The 9^th Biennial Symbiosis Conference 2013:  

Anglo-American Literary & Cultural Relations  

A Symbiosis and BCCW event to be held at
Brunel University, London, UK

Thursday 4^th to Sunday 7^th July, 2013

Guest speaker: novelist Will Self on ‘My American Self.’

Other keynote speakers: tba.

‘My visit to this city has been exceedingly gratifying, on account of the freedom I have enjoyed in visiting such places of instruction and amusement as those from which I have been carefully excluded by the inveterate prejudice against color in the United States. Botanic and Zoological gardens, Museums and Panoramas, Halls of Statuary and Galleries of Paintings, are as free to the black as the white man in London.’ Frederick Douglass, to William Lloyd Garrison, May 23, 1846.  

‘Of all the British painters, surely Hogarth was the only realist and the only man who knew his London. Lower London is exactly what it was when he studied it and hated it.’ [1902] Willa Cather, Willa Cather in Europe.

Proposals:

• 200 – 300 word abstracts for proposed 20-minute conference presentations
• Panel presentations comprising 3 presenters
  (please submit 200 word abstracts & brief overall rationale)

Please send by email to both: philip.tew@brunel.ac.uk  / t.m.l.scott@reading.ac.uk

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Thursday 31^st January 2013

 The editors of Symbiosis, the Conference Directors, and members of  the Brunel Centre for Contemporary Writing (BCCW) and the Brunel Gender and Sexuality Research Centre (BGSRC) invite proposals for panels and individual papers of twenty minute length, which engage a wide variety of transatlantic and/or transnational topics in the literatures and cultural histories of the Atlantic world. The conference is certainly not limited to any local concerns, although papers that treat London (and particularly its suburbs) as a site of Atlantic cultural exchange and interrelationships are especially welcome, as are those examining the first twelve years of transatlantic literary and cultural responses to 9/11, from 2001–2013, and the significance of the hundredth anniversary of the publication of Pollyanna. Additionally as ever submissions are actively encouraged from all scholars and students of literary and cultural history and representation from every period from the earliest settlement right through to the present.

Brunel is a well-situated and pleasant campus university located in Uxbridge, a suburb on the outskirts of west London very close to Heathrow Airport. Uxbridge town centre has numerous attractive bars, restaurants and two large shopping centres, and is near walks along canal-side paths. Central London with its numerous cultural, academic, scholarly and other facilities and venues can be accessed in under an hour by direct tube links (29/02/2012 Tfl journey planner estimate: 55 minutes Uxbridge to King's Cross & St Pancras) from Uxbridge Underground Station, which is walking distance from Brunel’s campus. London’s West End, the theatre district, the British Library, the British Museum, and most of its attractions are equally accessible by underground travel. Accommodation can be booked on campus, in well-appointed rooms about a three minute stroll from the conference centre and the Symbiosis event.

The conference fee (tba) will include lunches, teas and coffees, single accommodation (with continental breakfast) if booked and specified, and a two-year subscription to the journal, Symbiosis. The conference dinner is additional, and delegates are responsible for their own evening and other supplementary meals. Double rooms can be booked at a slightly higher fee.  A list of local hotels and guest houses, if preferred, can be provided.

 Submit 200 – 300 word abstract with details of your academic affiliation and contact details in Microsoft Word attachments by 31^st January, 2013 to the Conference Directors, Prof. Philip Tew (Brunel) and Dr. Matthew Scott (ReadinG): Philip.tew@brunel.ac.uk / t.m.l.scott@reading.ac.uk.  Add ‘Symbiosis 2013 Proposal’ to the subject line of your message, essential since they will be sorted automatically using this search term. 

 Earlier inquiries are welcome; early acceptance may be possible if required for institutional or similar funding to facilitate attendance. Symbiosis cannot offer bursaries or fee waivers. Further details will be posted on the Brunel University School of Arts webpage, on the Symbiosis website and its Facebook page. See variously:

http://www.brunel.ac.uk/arts

http://www.symbiosisonline.org.uk/;  

The 7th Biennial Symbiosis Conference
was held at Suffolk University, Boston in 2009

“Boston and the New Atlantic World”

A conference issue of the Journal is slated for publication in April 2011
 

General Transatlantic papers from the 5th conference hosted by the School of English at the
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 30 June - 3 July 2005, appeared in Symbiosis Volume 10.
Papers focused on Anglo-American Hellenisms will appear in a collection of essays
edited by the Conference organizer Dr. Tatiani Rapatzikou, School of English,
Department of American Literature and Culture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,
Thessaloniki 54 124, Greece

Email: trapatz@enl.auth.gr

Selected papers from the 4th Symbiosis Conference, held in Edinburgh in July 2003
in association with STAR (Scotland's Transatlantic Relations Project) were published in
Symbiosis 8.1 (April 2004), 8.2 (October), and 9.1 (April 2005)
and on the STAR website:

  http://www.star.ac.uk/Events/Conferences_events/Symbiosis/Symbiosis_conference.html

The 2nd and 3rd conferences were in Plymouth (2001),
and the University of the West of England, Bristol (1999).

The inaugural conference, hosted by The College of St Mark & St John, Plymouth, coincided with the publication of Symbiosis Volume 1, issue 1, in April 1997.