Drama Through the Ages International Conference

IMAGES OF THE CITY

Łódź, 25-27 October 2007

Full programme as a doc-file here . 

The Department of Drama and Pre-1800 Literature invites you to attend the 2007 Drama Through the Ages Conference at the University of Łódź, Poland.

The conference theme is designed to highlight the diversity of city and urban imagery in British as well as Irish poetry, drama and film. It will survey the main aspects of the continuous interest in the city as one of the most significant elements of literary, social and economic history of European literature and art. The city can therefore be presented as an important theme in a work of art; it can, however, also be approached as a component, latent or mute, in a work of predominantly rural or pastoral character. The organizers seek papers which examine the city and its relation with the country, or which analyze traditional forms of literary or artistic rendering of urban imagery, and finally which focus on technologized, media-oriented or digital modes of urban experience in modernist and postmodernist periods. We also invite papers and studies concerning the beginnings of the English and European city life, which are commonly associated with the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. All proposals focusing either on literary, social or philosophical aspects of the city in broadly-defined dramatic literature, poetry, media and visual arts are warmly welcome.

_Suggested themes and topics:_

- the real and the unreal city

- city as (anti)hero

- urban logic – rural chaos

- city as theatre, spectacle, exhibition, museum

- city as (second) nature

- city as the unknown, the subconscious, the other

- urban pastorals

- urban utopia / dystopia

- gendering the city

- varieties of cityscapes

<piotr_spyra @ yahoo.co.uk>
Conference fee: 305 PLN (or 100 euro).