Authorised Theft Conference 2016
Australian Association of Writing Programs Conference 2016
28–30 November 2016, University of Canberra
- Conference schedule overview (PDF 235KB)
- Full online program and abstracts (https://aawp2016authorisedtheft.sched.org/
- Campus maps
The 21st annual conference of the AAWP will be a site for the exploration of the processes of making creative works in writing. TS Eliot famously said that mature poets steal, and we steal his idea for the framework for this conference. Where do we find the sources for our ideas, our language, our stories? What are the ethics of making through theft, homage, citation, appropriation? What modes of poiesis are involved?
This conference will showcase creative works and highlight creative modes of writing; it will enable investigations of how we make and say; and it will provide opportunities to explore how creative writers engage with research.
The AAWP Conference
AAWP was established at the inaugural conference in 1996. It now holds annual conferences at campuses around Australasia. The annual conference is the most important forum in Australia for the discussion of all aspects of teaching creative and professional writing and for debating current theories on creativity and writing.
Keynote speakers
- Sholeh Wolpé - 'Collaborating with the Dead: Authorised theft in translation as re-creation'
- Michael Grenfell - 'Stealing Others' Lives: Constructing aesthetic biographies'
Workshop
Some Important Dates for the 2016 conference
- Abstracts and papers for review due 31 July 2016 (see Call for Papers)
- Conference registration opens 1 August 2016
- Early bird registration closes 1 October 2016
- Peer review reports due 1 October 2016
Registration
Registration is essential, Registration is Now Open
Accommodation
Suggested affordable accommodation options nearby the University:
Accommodation closer the CBD:
- Pepper's Gallery Hotel Canberra
- Pavilion on Northbourne
Conference Organising Committee
This conference is hosted by the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra
Committee chair: Niloofar Fanaiyan
Committee members: Monica Carroll, Jen Crawford, Caren Florance, Katie Hayne, Paul Hetherington, Paul Munden, Shane Strange, Jen Webb, and Jordan Williams
Please address correspondence to aawp.conference@canberra.edu.au
Call for Papers
CFP is now closed.
Papers are invited in four streams:
- a refereed scholarly stream (a work of scholarship on or about creative practice, intended for inclusion in the published conference proceedings);
- a refereed creative stream (a creative work accompanied by a scholarly research statement, intended for inclusion in the published conference proceedings);
- a general (non-refereed) scholarly stream; and
- a general (non-refereed) creative stream; this should incorporate a scholarly framework that will be presented along with the creative element.
Papers and creative presentations are encouraged to explore, but are not limited to, the following:
- Writing as homage or as theft
- Collaborative practice
- The economy of writing
- Indigenous writing and Australasia
- Sociologies of writing
- Changing the guard: generational change in writing
- The ethics of transgression
- Writing and dispossession
- Writing and property, and ownership, and authority
Abstracts
Submissions to the refereed streams should include an abstract of 200-300 words, a 100-word biography, five keywords, and the proposed contribution of up to 4,000 words for scholarly papers. The proposed contribution for creative papers should be up to 2,500 words, plus a 250-word research statement.
Submissions for the non-refereed streams should include an abstract of 200-300 words and be accompanied by five keywords and a 100-word biography. The abstract for the non-refereed creative stream should include a description of the creative work and how it will be presented (especially where the work is not wholly or mostly text).
Please note: there is no separate abstract review process – abstracts are due with the full papers.
Panels
We encourage delegates to form their own panels (of three to four presentations—each approximately 10 minutes in length) on a topic of their choice.
Peer review
Please note that submission of a paper for a refereed stream implies your agreement to referee at least two other delegates' papers. Your own topic, and the keywords you submit with your contribution, will be used as the basis for choosing the paper we will ask you to review.
Presentations
All presentations will be limited to 10 minutes per paper (this is a summary of your argument as a contribution to a panel). Please note that creative presentations should incorporate the scholarly statement/context within the allotted time.
In order for delegates to present they must be members of the AAWP at the time of the conference.
Postgraduates
Postgraduates are encouraged to submit to the conference. If this is your first time presenting, then we strongly recommend submitting to the general (non-refereed) stream. Postgraduates will be offered the chance to speak with professors and more senior writing academics outside their immediate university about their direction and any obstacles, and to practice presenting their work.
The AAWP Conference
AAWP was established at the inaugural conference in 1996. It now holds annual conferences at campuses around Australasia. The annual conference is the most important forum in Australia for the discussion of all aspects of teaching creative and professional writing and for debating current theories on creativity and writing.
