CFP: Strange Atmospheres: The Seventh International Flann O’Brien Conference

The Call for Papers is now open for

Strange Atmospheres:

The Seventh International Flann O’Brien Conference

The Department of English at Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj, with the International Flann O’Brien Society

27–30 June 2023

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

Joseph Brooker (Birkbeck College, University of London) 

Flore Coulouma (Université Paris Nanterre)

Paul Fagan (Salzburg University)

Heather Laird (University College Cork)

The conference title, ‘Strange Atmospheres,’ foregrounds a concept that sits uneasily on the semantic boundary between environment, embodied space, and mood. Often bending to the fantastic, the uncanny, the fake and unconvincing, Flann O’Brien’s style is itself characterised by a constant apprehension of the ways in which the atmospheric and the literary fertilise each other. The symposium will provide the occasion to reflect more fully on these aspects of his work.

The conference organisers invite proposals for 20 minute presentations on any topic relevant to the symposium theme. Special consideration will be given to the following topics in Flann O’Brien studies:

— Reflections on atmosphere as setting and atmosphere as mood

— Pathetic fallacy and the correspondences between space, place and feeling 

— Ecocritical approaches

— Radio transmissions and wireless communication

— Ideas of extended agency and extended subjectivity

— Politicised environments

— Localised and universal spaces

— Gothic spaces, horror and the uncanny 

— Life without borders

— Apocalyptic overtones

— Ghost cities

— Social, professional and urban spaces

— Literary discourse and the weather

— Modernist environments and ecological thought

— Non-humans and posthumans in O’Nolan’s fiction

Please send abstracts and a short bionote to the organisers at seventhflanncluj@gmail.com by 15 December 2022. Proposals will be read and evaluated by 15 February 2023.

The time of delivery for each paper should not exceed 20 minutes.