CfP: The Styles of the 21st Century [workshop + edited volume]

(For the detailed version of the CfP, please go to: https://www.academia.edu/31131921/CfP_Stile_des_21._Jahrhunderts_The_Styles_of_the_21st_Century_Workshop_edited_volume_ )

The Styles of the 21st Century
Practices – Problems – Perspectives

September 12th-14th 2017, Zurich

What is style – for me to find my own, mimic or adopt another’s? What is style that one can ‘have’ one at all? “La question du style,”, Jacques Derrida wrote in the seventies in “Éperons”, his study on Nietzsche, “c’est toujours l’examen, le pesant d’un objet pointu.“ But what does style mean: today, when its conceptualization – unlike Derrida‘s psychoanalytically informed reading – can no longer refer to the etymology of the word itself? After the digital revolution, completely new interdependencies between the body, writing devices and (digital) output need to be considered. Are 21st-century literature and philosophy developing their own distinctive styles and, if so, what – affirmative? nostalgic? protesting? – stance do these styles take towards their predecessors? Is it not only a matter of asking the question of style anew – but also of asking it in a totally new way?

The workshop invites (young) academics to a three day workshop to reflect on the problem of style in contemporary writing practices. ‘Case studies’ of specific authors are especially welcome! In addition to studies concerning (a) literary texts narrowly construed, we’re equally interested in discussions of (b) theoretical / philosophical styles as well as of (c) poetic practices bordering on the other arts. The results of the bilingual workshop (German, English) will be published in an anthology.

Abstracts (300-400 words) as well as a short bio-bibliography to be sent to fabian.schwitter@uzh and philippe.haensler@uzh.ch by May 31th 2017.