Gothic Trans / Iterations

Call For Papers

***Extended deadline: 15 February 2024***

The conference theme is inspired by the transatlantic movement of the the IGA’s biannual gathering from Dublin in 2022 to the east coast of Canada in 2024. But it invites participants to draw on all of the meanings, possibilities and associations embedded in the prefix “trans”: the movement from one state to another, a position beyond a specific or specified state, movement between….

The Gothic has been historically, and continues to be, a mode that is shaped by the potentialities, ruptures, instabilities, anxieties and uncertainties that are encoded in the idea of “trans”. The Gothic transcends traditional disciplines, aesthetic categories, periodisation, identities, bodies, genres, media, national and cultural borders, often rejecting the tyranny of traditionally delineated categories, refusing and disturbing the limits of oppositional structures. Thinking through the seemingly endless potential for these trans/iterations of the Gothic, we invite papers that explore the ways in which Gothic disturbs, to draw on Julia Kristeva, identity, system and order.

We invite proposals for papers, or panels of three connected papers, that explore any aspect of Gothic’s engagement with and investment in the concept of “trans” in any/all aspects of cultural production. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

Transitional spaces, states, identities, modes
Trans voices, politics, representations, resistances, theories
Transcendence
Transference
Trans-Atlantic
Transmigration
Transgenerational
Transnational
Transcultural
Transformation
Transmigration
Exchanges

Please submit a 250-word abstract for 20 minute presentations by February 15 2024 to IGAconference2024@msvu.ca. For all submissions, be sure to include your name, a short (50-word) biographical sketch, institutional affiliation (if any), and contact details. Please send your submission as an attachment (as opposed to a link to a server such as Googledocs). Submissions for panels should be sent as a single submission with three 250-word abstracts, a brief statement of the theme of the panel and the information above about each of the presenters.