Affective Landscapes Conference

This conference seeks exciting disciplinary and transdisciplinary proposals from scholars working in fields such as cultural studies, literary studies, cultural politics/history, creative writing, film and media studies, Area Studies, photography, fine art, interested in examining the different ways in which human beings respond and relate to, as well as debate and interact with landscape.

In 2009, the one-day symposium ‘Land and Identity’, held at the University of Derby, brought together a diverse body of academics to discuss themes and intersections across multiple areas of research interest. This follow-up event, hosted by the Identity, Conflict and Representation Research Centre at the University of Derby in collaboration with the Centre for Studies in Literature at the University of Portsmouth, aims to develop inter-disciplinary debates around the idea of ‘Affective Landscapes’. The conference has been inspired by the work of theorists whose work examines points of intersection between ordinary life and extraordinary encounters and exchanges with the world around us. It asks how do we ‘feel’, ‘sense’, ‘know’, ‘cherish’, ‘memorise’, ‘imagine’, ‘dream’, ‘desire’, or even ‘fear’ landscapes? How do its ‘intensities’ register, flow and circulate? What forms do we use to articulate, debate and record these affects?

The Conference will include a related film screening and panel discussion to take place at the QUAD Arts Centre in Derby.

We are particularly interested in proposals examining the following:

- psychogeography
- critical regionalism
- cultural politics on identity and landscape
- national identity
- suburbia
- edgelands
- the rural / urban
- responses to landscape by creative practitioners (writers / photographers / artists / filmmakers)
- phenomenology
- the body in landscape
- Ecocriticism
- landscapes of trauma and memory
- theories of affect and landscape

Please send proposals of not more than 250 words by 16 December 2011 to
Dr. Christine Berberich at christine.berberich@port.ac.uk

More Information:
www.derby.ac.uk/affectivelandscapes