<\/p>\n
Please see below for details of a\u00a0conference to be held at the\u00a0Universit\u00e9 Clermont-Auvergne<\/a> in France next year.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Call for papers<\/strong><\/p>\n International Conference, Clermont-Ferrand, 5-7 April 2018<\/p>\n Universit\u00e9 Clermont-Auvergne \u2013 CELIS<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00ab\u00a0\u2018with shut eyes, but acute mental vision\u2019: Dream and Literary Creation in Women\u2019s Writings in the 18th<\/sup> and 19th<\/sup> Centuries\u00a0\u00bb <\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In June 1816, in a house on the shores of Lake Geneva, a young girl of barely 19 had a dream which would turn out to be the source of one of the greatest contemporary myths of modern times. This pivotal dream has remained prominent thanks to the preface that Mary Shelley wrote for the 1831 edition of Frankenstein<\/em>, in which she describes a vivid, integrally visionary experience: \u201cI saw \u2013 with shut eyes, but acute mental vision, \u2013 I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together [\u2026].\u201d In a lesser-known dream, a year earlier, Shelley brings her premature, unnamed first-born back to life: \u201cDreamt that my little baby came to life again; that it had only been cold, and that we rubbed it before the fire, and it lived. Awake and find no baby\u201d (19th<\/sup> March 1815).<\/p>\n Dreams in Frankenstein<\/em> are at the heart of the writing process but they also constitute the diegetic substance of the narrative. Victor\u2019s nightmare, which follows the opening of the Creature\u2019s \u201cdull yellow eye\u201d (Volume I, chapter 4), is difficult to overlook in any critical consideration of the importance of dreams in the novel. To mark the bicentenary of Frankenstein<\/em>\u2019s publication in 1818, this conference will re-examine the previously-recognised oneiric facets of the novel and develop fresh perspectives on dreams and dreaming in Mary Shelley\u2019s fiction. Proposals with a special focus on those three dreams, as well as on other works by Mary Shelley in which dreams are often premonitory (Valperga<\/em>, Matilda<\/em>, \u201cThe Dream\u201d for example), are particularly welcome. Discussion may also extend to analyses of day-dreaming which Mary Shelley also refers to in her preface when she distinguishes between her youthful fancies, \u201call [her] own\u201d, and her fiction, destined to be read by others.<\/p>\n In addition, the oneiric character of Frankenstein<\/em> is particularly relevant in any reappraisal of the textuality of dreams and their link to women\u2019s creativity and creation as a whole. Accounts of real dreams in diaries and letters may interrogate the paradox of the invasion of Self by a radically Other force (\u201cMy imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me\u201d, wrote Mary Shelley), when the passive dreamer turns into a waking creative subject. Ontological alterity may be considered as being located at the core of such processes. Is there a specifically female understanding or expression of this encounter with the Other within? Literary dreams, whose putative oneiric nature needs further clarification, oscillate between narrative dexterity and the expression of possibly subconscious scenarios. How significant is a character\u2019s dream? Is it radically inconsistent and heterogeneous? We therefore also invite papers on these, and other, connections between dream and fiction in novels written by Shelley and other female novelists.<\/p>\n Thus, the central issue of authorial intention in novels (or in poetry or plays if relevant), published from the end of the 17th<\/sup> century to the late 19th<\/sup> century, is the line of enquiry which this conference hopes to pursue. How is Mary Shelley\u2019s creative outlook and experience mirrored in the writing of her contemporaries\u2019 (Frances Burney\u2019s or Ann Radcliffe\u2019s for example), or in that of female authors who came before or after her (Jane Barker and the Bront\u00eb sisters for example)? Approaches developed by Margaret Anne Doody (\u201cDeserts, Ruins and Troubled Waters<\/em>:<\/em> Female Dreams in Fiction and the Development of the Gothic Novel\u201d, 1977), Ronald Thomas (Dreams of Authority<\/em>, 1990, on the Gothic and nineteenth-century novels) or Julia Epstein on Burney (The Iron Pen<\/em>, 1989) may be particularly pertinent here.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Papers may be given in English (preferably) or in French.<\/p>\n Please send your proposals to Isabelle Hervouet-Farrar and Anne Rouhette at dreamconference2018@gmail.com<\/a> before 30th<\/sup> September 2017.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Scientific committee:<\/p>\n Caroline Berton\u00e8che, Universit\u00e9 de Grenoble<\/p>\n Lilla Maria Crisafulli, University of Bologna<\/p>\n Isabelle Hervouet-Farrar, Universit\u00e9 Clermont-Auvergne<\/p>\n Anne Rouhette, Universit\u00e9 Clermont-Auvergne<\/p>\n Victor Sage, University of East Anglia<\/p>\n Jean Vivi\u00e8s, Universit\u00e9 d\u2019Aix-Marseille<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Please see below for details of a\u00a0conference to be held at the\u00a0Universit\u00e9 Clermont-Auvergne in France next year.\u00a0 Call for papers International Conference, Clermont-Ferrand, 5-7 April 2018 Universit\u00e9 Clermont-Auvergne… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":""},"categories":[14,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1597\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bars.ac.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}