In literary circles, but two hundred years after her death Austen’s works are showing no signs of dying off. What is it about Austen that still attracts readers? Why are her works still living? Is her continuing popularity caused by her romantic plots or her confident ironic voice? What can Austen’s engagement with her own turbulent world offer us now?
Conference convenors Gillian Dooley, Amy Matthews and Eric Parisot invite proposals for panels or papers addressing the topic of ‘Immortal Austen’. We also welcome papers and creative presentations from Creative Arts practitioners. Topics to be covered might include the following but may address any relevant aspect of the conference theme:
- The afterlife of Austen’s work over the last two hundred years
- The enduring appeal of her characters – their ‘immortality’
- Her posthumous and unfinished works, and the nature of their revival (being published, completed or adapted by others)
- Early and modern constructions of Austen’s fame
- The continuing significance of Jane Austen’s work in twenty-first century literary studies
- Austen and her works in film, television, derivative fiction and adaptations
- Austen’s attitude to death and the afterlife
- Austen’s interest in the literary canon and the survival of texts after their author’s death
- The continuing appeal of romance and Austen’s place in it
- Austen and the early nineteenth-century and early twenty-first century worlds
- The critical reception of Austen today and in her own time
- Austen’s life and why it interests us today
Email for proposals: immortal.austen@flinders.edu.au
Location: School of Humanities and Creative Arts, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia.
Dates: Conference: 13-16 July 2017. Abstract/ Proposals of 200 words deadline: 31 October 2016 to immortal.austen@flinders.edu.au