Word on the Street

Word on the Street: Reading, Writing & Inhabiting Public Space

Peer-reviewed Collection of Essays to be published by the IGRS in
association with the AHRC-funded Research Training Network in Modern
Languages.

As the site of everyday social interaction, the street has always
provided a source of inspiration for writers from Chaucer's pilgrims
to Baudelaire's flâneur. Moreover, it has become the focus for
critical theorists such as Michel de Certeau in an attempt to push
the limits of textual analysis beyond literature and art towards our
daily experience of the world as a form of text we simultaneously
read and write.

In compiling this collection of essays, we wish to examine the
different discourses taking place within and upon the space of the
public street. Viewing this form of discourse as an action, we hope
to include a range of discursive and artistic actions which might
include, but are certainly not limited, to: architecture, sculpture,
graffiti, skateboarding, capoeira, parkour, street theatre, and busking.

Recognising that many actions of street expression are subversive, we
also invite explorations into whom these actions involve and to whom
they are addressed. The street is the site where identity is both
established and denied. We talk of living on a street yet the street
is a place where everyone is (potentially) a stranger. Moreover, the
street is the site where cultural diversity and difference is
celebrated in the form of festivals and parades and the battleground
upon which violent social struggles are carried out in the form of
political protest, gang warfare and suicide bombings. As such the
street represents the ultimate embodiment of the Bakhtinian notion of
carnival.

We invite proposals for papers from anyone working in the field of
modern languages (any language excluding English). Topics could
include but are not restricted to:

· Literary and artistic depictions of the street

· The street as a site of artistic and cultural production

· Inhabiting the street - skateboard playgrounds, the autonomous
subject, movement

· Theorizing the street - architecture, philosophy,
psychoanalysis, film theory

· The voice of the street - languages, dialects, discourses

· The topology of the street - drawing and crossing boundaries

· Street politics and urban warfare

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted in English by
5 pm on 7 January 2008. Those shortlisted will be contacted by the
end of January and invited to submit a paper. From these a final ten
essays will be selected for inclusion in the collection. An Editorial
Workshop for all contributors will be held in early July 2008. Please
note that the final paper should be no more than 5,000 words
including notes. All quotations should be accompanied by English
translations. Obtaining permission to use images in the final
publication will be the responsibility of the author.

Please send proposals to both Sophie Fuggle (sophie.fuggle@kcl.ac.uk)
and Elisha Foust (e.foust@rhul.ac.uk). Please include your full name,
email address and any institutional affiliation.

Dr Ricarda Vidal
Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies
School of Advanced Study