“Wonderlands” Conference and Call for Papers

The University of Chichester’s Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy is hosting a symposium on “Wonderlands: Reading/ Writing/ Telling Fairy Tales and Fantasy” on 23 May 2015.

The event is “Timed to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, this event is primarily aimed at postgraduate students and early career researchers, although other scholars and the general public will be welcome.”

The call for papers says:

We are seeking papers which explore all aspects of reading, writing, and telling fairy tales and fantasy. In particular, we invite discussion of wonder lands in fantastical literature, classic and modern fairy tales, and contemporary oral storytelling.

Possible topics of focus include, but are not limited to:

• Other worlds, otherworldliness, Wonderland, and wonder lands
• Relationships between reading, writing, and/or telling fantasy
• Contemporary scholarship in children’s and adult’s fantasy literature
• Storytelling as a vehicle for the fantastic
• Practice and performance of fairy tales
• Fantastical non-fiction
• Relationships between real and imagined wonder lands
• Meta-textual conversations with classic fantasy literature
• Imagining the fantastical world through illustrations and picture books

We also welcome paper submissions or panel presentations which include a creative or performative element.

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words (or panel proposals of 1,000 words) and a short personal bio to the organisers, Joanna Coleman, Joanne Blake Cave, and Rose Williamson at wonderlands.symposium@gmail.com. The deadline for submission will be 31st January 2015.

The keynote lecturer will be Oxford professor Diane Purkiss, who has also co-written as Tobias Druitt. As a promise or threat, the announcement ends, “The day will close with a series of performances from professional storytellers which engage with the theme of wonder lands.”

(h/t to Karen Graham at Telling Tales)