Some Important Dates for the 2016 conference
- Abstracts and papers for review due 31 July 2016
- Conference registration opens 1 August 2016
- Early bird registration closes 1 October 2016
- Peer review reports due 1 October 2016
Conference Organising Committee
This conference is hosted by the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research at the University of Canberra
Committee chair: Niloofar Fanaiyan
Committee members: Monica Carroll, Jen Crawford, Caren Florance, Katie Hayne, Paul Hetherington, Paul Munden, Shane Strange, Jen Webb, and Jordan Williams
Please address correspondence to aawp.conference@canberra.edu.au
Keynote speakers
Sholeh Wolpé
Collaborating with the Dead: Authorised Theft in Translation as Re-Creation
Does Ezra Pound's credo 'make it new' exalt authorised theft of past literary works? According to poet and translator Tony Barnstone, 'even the phrase "make it new" derives from the Chinese characters which the founder of the Shang Dynasty, King Tang (1617–1588 BCE), had inscribed in gold on his bathtub', and so the past is washed clean to be used today. According to Emerson, 'In every work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty'. Then is genius the ability to renew and redefine a certain past, make it relevant? In this light, translation of poetry will be closely examined. It is impossible to convey the emotions and allusions contained in a poem by translating it faithfully word for word. After all, what distinguishes poetry from prose is the use of language's metaphoric life force, as well as its use as a musical tool. Therefore, a translator of poetry can become the unwitting destroyer of poems or, alternately, a re-creator of new ones. Consequently, does literary history readjust itself with each effective translation? Is two-way authorised theft crucial in translation of poetry?
Biography
Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-born poet and literary translator.
She is the recipient of the 2014 PEN/Heim, 2013 Midwest Book Award and 2010
Lois Roth Persian Translation prize. Wolpé's nine books include, Keeping Time
with Blue Hyacinths, Rooftops of Tehran, Sin—Selected Poems of Forugh
Farrokhzad, and The Forbidden: Poems from Iran and Its Exiles. Wolpé's modern
translation of Conference of the Birds by the 12th century Iranian mystic poet,
Attar, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton in 2017. Her work has been translated
into many languages, and a collection of her poems, Cómo Escribir una Canción
de Amor, will be published in Spanish both in Spain and Mexico in 2016.
Website: www.sholehwolpe.com.
Michael Grenfell
Stealing Others' Lives: Constructing Aesthetic Biographies
Stealing Others' Lives: Constructing Aesthetic Biographies initially addresses a number of literary techniques and approaches in biographical method, and deals with the writing and reading of biography and autobiography. Language and the part it plays in biography is a focus, as is the 'problem' of aesthetics. In place of orthodox approaches, a version of biography as 'sociological history', based on the reflexive epistemology of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu, is presented. Empirical examples are taken from the fields of music and fine arts in contrasting this approach with conventional approaches. Both theoretical and practical issues are considered in this light, and how writing implicates the generative nature of subject-object relationships present in biographical co-construction is examined. Finally, parameters are suggested in terms of what we can, and cannot, know about 'others' lives' within cultural fields.
Biography
Michael Grenfell has worked at universities in England, Scotland and Ireland
and held Chair positions within each. He has an extensive research background
on the work of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu, and has applied this
approach to such areas as economics, art, music, education, translation and
literature. He has been a visiting scholar at the École des Hautes Études and
the Collège de France, Paris. He is on the editorial board of Actes de la
Recherche en Sciences Sociales, which Bourdieu founded, and has published some
sixteen books and numerous academic articles on related subjects. He is
currently researching various biographies within the music, art and literary
fields.
Creativity and the Twenty-first Century
Professor Michael Grenfell
Trinity College, Dublin,
Ireland
University of Southampton, UK
Thursday, 1 December 2016
University of Canberra
In this two-part workshop, participants will consider a range of theoretical approaches to Creativity and their applications in practice from diverse perspectives, including philosophy, aesthetics, sociology and psychology. The aim is to explore the essential features of Creativity and how they play out procedurally from different points of view.
In the morning session, participants will be introduced to the topic and will be presented with a synopsis of the different approaches. Suggested readings will be provided. However, we are asking participants to come with their own readings and experiences of Creativity with respect to their particular media. We are aiming to have as many practical examples as possible, please.
In the afternoon session, Creativity will be presented within more of a social frame, in particular, that derived from the French social theorist, Pierre Bourdieu. A copy of Professor Michael Grenfell's translation of Bourdieu's seminar with fine art students in Nîmes will be provided for participants prior to the workshop. This debate sets creative endeavor within an analysis of the field of cultural reproduction, and the dynamics it contains. This field will be explored, as it exists in the twenty-first century, and the use of Bourdieu's tools both in understanding and operating within it. In particular, participants will be encouraged to consider 'Social' and 'objective art' as contrasting terms which might help us to better understand the way the creative impulse is instantiated in trans-historic and contemporary contexts.
This workshop is open to postgraduate students and early career academics (up till two years after finishing their postgraduate studies).
Those interested in participating should email aawp.conference@canberra.edu.au with a letter of application, including a description of your current research, a summary of the readings/experience that you would like to present during the workshop, and a brief note as to how you think your work might benefit from participating in this workshop.
Registration
Registration is essential and is Now Open
Early bird registration closes 1 October 2016
Parking
Pay parking is available on campus between 8am - 6pm.
Accommodation
Suggested affordable accommodation options nearby the University:
Accommodation closer the CBD:
- Pepper's Gallery Hotel Canberra
- Pavilion on Northbourne