*Call for papers* *Reading wide, writing wide in the Digital Age: perspectives on* * transliteratures* *Complutense University of Madrid* *22nd -23rd October 2015* *Organizer: Miriam Llamas & Amelia Sanz (LEETHY Group) *

The launching of Google Books and of Google Earth in 2004 could be considered a symbolical landmark in the configuration of memories and localization in space, a kind of milestone. Is there a time before and a time after 2004? Should we be getting ready for a change in literary reading and writing? Certainly, these days, we are witnessing an unprecedented acceleration of the circulation of products and materials, of people, texts and memories, while the national and global imaginaries coexist, fight and produce literatures. Commonplaces are repeated about contemporary literatures, new readers, globalization, the Internet etc., but, in fact, we do not find enough contrasted experiences and studies that support many of these assertions.

It is time we ask whether interrelations on a global scale in digital environments have altered, on the one hand, the patterns of production and distribution of writing, of circulation and consumption of reading, and in that case, in what way. But, on the other hand, it is time to ask if these modalities of circulation are creating new narratives and a new effect of globalization. So we are considering global digital circulation as a factual process but also as an imaginary storytelling.

In fact, as cinema radically transformed writers’ and readers’ literary imaginary at the beginning of the 20th century, the Internet is definitively modifying rituals of readings, formulas of production, narratives in the 21st century.

We believe that it is necessary to verify what marks in the literary writing and reading could be considered symptoms of all these shifting reading patterns, writing strategies and imaginaries. We can explore the possibility that the conceptual metaphor which is being used to understand the literary fact through its genealogy is shifting to the transit and journey of literatures and readings. If the question "where does it come from?" has been used to shape personal and cultural identities, and therefore to build national literary discourses, nowadays it may be replaced by or intersect with the questions "where is it going?” and How is it going across?. This circulating conception of what we can call “transliteratures”, a well-founded and broad-based perspective in the literary field nowadays, should be put to the test in the digital domain.

And this is the point: is digital circulation modifying literary imaginaries? We will try to ask to the following questions:

- Given the extension and multiplication of digital media, the moving and widening vision of the world, is it really modifying local literary production, located imaginaries*?*

- About the configuration of a cultural memory through new digital archives, we can raise the question: how does it influence the connective structures of culture and literature in particular?

- Is the circulation of materials on the Web giving birth to new communities of readers-writers, with other modes of reading? Is it announcing the way readers from the new generation are going to read?

We intend to gather experts and experiences coming from the world of cyberculture and literary criticism, with distant and distinct approaches, with the aim that, on the basis of an analysis of production cases and literary reading in paper or electronic support, they should offer answers about what is currently happening as much to the traditional and digital editorial world, as well as to the academic world of teaching and research. That means cross-boarding *trans* and *hyper*.

Deadlines:

Submission of abstracts: April 15, 2015.

Notification of selected papers: May-June, 2015.

Submissions should include the submitter’s name, institutional address, e-mail address, short CV, and a 250-word abstract (in English) of the proposed 20 min. paper. It should be sent via e-mail to: *readingwide@ucm.es readingwide@ucm.es*, no later than April 15, 2015. Submitters will be notified of the outcome by May/June, 2015. Any questions and queries can also be directed to this e-mail address.

Papers can be presented in English.

Proposals will be evaluated by a Scientific Committee composed by:

· Philippe Bootz (University of Paris 8; http://elmcip.net/person/philippe-bootz)

· Manuel Maldonado Alemán (University of Sevilla; https://investigacion.us.es/sisius/sis_showpub.php?idpers=196)

· Susana Pajares Tosca (IT University of Copenhagen; http://www.it-c.dk/people/tosca/)

· Joseph Tabbi (University of Illinois at Chicago; http://engl.uic.edu/english/directory/faculty/joseph-tabbi)

· Teresa Vilariño Picos (University of Santiado de Compostela, http://proxectole.es/quen-somos/teresa-vilarino-picos/

Publication of a selection of the papers is planned.

Registration

Until June, 30, 2015: registration fee is € 80 / € 40 for students (payment by bank transfer).

If the payment is effected at the congress at the time of registration, the fee is € 100 / € 50 for students.

Account number: Code IBAN: ES43 2085 9966 1203 3015 1371 Code BIC Ibercaja: CAZRES2Z

Concept: Reading wide, Faculty of Arts; Complutense University

Bank address: Ibercaja, Agencia Urbana nº 29, C/ Bohemios, 11, 28041 Madrid, España/ Spain.

Optional: extra € 25 for the conference dinner on Friday evening, to pay on the venue of the congress.

Participants are responsible for covering their own travel, lodging and meal expenses.

WEB Site: https://www.ucm.es/leethi/reading-wide