III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE THE AMERICAN LITERARY WEST

As already announced, we are back with further news on the next conference that we will be holding in 2014. Again, you are all invited and you may want to know that this blog will be the gathering place where you can chat, question or keep updated. That is why we are back here, writing in this sunny but cold Sunday morning. We have more details and we want to share them with you. 

We already have a title (The American Literary West: A Territory without Borders?), a fixed date (8-10 October 2014) and a call for papers that we are attaching down there, so that you can dowload it and take a close look to it. There you'll also find the link to this blog and to our website (please, be aware of the fact that the cfp is attached in pdf format, so if you want to follow any of the links that we added to the text, you need to press first control bottom in your keyboard and then use the link thoroughly). Besides, you'll also find out that there is one specific email address (rewest2014@gmail.com) to handle the conference's regular mail. If you wish, you can take that other option, and use that email address for further inquiry, instead of using this same source of information as a channel for doubt resolution. 

Please, read carefully our cfp and start brewing those ideas in your heads. We are looking forward to getting all your proposals and having you here with us. You just need to click where it says III International Conference The American Literary West down there and you'll have access to the call for papers:

III International Conference The American Literary West

And, meanwhile, because this is, I already told you, a sunny but cold Sunday Morning, let's make it even sunnier and warmer with some music. Enjoy the singing of a couple guys that will be probably mentioned in October's conference. Their morning was on a Saturday but, at least, the street was called Sunday, so it makes sense. Have fun!

III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE AMERICAN LITERARY WEST

REWEST Research Group is planning to hold a new international conference next year. Tentative dates are the following days: 8,9 and 10 of October in 2014. The conference will be held at the University of the Basque Country - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea in Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain).

In the following days, we will use this blog to publish our call for papers and confirm the days in which the conference will be held. All future details will be also available in this blog.

It is our aim that this new conference is an opportunity to share new lines of research on the literature of the American West and an invitation for networking. Hoping that you all can make it to the Basque Country, we promise the same dedication and hardworking that made the previous editions a big success. You are always welcome.

In any case, keep track of this website if you want to be updated. In short, we will be loading here the call for papers. However, you can expect that we will advertise the event in some other forums. Stay tune and start making plans!

REWEST

I INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM “CULTURAL TRANSFERS OF THE AMERICAN WEST: BEYOND THE TEXT”

I INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM “CULTURAL TRANSFERS OF THE AMERICAN WEST: BEYOND THE TEXT”

(APRIL 16-17, 2013, VITORIA-GASTEIZ)

DEGREES’ ROOM (FACULTY OF ARTS, UPV/EHU)

This international symposium will examine the multiple connections between western American literature and other cultural and artistic phenomena. Certainly, the long-lasting cultural transfers and intertextual links between western writing and western movies will be a major issue in this symposium. However, this forum will also address other cultural and artistic manifestations that interact, overlap, and interrelate with western writing in complex, often dialogic ways, as exemplified by television, music, photography, and translation. The symposium will privilege transnational and interdisciplinary approaches aiming to understand properly a genre whose iconography has moved well beyond both national limits and literary borders. After all, we will be dealing with a genre that claims to be both exceptional and universal.

The symposium will consist of 22 lectures, including 5 plenary lectures. Our plenary speakers will be Jordi Solé (Journalist and writer), José Miguel Santamaría (Professor of Translation), Celestino Deleyto (Professor of English Literature and Film, University of Zaragoza), Enrique Urbizu (Film director), and David Fenimore (Director of Undergraduate Studies in English, University of Nevada, Reno).

I SIMPOSIO INTERNACIONAL “TRASVASES CULTURALES DEL OESTE NORTEAMERICANO: MÁS ALLÁ DEL TEXTO”

(16-17 ABRIL, 2013, VITORIA-GASTEIZ)

SALÓN DE GRADOS (FACULTAD DE LETRAS, UPV/EHU)

Este simposio abordará la dimensión interdisciplinar del género “western”, analizando los trasvases culturales entre la literatura del Oeste y otras manifestaciones artísticas. Lógicamente, se prestará especial atención a las transferencias culturales entre la literatura y el cine “western”, dos disciplinas con una estrecha vinculación histórica. Además, se estudiarán diversas relaciones dialógicas e intertextuales derivadas de la interacción entre la literatura “western” y otras esferas artísticas y culturales, como la música, la televisión, la fotografía y la traducción. Se recurrirá principalmente a una perspectiva transnacional e interdisciplinar que nos permita comprender mejor la dimensión global del imaginario del Oeste, su vigencia y su renovación más allá de las fronteras regionales, nacionales o artísticas. Al fin y al cabo, nuestro objeto de estudio es un género asociado a una región específica y a una nación concreta, pero cuya proyección ha alcanzado una dimensión casi universal.

