Friday 14 June 2013

Call for Abstracts: 'Fire Stories' Symposium, University of Melbourne, 4-6 December 2013

Call for Abstracts: 'Fire Stories' Symposium presented by The Australian Centre, The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (Europe 1100-1800) and The University of Melbourne.

Full-size PDF of poster available here.


Confirmed keynote speakers:

Dr Danielle Clode (Flinders University), Professor Bill Gammage (Australian National University), Associate Professor Alan Krell (College of Fine Arts, UNSW), Associate Professor Pablo Mukherjee (University of Warwick).

A source of survival, comfort and terror, humans have struggled to control and harness fire since its discovery tens of thousands of years ago. This symposium will address emotional responses to fires in literature and history, looking particularly at how the fleeting destruction of a blaze is conveyed in narrative terms. Participants will be invited to consider a dialogue between ancient and modern representations of fire (including the mythical) and the affective responses that they evoke. Speakers are also encouraged to address the role that fictional representations of burning landscapes or cityscapes can play in the aftermath of a major disaster.

Topics may include:
• fire and mythology
• disaster narratives/environmental  catastrophe
• The ecology of fire
• Representations of bushfires/wildfires
• Climate change
• performing fire/ the aesthetics of fire
• The poetics of the flame
• fire in the colonies
• sati
• fire and colonial settlers
• indigenous representations of fire
• fire and childhood
• fire and folklore
• fire and national identity
• firescapes and emotions
• psychological responses to fires
• survivor stories
• fire and memory
• Artefacts/conservation
• Trauma
• Arson/pyromania
• Campfires
• The domestic hearth
• destruction/reconstruction

Please send abstracts to: fire-stories@unimelb.edu.au  by no later than August 31st 2013.

Please note that the conference will  incorporate a symposium to be convened by the Australian Centre, on species:  ‘Narrative, Indigeneity, Ecology’. This  symposium will take place on Wednesday December 4 and a program will be released  in due course. Confirmed keynote speaker: Professor Ursula Heise (UCLA).

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