CFP: Lafcadio Hearn and the Global Imagination at the Fin de Siècle

29, 30 June and 1 July 2022

Durham University, United Kingdom

Online via Zoom

Keynote speakers:

Dr Antony Goedhals, University of Pretoria

Dr Stefano Evangelista, University of Oxford

lafcadiohearn2022.wordpress.com/

This online conference will consider the writer and translator Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo, 1850-1904) and his significance for conceptions of global and transnational cultural exchange, both in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and in his legacies today.

Hearn is one of the most important writers in English on Japanese culture at the turn of the 20th century. He is now best known for his ghost stories and tales of terror, in collections such as Shadowings (1900) and Kwaidan (1903). In his earlier years, he also wrote extensively about Creole and African-American cultures in New Orleans and the West Indies. Scholarly interest in Hearn in Britain and North America has increased in recent years, following the turn in Victorian and Decadence studies towards questions of the transnational and the cosmopolitan.

We welcome discussion papers relating to all aspects of Lafcadio Hearn’s life and writings. Papers might address topics such as:

• Globalization and cosmopolitanism in Hearn’s writings
• Hearn’s literary style, literary criticism and lectures on literature
• Hearn as a journalist
• Hearn as a pedagogue (e.g. lectures at the University of Tokyo)
• Hearn, creolization, racial identity and post-colonialism
• The body, the senses and disability in Hearn’s works
• Gender, sexuality and queerness in Hearn’s works
• Translations by Hearn (e.g. of Gautier, Zola, and Maupassant)
• Religion, spirituality and the supernatural in Hearn’s works
• Hearn’s international reception and publication (e.g. translations of Hearn’s works, Hearn’s biographers, Hearn’s place in periodicals)
• Hearn and the arts (music, theatre, visual cultures)
• Hearn’s multiple cultural heritages (e.g. Greece, Ireland, France, England)
• Hearn’s engagement with science and medicine

Please submit an abstract of c. 300 words for papers of up to 20 minutes, together with a short biographical note (100 words) and details of your time zone (e.g. GMT+1) to Dr Fraser Riddell (f.i.riddell@durham.ac.uk) by Monday 2nd May 2022.

We welcome abstracts from international scholars across disciplines and at all career stages. The conference schedule will be designed to facilitate attendance by speakers based in a range of time zones, including Japan. Panels will take place between 1200-1430 BST (UTC+1) each day of the conference. Keynote lectures will be pre-recorded and released 24 hours before the start of the conference, but will be followed by live Q&A sessions.

The event is supported by the Department of English Studies at Durham University. Hearn has a significant connection with County Durham. He was a student at Ushaw College from 1864-67, and is recognised in Durham City by the Lafcadio Hearn Cultural Centre, part of Teikyo University’s campus at Durham University.

Registration details will be available online in due course at https://lafcadiohearn2022.wordpress.com/. If you would like to register your interest or have any other questions please contact Dr Fraser Riddell, Assistant Professor in English at Durham University (f.i.riddell@durham.ac.uk).