El simposio constará de 17 ponencias y 5 conferencias plenarias. Éstas últimas correrán a cargo de los siguientes conferenciantes: Jordi Solé (Escritor y periodista), José Miguel Santamaría (Catedrático de Traducción), Celestino Deleyto (catedrático de Filología Inglesa: Cine y Literature), Enrique Urbizu (Director de cine) y David Fenimore (Director de Estudios Ingleses, Universidad de Nevada, Reno).

Click here to see the official poster / Pincha aquí para ver el cartel oficial.

Click here to see the official flyer / Pincha aquí para ver el díptico oficial.

Our next challenge

Our next challenge will take place in a few days. In the 16th and 17th of April, more than twenty researchers from many different universities will gather in our Faculty of Arts to take part in the I International Symposium Cultural Transfers of the American West: Beyond the Text. Following our recent interest on different genres and disciplines, REWEST understands that the American West can be approached from different perspectives and lenses. This time, scholars will deal with topics ranging from translation studies to cultural or film studies and embracing different genres and topics: music, movies, books; standard, African-American and homosexual cowboys; men and women; the city and the wilderness; Native Americans, Chican@s or Anglos. Not a single story, not a simple history. 

So far, the organizing committee is pleased to announce that, even though there might still be changes, again we will be honored by the presence of a good bunch of noted scholars and distinguished artists. This time, Jordi Solé, José Miguel Santamaría, Celestino Deleyto, Enrique Urbizu and David Fenimore will be our starting lineup. International, diverse and renowned, this is a lineup to win the NBA, isn't it?

Researching background; our credentials

REWEST Research Group was officially founded in 2009 but, even before the name was written for the first time, some of our researchers were already working together: 

In October 2005, the I International Conference on the American Literary West was helded at our home college, the Faculty of Letters at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). Great keynote speakers made this conference even better than we could have planned: Frank Bergon, Marc Chenetier, David Fenimore, Melody Graulich and María Herrera-Sobek. 

Four years later, in April 2009, we used our brand new name for the first time to organize the I International Seminar "Current Research in Contemporary Western American Literature". American writer Frank Bergon was guest we could think of to inaugurate our official start. 

In October 2010, we again take the challenge to organize a conference. This time, we call it the I International Conference "The American Literary West". New and old keynote speakers collaborated to make this conference a success: the celebrated basque writer Bernardo Atxaga, Phyllis Barber came right from the American West to lecture us on how to write good fiction and autobiographies, 

noted scholar Neil Campbell, always stimulating and entertaining, this time David Fenimore impersonated Woody Guthrie, and, finally, the Basque-American writer Gregory Martin gave a highly emotional and spiring lecture. 

In April 2011, we tried to give visibility to our more recent studies on place in the American West with the I International Seminar "Ecocriticism and Contemporary Western American Literature". This time, María Herrera-Sobek, Terry Gifford and Juan Ignacio Oliva enlightened us with their priceless insights on ecocritical approaches to the American West. 

In the year 2012, we split our I International Seminar "Place and Identity in Contemporary Western American Literature" in two. In March, half of our researchers met in Vitoria-Gasteiz to accompany Professor Charles L. Crow's plenary lecture. A month later, it was Rick Bass who traveled from Montana to Vitoria-Gasteiz in order to add her vision and experience of the American landscape

to that of some of our researchers. 

Finally, in October 2012, REWEST organized the Symposium "Literature and Ecology: An Introduction to Ecocriticism." Alicia Puleo and Carmen Valero were invited to take part and their contributions were highly appreciated by an avid audience ready to learn and discuss.

REWEST Research group (... and our new blog)

If you came this far, you already know that REWEST is a project that explores the evolution of the American literary West in the 21st century, focusing on the major features of recent writing set in this region. Now, we have a new toy. This time our brand-new blog will be very useful if you want to know about our activities. Any other information, regarding the members of this group and our academic output, will be renewed in our original website that you can still keep visiting: rewest website.

Welcome then and feel free to participate, submit any comments you have: feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Si llegasteis hasta aquí, probablemente sea porque ya conocéis qué (o quiénes somos) es REWEST, un proyecto que estudia la evolución de la literatura del Oeste Norteamericano en el siglo XXI en relación con la literatura contemporánea que se sitúa en esta región. Ahora, podéis disfrutar de nuestra nueva incorporación al proyecto: un blog que resultará de gran utilidad para renovar los contenidos y manteneros al día sobre nuestras actividades. El resto de la información, la que se refiera a los miembros del grupo y a nuestro rendimiento académico, seguirá renovándose en la página oficial del grupo que podéis seguir visitando, simplemente con pinchar aquí: página de rewest.