‘Retelling Tales' is part of our everyday lives. From Shakespeare's ‘theft' of Arthur Brooke's The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet to Baz Luhrmann's film with Leonardo DiCaprio, to the star-crossed lovers on the streets of Walford in EastEnders, the revisiting of canonical texts has been major factor in Western culture. Is this homage or plagiarism? Is it a sign of cultural exhaustion or creative renewal? Is it evidence of the intertextual liquidity that flows through all texts? Why do some stories refuse to die, or come back horribly changed, like Frankenstein's creature?

The overall focus of our conference is literary, but we welcome contributions from all areas of the Arts and Humanities and want to encourage an atmosphere of lively, open discussion. Papers are invited on the themes of ‘Rewriting and Retelling' and might include but are not limited to:

 
WRITING AS RIGHTING
MYTHS AND MYTHOLOGIES
ADAPTATIONS, ‘IMITATIONS' AND PERMUTATIONS
THE FILM OF THE BOOK OF THE FILM
GRAPHIC NOVELS
TALES FROM THE HYPER-TEXT
RE-THINKING CRITICS AND CRITICISM
FAIRYTALES
ORAL CULTURE
FILM STUDIES
HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
TRANSLATION
ART

We are looking for submissions from fellow postgraduate students and academics at the start of their careers. Please send abstracts of 250-300 words for a 20 minute presentation plus brief biographical details to Elizabeth Fuller, Jonathan Maxwell, and Brian Rock at retellingtales@stir.ac.uk by Friday 16 th March 2007

Deadline for conference registration, whether presenting a paper or attending, is Friday 27 th April, 2007