PRESSURE TO EXPERIMENT

A two day international conference on experimentation in contemporary writing

Organised by the Centre for Contemporary Writing

University of Southampton, UK
28th and 29th September 2006

This conference explores the role of literary experimentation in contemporary writing. After nearly a hundred years of modernism we ask what purpose and meaning we now attribute to experimentation in fiction, in poetry and in critical thought. Specific questions to be addressed include:

• What are the contemporary aesthetic, political, and cultural pressures on experimentation?
• How might innovative writing practices address the social issues facing us at the start of the twenty-first century?
• Is experimentation still necessary? What politics can we attribute to it? Is it becoming harder to achieve?
• How valid and how fragile are the existing histories and achievements of experimental writing?

Forms and genres to be addressed can include: experimental poetry, innovative fiction, new media, hypertext, lyric essay, creative non-fiction, cross-genre and hybrid forms.

We welcome proposals for both academic papers and more practice-based presentations. Please email abstracts of 150-300 words to mandy@bloomfield.f2s.com or jennifermyoung@mac.com by 29th May 2006. If electronic delivery is not possible, abstracts can be sent by post to:
Mandy Bloomfield, Department of English, School of Humanities, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK