[Dino] CFP: Taking place – Moving borders in Nordic literatures

[Heidi Grönstrand]

Please note that the deadline for submission abstracts for the next Dino conference  Taking place – Moving borders in Nordic literatures has been extended to 20 February 2014. 


CFP: Taking place – Moving borders in Nordic literatures

3rd DINO conference
11-13 September 2014
Sámi University College, Kautokeino, Norway



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DINO – Diversity in Nordic Literature – is a network that brings together literary scholars from different disciplines who are interested in Nordic literature. During the last decades, the Nordic countries as well as Nordic literature have gone through essential changes. Due to the increasing globalization and as well as the changing developments in the politics of language and minorities, what were once relatively fixed and definable concepts – such as ‘Finnish’ and ‘Nordic’ literature – have expanded and acquired new meanings. The multicultural and multilingual society, with its changed attitudes, transcends former boundaries and concepts of the self. Points of departures of the scholarly discussion in the network are post colonialism, decolonization, indigenous criticism, queer theory, gender studies, eco-criticism, ethnicity, migrant literature, multiculturalism and language.
At the conference Taking place – Moving borders in Nordic literatures we focus on topics related to indigenous literature, critique concerning national canons, concepts of borders and transgression of borders, themes of place, space and relocation in literature. Even though literature is the main focus of this conference other media that borders to literature, such as film and music, are also of interest, especially if treated as an expression of intermediality.

Questions that will be deal include the following: How is power manifested in language? How does the gendered, ethnic body take place in the literary imaginary of authors in the Nordic region? What are the politics of belonging and identity? How are strategies of resistance, collaboration and struggles for equality in literary works analyzed? How are boundaries and relations of the periphery and the metropolis defined and re-defined in literature? What are the cartographies of indigenous, migrant, transnational or transgendered writing? What happens in the intersections of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, class and environment in the discourses of ‘Nordic literature’? What are the boundaries and possibilities of current theories of literature and methods of analysis when studying indigenous literature, migrant literature, diaspora literature or other literary formations challenging our understanding of temporality and location in ‘Nordic literature’? What are the blind spots of academic discourse?
We welcome abstracts that deal with these questions or other subjects related to the themes of the conference.

The conference is organized as collaboration between Sámi University College and Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala University. The conference will be located in Kautokeino, Norway, and hosted by Sámi University College. The University College is situated in what is called the capital of the Sámi people, Guovdageaidnu (Kautokeino), and it is one of the few indigenous university colleges in the world. At the conference a venue for writers and scholars to meet will be in organized in cooperation with Sami Writers’ Association.


Keynote speakers:
•       Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.
•       Sneja Gunew, professor of English and Women’s Studies at The University of British Columbia.
•       Lill Tove Fredriksen, assistant professor at The University of Tromsø.

Themes of the conference: studies of indigenous literature, place, space, borders and transgression.
Languages of abstract and conference: English and Sámi. Papers presented in Sámi will be interpreted in English.
Submit your abstract (200–300 words) to: vuokko.hirvonen at samiskhs.no
Conference deadlines:
•       Submission of paper abstracts: 20 February  2014

•       Deadline for registration: 30 April 2014.
Conference fee: 1500 NOK, students 750 NOK.
Organizers:
•       Sámi allaskuvla/ Sámi University College and Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala University.
•       The Steering Committee for the research network Diversity in Nordic Literature (DINO): Vuokko Hirvonen, Sámi University College; Satu Gröndahl, Uppsala University and Sámi University College; Anne Heith, Umeå University; Heidi Grönstrand, University of Turku; Ann-Sofie Lönngren, Uppsala University; Dag Heede, University of Southern Denmark.
•       In cooperation with SÁFIR Sámi girjjálašvuođadutkiid fierpmádat – Sámi Literature Researchers’ Network (Sámi University College).
Contact information:
Vuokko Hirvonen, Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University College, vuokko.hirvonen at samiskhs.no, phone +4778448521, mobil +358405797577.
Satu Gröndahl, Hugo Valentin-centrum, Uppsala University, satu.grondahl at valentin.uu.se, phone + 46, mobil +46701679304.

The conference is financed by Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University College and The Research Council of Norway.