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Crime Fiction Conferences in 2014/2

Barbara Pezzotti • Jan 02, 2014

cropped-wordpress_cover_2014_1 Dear crime fiction lovers, here two more conferences that will take place in 2014: “ True Crime. Facts, Fiction, Ideology ” Conference, Manchester, 6-7 June 2014; and “ Crime Fiction: Here and There and Again ”,  2 nd International Postgraduate Conference , University of Gdańsk (Poland) and the State School of Higher Professional Education in Elbląg, 11-13 September 2014 . The deadline for presenting an abstract for both conferences is 31 March.They both look very interesting. “True Crime” Conference: Emerging as a genre in magazines of the mid-twentieth century such as True Detective Magazine , and drawing on earlier discourses of confession, memoir and speculation, true crime first received attention as a form of literature with the publication of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (1966). It has since diversified into a variety of other media, from television series such as Neil McKay’s Appropriate Adult (2011) to Hollywood films about famous works of the genre, such as David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007). In recent horror-crime fiction and film, such as Adam Nevill’s Last Days (2012) and Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), the act of writing and filming true crime is presented as ensnaring its creators in the gruesome worlds they seek to capture. While its adherence to orthodox law and order perspectives, typified by a tendency to present offenders as monstrous and evil, may seem to position true crime as a conservative genre, its fascination with the lives and minds of serial killers can sometimes lend it a transgressive quality.

“True Crime: Fact, Fiction, Ideology” is an interdisciplinary conference seeking to explore this genre in its myriad incarnations. Proposals are sought for 20 minute papers. Possible topics may include:

·          True crime in popular culture; forensic psychology and criminology; prison narratives and memoirs; true crime in fiction and metafiction; the politics of true crime; true crime and the law; theorizing true crime; serial killers and profiling; the ethics of true crime; taboo crimes; ‘proto-true crime’ – early examples of the mode, predecessors and precedents. Keynote Lecture: David Schmid (University at Buffalo, SUNY), author of Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American Culture: ‘The Moors Murders and the “Truth” of True Crime. If interested,send 300-word abstracts to David McWilliam and Hannah Priest at conference@hic-dragones.co.uk by 31st March 2014. All enquiries should also be sent to this address. This conference is organized by Hic Dragones. For more information, please see the website: www.hic-dragones.co.uk.

 

“Crime Fiction: Here and There and Again” Conference: Crime narratives are among the most popular forms of storytelling worldwide and have played a central role in the development of national literatures. Detective and crime novels have developed beyond borders marked by language, culture and genre. The ability to replicate, explore, and interrogate its own conventions is one of the defining features of all types of crime fiction. The recent worldwide success of Scandinavian crime fiction shows that crime novels can be successfully translated into other languages and appropriated for other cultures.

The aim of the conference is to discuss crime fiction across national borders, across cultures, across languages, across genres, across arts and across different media. Papers which deal with one or more of the following points (the list is by no means exhaustive), in any given literature and country, or in international comparison are welcome:

  • Crime fiction and cultural/national identities
  • Crime fiction and ethnic minorities
  • Others and Otherness
  • Transnational, translocal and transcultural crime narratives
  • Crime Spaces
  • Borrowings, adaptations and transformations
  • Crime fiction in translation
  • International bestsellers
  • Crime Fiction as Cultural Export
  • Exploding the Canon: forgotten crime narratives

If interested,  send an abstract and a short biographical note to Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish at crimegdansk@gmail.com by 31 March 2014. The abstract should include a title, name and affiliation of the speaker and a contact email address. We welcome proposals from both postgraduate students and established scholars. Proposals for suggested panels are also welcome. Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes of presentation time and should be delivered in English.

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