CFP Modern Myth and Legend (9/2/2015; Louisville, KY 2/18-20/2016)

Cross-posted from NEPCA Fantastic:

Modern Myth and Legend - Louisville Conference (Feb. 18-20, 2016)
full name / name of organization: International Lawrence Durrell Society
contact email: clawsonj@gram.edu
http://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/node/63312

The Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900


http://www.thelouisvilleconference.com


Louisville, KY | 18-20 February 2016

"we do create the world around us since we get it to reflect back our inner symbolism at us. Every man carries a little myth-making machine inside him which operates often without him knowing it. Thus you might say that we live by a very exacting kind of poetic logic--since we get exactly what we ask for, no more and no less."
--The Dark Labyrinth (1947)

Dealing overtly with ideas of myth and legend, Lawrence Durrell's The Dark Labyrinth chronicles the adventures of British tourists exploring a cave system on Crete just after World War II. Despite their awareness of how reality is transformed by their individual experiences, beliefs, and myth-making, they are no less susceptible to the fear of the minotaur which might be chasing them through the dark passageways. A myth becomes the way we understand the world. As a legend, the monster and its labyrinth offer grounds to reflect on personal terrors and emerge triumphant—or be consumed.

In anticipation of our upcoming conference on Crete, the International Lawrence Durrell Society calls for papers addressing the broad theme of Modern Myth and Legend for a society-sponsored session of the 2016 Louisville Conference. We welcome proposals on aspects of Durrell's writing or other topics addressing the theme. Some possible topics include the following:

• W. B. Yeats's esoteric blending of Greek, Irish, and other mythologies
• Refigured legends in the aftermath of T.S. Eliot's "Ulysses, Order, and Myth," including Iris Murdoch's The Green Night or John Gardner's Grendel
• Frazer's The Golden Bough and its impact on modernist literature
• Fantasy repurposing legend, as in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series
• Mythologizing the 20th century in film, including for example Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth or Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away
• Legendary societies, urban legends, apocrypha, and literary mysteries
• Symbolic use of tall tales, or the literary adapting of Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, minotaurs, homunculi, gorgons, witches, griffins, manticores, giants, etc.

Please send a 250-word abstract to James Clawson (clawsonj@gram.edu), International Lawrence Durrell Society, by Sept. 2, 2015. Final presentations should be limited to 20 minutes in length.


By web submission at 08/06/2015 - 20:58