Call for Papers: The Literary London Society Annual Conference

22–24 July 2015

‘London in Love’

Hosted by the Institute of English Studies, University of London




Confirmed Plenary Speakers:

Imtiaz Dharker (poet, artist and documentary film-maker)

Dr. Gregory Dart (University College London)

Professor Kate Flint (University of Southern California)



Proposals are invited for papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions, which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-Roman times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are particularly welcome for consideration.

While papers on all areas of literary London are welcomed, the conference theme in 2015 will be ‘London in Love’. Topics that might be addressed could include:

Romance narratives: marriage and elopement plots, historical romances, the ‘romance as quest’, Dark Romanticism, confessional narratives, the Bildungsroman’s objects of desire.

London as seducer or muse: Love on/off the map, desire lines and landscapes of infatuation.

Literary decadence: Deviance, perversion, prostitution, eroticism and clandestine love plots.

The poetics of attachment and betrayal: Sonnets, Aubades, literary and folk ballads, Ghazals, Landays, Laments and erotic verses.

Alternatives to proscribed relationships: Queer, GLBTQ, multicultural, sci-fi and posthuman love stories; non-romantic bonds of friendship and kinship.

Romance drama: City comedies, exotic and supernatural heterocosms, masques, comedies of manners and family dramas.

Inexplicability and impossibility of loving the city/of love in the city.

Love and networks of power: courtly and chivalric romances, the court vs. the city, pornography.

Please submit all proposals for 20-minute papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions through the Literary London Society website (http://www.literarylondon.org/conference).


***Deadline for submissions extended until: 31 March 2015***

For further information please contact Peter Jones at conference@literarylondon.org or petertajones@gmail.com

We look forward to receiving you proposals.