THE LONG TWENTIETH CENTURY
SHARP Brisbane
28-30 April 2011
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
The twentieth century began in the midst of one print revolution and ended in the midst of another. This conference aims to bring together research on topics in book history, publishing studies, media studies and histories of reading from across the “long twentieth century”-from the closing decades of the nineteenth century to the opening decade of the twenty-first. It will look back from the digital age to the print and broadcast revolutions of the twentieth century, and examine the diverse experiences of print modernity across the globe.
Dramatic developments in publishing in the late nineteenth century coincided with equally dramatic changes in the nature of authorship, reading practices, print markets, education, and the international trade in books. The rapid expansion of print culture was central to the transnational experience of modernity, and deeply enmeshed in the rise of distinctively modern forms of entertainment, consumption and communication. Perhaps only now do we find a comparable moment of change and challenge. The digital age has signaled a new print revolution. Once again, the international trade in print and intellectual property is at stake in a globalised market and mediascape. Once again, publishing, reading and writing find themselves refigured by powerful new technologies, and previously unimagined forms of communication and entertainment. Once again, the language of crisis is all about us, as the complexion of the book is renewed amidst new cultural forms and formations.
The Long Twentieth Century seeks proposals for 20-minute papers and 90-minute panel sessions on any aspect of book history or print culture studies addressing the conference theme. Possible topics include:
- “Modern books” and “modern readers”-print cultures and modernity
- The print diaspora-colonial and postcolonial book and readers
- Asian modernities-print and digital revolutions in Japan, China, India and beyond
- From print technologies to reading devices-transformations of the book
- Print and screen cultures-aesthetics, adaptation, convergence
- High, popular and middlebrow cultures-the democratization of book talk
- Bestseller lists, literary prizes, and “modern classics”-new definitions of literary value
- Books and government-policy, piracy and intellectual property
- The “business of books”-globalization and changing industry structures
- Institutions and instruction-histories of literary education
- Redefining periodical cultures-newspapers, magazines, blogs and digital time
- Transformations in the “world republic of letters”-cultures, careers, corporations
- “Deprovincializing Europe”-local, national, transnational histories of books and reading
- Web archives and libraries-the ideal of a universal library and the politics of digital reproduction
Papers addressing book history in Asia, Africa, and post-colonial cultures are especially welcomed, alongside those addressing Anglo-American, European, and Australasian contexts.
Please submit abstracts to the conference conveners at UQSHARP2011@gmail.com by 1 November 2010.
See here for a pdf version of the call for papers.