The call for papers is closed.
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The original call for papers:
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Call for papers: Rethinking Epiphany – Perspectives from the Fringes
Tampere University, 13 September 2024
The symposium “Rethinking Epiphany – Perspectives from the Fringes” is a one-day event to be held Friday, September 13, at Tampere University, Finland. The symposium aims to bring together researchers of epiphany from a range of fields, from literary studies to philosophy, theology, and social sciences. We are particularly interested in approaches that take into account epiphany as a form that explores perspectives from the fringes, such as the epiphany as a form of peripheralized experiences of modernity and epiphany in less studied literary genres or cultural traditions. Please send in your paper proposal (abstract of no more than 300 words + a brief biographical note) to riikka.pirinen@tuni.fi by 15 April 2024.
Keynote speakers:
Nigel Fabb, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Päivi Mehtonen, docent, University of Helsinki, Tampere University, Finland
In literature, epiphany is considered as the moment of revelation, illumination, or enlightenment of a fictional character. Epiphany has been associated particularly with modernist literature, and with the foregrounding of powerful moments of heightened significance in the works of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and their contemporaries. What is the legacy of such “moments of being” (Woolf 1939) in postmodern and twenty-first century literature, and what are their precursors in pre-modernist literature? What new perspectives have developed to challenge or enrich our understanding of modernist forms of epiphany? Can we see the relevance of moments of epiphany at work also in non-fictional forms, such as everyday narratives, life-writing, or social media? What interdisciplinary perspectives can be brought into play when studying epiphanies? And what does a perspective from the fringes add to our understanding of epiphany?
With such a wide variety of possible outlooks to epiphany, we welcome paper proposals on topics including but not limited to:
- epiphany in contemporary literature
- epiphany in non-fictional forms of storytelling
- new modernist studies and epiphany
- epiphany as a narrative means
- experientiality and epiphany
- non-human epiphanies
- collective forms of epiphany
- didactic aspects of epiphany
- modernist epiphanies beyond modernist literature
- epiphany in philosophy
- perspectives on epiphany from theology and the study of religion
We plan to publish a selection of the papers in the form of an international publication, either as an edited volume or a special journal issue.
The symposium is organized in collaboration with the international Fringe Urban Narratives network (Universidad de Alcalá) and the Narrare center for interdisciplinary narrative studies at Tampere University.
Organizing committee: Lieven Ameel (Tampere University), Patricia Garcia (Universidad de Alcalá), Laura Oulanne (University of Helsinki), Riikka Pirinen (Tampere University)