited on the following topics:

·          What themes emerge from political fictions?

·          Has there been a change in emphasis over time?

·          What has been the role of gender?

·          Is British political fiction inherently cynical?

·          What do political fictions say about ?Britishness??

·          What are the motives of those who write about politics in fiction?

·          How is politics is tackled in the US and continental Europe?

·          What is the effect of political fiction on audiences and readers?

· What is the relationship between political fiction and political ?reality??

It is intended that selected contributions will be published as part of a special edition of Parliamentary Affairs during 2011.

Those interested in presenting a paper for this conference on Fiction and British Politics should contact Professor Steven Fielding of Nottingham University, with a one page abstract: <mailto:(Steven.Fielding /at/ Nottingham.ac.uk)>(Steven.Fielding /at/ Nottingham.ac.uk)

Centre for British Politics website: <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/cbp/>http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/politics/cbp/



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