Call for Papers: A Conference on Law and Crime Fiction

Via the Call for Papers website, maintained by the Department of English, University of Pennsylvania

Crime Fiction Here and There: Time and Space 13-15 September 2016
Dr Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish/University of Gdansk
contact email:
crimegdansk@gmail.com

From the locked room to the mean streets of the metropolis, the concept of space has always played as important role in crime fiction as the concept of time. A lot has been said in recent years about the importance of a specific locale in crime fiction. Both readers and writers like to divide crime novels into certain national and spatial genre variants: Nordic Noir, Tartan Noir, L.A. Noir etc., but are these variants really so different from each other? How does space define a particular formula? Studies on crime fiction and temporality usually refer to Todorov’s well-known chapter in his book The Poetics of Prose entitled “The Typology of Detective Fiction,” in which he argues that crime fiction narratives are structured by a double temporality: the reconstruction of events leading up to the murder and the progress of the detective’s investigation, with both narratives eventually converging at the point of the crime’s solution. However, if one looks at some contemporary crime novels as well as contemporary criticism this model certainly needs to be revised or at least reformulated. Although the construction of time and space in terms of genre conventions has been discussed quite extensively by critics, there still seems to be room for further analyses.
We invite papers on crime fiction in literature, cinema and the new media which will deal with one or more of the following points (the list is by no means exhaustive):
•constructing time and space in crime narrative
•time and space in nation-specific crime writing (e.g. Polish / Scottish / Austrian crime fiction, Nordic noir, etc.)
•place-specific crime writing (e.g. academic mystery, domestic noir, etc.)
•oneiric, imaginary or other alternative worlds in crime writing
•closure and openness in crime fiction (e.g. locked rooms, manor houses, mean streets, prisons and other ‘crime spaces’ )
•gendered spaces in crime fiction
•the detective and the city
•setting as a protagonist?
•noir city
•psychogeography
•across time and space: movement trajectories in crime fiction
•the aesthetics / theory of space: the ‘spatial turn’ in literature and cinema.

Please send an abstract and a short biographical note tocrimegdansk@gmail.com by 31 May 2016. 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.
Conference fee: 400 PLN (100 Euro/ 75 GBP), Students - 350 PLN (80 Euro/65 GBP)
Conference dinner on Wednesday 14th of September (optional): 25 Euro/20 GBP/ 100 PLN

The fee includes a delegate pack, lunches and other refreshments on all 3 days. Please note that it does not include accommodation. The conference dinner on Wednesday is optional and should be booked during the registration. There is going to be an informal conference warming on Monday, the 12th of September.
For further information, see our conference website
https://www.crimegdansk.wordpress.com
For more information on Captivating Criminality Network, see
http://www.captivatingcriminalitynetwork.netOrganising committee:
Ludmiła Gruszewska-Blaim
Agnieszka Sienkiewicz-Charlish
Maja Wojdyło

Conference secretaries: Irina Antonenko, Arco van Ieperen