Call for Papers for the 2024 Otago Centre for the Book Annual Symposium
Posted: Thursday Jul 04, 2024
Books and the City
As Dunedin celebrates its 10th anniversary as a UNESCO City of Literature, the Centre for the Book proposes to think collectively about what books and cities have to do with each other. As well as considering the epiphenomena of books in cities, and how cities support (or, possibly, erode) book-based culture, we also want to think about what it might mean to be a “literary city,” by keeping in mind the city as (Latin) civitas, and asking in broad terms what books have meant and can mean for the lives of cities and their citizens.
Possible topics might include but are not limited to:
Bookshops in (particular) cities, and their contribution to the ecology of print
Newspapers, ditto.
School policies, reading practices and distinctive Dunedin approaches
Publishers and publishers of works about cities and their literary lives
Libraries (public, private) in cities
Other institutional structures supporting authors, writing and reading in cities: Festivals, Fellowships, Residencies
Scholarship, books and essays in Dunedin
City-based literary tourism
Events associated with books: signings, launches, readings, book groups, exhibitions, etc.
Handpress printing in Dunedin or other cities
Guidebooks to cities and their writers and publishers
Depictions in film and literature of books and book-related activities in the life of cities
Books and urbanity (urbs = [Latin] city, geographical; walled town); books and politeness (polis = [Greek] citadel, city, or community)
Books and civility /civilisations /citizenship (civitas = [Latin] city, social and political): that is, the values appropriate for life in cities.
Dates and other details
Please have proposals for papers to books@otago.ac.nz, by 1 Sept.
The Symposium will be on Thurs (evening)—Friday (all-day), 21-22 November
The venue will be the Otago College of Education Tower Block, Theatre G07.