ACCL 2019 Biennial Conference “Airing the States”

Call for Papers

EXTENDED DEADLINE: JANUARY 7, 2019

The Association of Chinese and Comparative Literature (ACCL) invites paper and panel proposals for its2019biennial conference, to be held between July 17 and 19 on the campus of Hunan Normal University in Changsha, China.

The ACCL, dedicated to the study of literary relations between China and the rest of the world, has been an active and ever-growing scholarly association for almost three decades. Our biennial conference is our primary venue for the discussion of Chinese and world literatures among scholars from around the world.

Our conference theme for 2019 will be“Airing the States”. Since the earliest Confucianizing exegeses of theClassic of Poetry’s“Airs of the States”, inter-regional comparison of Sinophone literatures has been a foundational reminder of the complex polyphony of what, to the outside world, has often seemed a monolithic tradition. Although we are a very long way from the world of the Zhou Dynasty, recent research trends in our field reflect an interest in how the geography of literary exchange is not simply that between nation and world, but also within intranational regions, or across international regions. Modern literature’s central role in airing the aspirations of the nation-state has been long understood; how does literature of any period also air notions of region which must be understood as part of literary comparison? Are cross-cutting identities of gender, class, or ethnicity ever aired in a comparable rhetoric of regionalism? Or, in our age of resurgent national consciousness, must we air out our previous conceptions of the regionalizing state of literary comparison?

Examples of possible topics might include:

·Regional differentiation in patterns of Chinese literary influence

·Comparative cultural essentialisms among ancient China’s regional kingdoms

·Translation’s role in defining borders—national or otherwise

·De-dichotomized gender and de-dichotomized geographies

·Dialect writing and the “minor literature”—Sinophone or otherwise

·Multiple metropoles, and China’s changing cultural flows

·Local leftist literatures and the global proletariat

·Premodern empires and regional print cultures

·Intra-Asian literary exchanges under cross-cutting colonialisms

We welcome submissions of abstracts on any topic relevant to ACCL members. Papers which somehow speak to our conference theme, or have a connection to our venue, are especially encouraged. However, our first preference is for quality, and scholars should not feel any obligation to adjust their primary research interests.

Chinese and English will both be official conference languages, and presenters are welcome to give a paper in either language. We also welcome submissions of both individual papers, and of complete panels. For individual papers, please submit an English abstract of up to 300 words, or a Chinese abstract of up to250characters. For panels, please submit an abstract for each presenter, plus a 300-word or250-character justification of the panel. Please note: individual papers will be expected to be no longer than 20 minutes, and if accepted will be grouped on a panel of the organizers’ discretion. Complete panels may vary in number of presenters, and are encouraged to use innovative formats, but must observe a limit of one hour for all presenters and discussants to speak. One half hour will be reserved for discussion in all panels, for a total of 90 minutes for each session.

Deadline for receipt of abstracts isJanuary7^th, 2019. Please email all submissionsinWORD format to the ACCL Communications Team ataccl2019conference@gmail.com.

Sample 1

Individual Paper Abstract

Author(s):

Academic position:

Affiliation:

Paper title:

Abstract: (no more than 300 words)

Keywords: (3-5 words)

Sample 2

Panel Paper Abstracts

§Organizer:

§Discussant:

§Justification of the panel (within 300 words):

§1^stpaper

Author(s):

Academic position:

Affiliation:

Paper title:

Abstract: (no more than 300 words)

Keywords: (3-5 words)

§2^ndpaper

Author(s):

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Abstract: (no more than 300 words)

Keywords: (3-5 words)

§3^rd paper

Author(s):

Academic position:

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Abstract: (no more than 300 words)

Keywords: (3-5 words)