[Gandur] CfP: Genre – Text – Interpretation

[- Frog]

Call for Papers
 
Genre – Text – Interpretation: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Folklore and 
Beyond 

Apeer-reviewed essay collection, edited by Kaarina Koski (University of 
Helsinki) and Frog (University of Helsinki).
 
‘Genre‘ has been a central concept in folklore studies, and has perhaps been 
nowhere so intensively discussed and analyzed as through that discipline. 
Whether explicitly or implicitly, the concept of genre maintains a central 
position in the research of many related fields. Intensive debates surrounding 
genre, how this concept and the term itself should be defined and employed, were 
very much alive in the 1960s and up into the 1980s. However, these questions 
gradually moved into the background of discourse. Questions of genre 
occasionally flare up in individual works, disturbing the coals of these earlier 
arguments, yet academic discussion rather left these questions behind while 
tremendous progress has been made in other aspects of these fields. With the 
coming of a new century, multidisciplinary approaches have offered new insights 
into ‘genre’ as a concept and challenged earlier definitions. ‘Genre’ is such a 
core concept to research on traditions, and so implicit in the ways that we, as 
researchers, think about those traditions, that it has become necessary to 
return to this fundamental term and concept in order to reassess it. This is 
important both within folklore studies and across the diverse and intersecting 
disciplines to which it is central. Time has come to consider the values and 
drawbacks of genre as a term and concept, as well as the impacts which this has 
on research, research history, and how these sorts of conditioning can be 
overcome.
 
A multidisciplinary discussion on genre has become crucial. We are therefore 
organizing a peer-reviewed volume of essays of contemporary views on this topic 
surrounding, but not limited to, the following central concerns:
 
– How should ‘genre’ be defined, and how do different definitions hold to 
different kinds of texts, to different kinds of communications and 
representations, or to different contents of those communications and 
representations?
– How should relationships between genres be approached, to what degree is it 
possible to define a genre system, and how do those relationships impact or 
construct understandings of texts in analysis and for those who use them?
– What is the contribution (or consequences) of generic approaches to the study 
of oral/written texts today?
 
We welcome theoretical views on different genre systems and theories as well as 
material-based analyses focusing on genre. We are looking forward to working 
with 12–15 contributors and a wide range of different genres. The acceptance of 
proposals and further information will be sent to the contributors in October. 
The deadline for articles (20–25 pages in Times 12 / 1.5 line-spacing) will be 
Wednesday, February 1, 2012.
 
If you would be interested in participating in this project, please send an 
abstract in English of up to 500 words outlining a proposed contribution, along 
with your name, affiliation and contact information.  Abstracts should be sent 
to Kaarina Koski (kaarina.koski(at)helsinki.fi). The deadline for abstracts is 
September 30, 2011.