Contemporary Literary Practices: Communities and Convergences

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Contemporary Literary Practices: Communities and Convergences – 20 March 2024

As theorists Bertrand Gervais and Sophie Marcotte (2018) contend, recent developments in literary studies and critical thinking still often overlook the “material dimension” of literary production in a world that is rapidly challenging the predominance of print. To mark the 25th anniversary of the Frye Festival, a one-day symposium organised in partnership with the Université de Moncton will take up this issue and reflect on contemporary writing practices, particularly those from Atlantic Canada.

This event seeks to spearhead a collaboration between our region’s artistic and scholarly communities in an effort to gauge the state of a changing field and map out the trending themes of a thriving literary scene. We therefore invite paper proposals by authors and academics on the following topics, among others:

1) the use of new transmission platforms;
2) the status of ‘text’ and ‘literary community’ in Atlantic Canada;
3) new reading practices in an increasingly digitized literary landscape;
4) the advent of dynamic hybrid literary forms and projects that challenge the traditional pragmatic limits of literary production;
5) the impact of online presences on literary explorations of identity;
6) the various ways in which ‘old media’ literary production adapts in a ‘new media’ context in constant evolution;
7) the effect of geolocation software and related possibilities for literary production in terms of localized literary communities;
8) the transmediation of literary themes and techniques across other/newer ‘writing spaces’;
9) other ‘spatialities’ of local writing, such as exhibitions, websites, archives, …;
10) the intrusion of new writing and/or reading devices in literary production.

What do all these contemporary questions and manifestations have to tell us about today’s literary production, most notably in Atlantic Canada? And do these contribute to an arguably distinct aesthetic sensibility?

This event will be bilingual to reflect the linguistic and cultural realities of the region and extend the network of dissemination and mobilisation of the city’s literary community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bertrand Gervais & Sophie Marcotte. “Literature and Devices: Writing and Reading in a Digital World.” Trans. Tresi Murphy. Hybrid 5 (2018): 1-7. https://journals.openedition.org/hybrid/379