The Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania, Faculty of Letters and Arts and Roehampton University, London, UK, Department of English and Creative Writing invite you to the EAST-WEST CULTURAL PASSAGE CONFERENCE:
LITERATURE and MUSIC, to be held in Sibiu.

From Verdi’s Otello and Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata to Anthony Burgess’s literary and musical compositions and Kazuo Ishiguro’s fictional musicians, literature is obsessed with music, and vice versa. This is the first conference to explore critically the connection between music and literature in a comprehensive fashion.

Keynote Speakers: Gerry Smyth (John Moores University, Liverpool) and Stephen Benson (University of East Anglia). More names to be announced shortly. 

With Performances by Special Guests including Willy Vlautin (Richmond Fontaine), Bernard MacLaverty, Tom McCarthy, Tiffany Murray, Douglas Cowie, Holly Pester. More names to be announced shortly.

Participants are invited to explore the relationship between music and literature from theoretical and/or text-based interdisciplinary perspectives in individual presentations, panels, and/or workshops. Topics might address (but are not limited to) the following fields:  

• literary representations of music and musicians
• the “culture industry”: pop music, pulp fiction vs. high art
• “acoustic borderzones”: noise, sound, music and language
• literature aspiring to the form of music (e.g. Ezra Pound, Anthony Burgess)
• adaptation / performance
• representations of music in translation
• music, literature and the teaching of English
• musical / literary movements: Romanticism, Modernism, Postmodernism, Punk, Jazz etc.
• Hip-hop / poetry and music
• Nietzsche, Wagner and the operatic tradition
• key figures: from Bach to The Beatles
• media and formats: scores, literary texts, radio, records, codices, tapes, digital formats

Please send proposals for papers to
Matthew Taunton at m.w.taunton@qmul.ac.uk
and
Anca Tomuș at anca.tomus@ulbsibiu.ro,
before 30 April 2012.

Proposals for special panels and workshops are particularly welcome. Proposals should include titles of papers/ panels, abstract (200 words), 5-7 keywords, name and institutional affiliation, a short biographical note (100 words), mailing address, phone, fax, and e-mail address. A limited number of postgraduate student bursaries are available. Requests for early notification of acceptance for international delegates are welcome. For further information and registration details, please see the website below or contact Anca Iancu at ancaian@yahoo.com. A selection of the papers presented will be published in American, British and Canadian Studies and East/West Cultural Passage, but there are also plans for a volume of essays with a major publisher.

Conference fee for Romanian delegates: 50 Euros for the entire event or 30 Euros per day (to be paid in advance). The conference fee covers the opening reception, coffee-breaks, lunches and conference portfolios.

Conference fee for Overseas delegates: £220 (to be paid in advance). In addition to opening reception, coffee-breaks, lunches and conference portfolios, this covers three nights in the finest hotel of Sibiu, Imparatul Romanilor (http://www.imparatulromanilor.ro/en) and dinners.

Conference venue:
Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu
Faculty of Letters and Arts
Department of British and American Studies
5-7 Victoriei Bvd.
Sibiu, 550024
Romania

Conference organisers: Sebastian Groes (University of Roehampton, London, UK); Ana-Karina Schneider (Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania); Alexandra Mitrea (Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania); Anca-Luminița Iancu (Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania);James Machin (Birkbeck College, London, UK); Matthew Taunton (Queen Mary, London, UK)

Institutional Organisers: Faculty of Letters and Arts, Lucian Blaga University, Sibiu, Romania; Roehampton University, London, UK; British Council, Bucharest; Fulbright Commission, Romania; Academic Anglophone Society of Romania; C. Peter Magrath Research Center for Cross-Cultural Studies.