(Anti-)Hybridity and Narration: Human/Non-Human Relations in Fiction and Literary Theory

Interdisciplinary Conference, March 21–23, 2024 @ LMU Munich

Graduate School Language and Literature (Class of Literature)

Conventional notions about the ontological boundaries between machines, humans, animals, and nature appear to be increasingly insufficient in our complex world and urge us to reconsider the fraught relation between humans and non-humans. Literature emerges as a rich site for this rethinking: Since antiquity, hybrid creatures and generic metamorphoses have been popular literary topoi, interrogating the seemingly fixed boundaries between the human and the non-human. While baroque scholars denounced hybrid literary genres as impure “chimeras,” romantic poets actively pursued the fusion of diverse literary and non-literary genres. The transcendence of traditional genre categories was further radicalized in the Modernist and avant-garde period.

The scholarly debate on hybridity has been characterized by a tension between subjectivist and objectivist stances, which recent theories have tried to deconstruct. While theories of hybridity tend to devalue the distinction between human and non-human dimensions, anti-hybridist approaches argue for the methodological necessity of generic categories.

This conference seeks to inquire how human/non-human relations are negotiated in fictional representations: What role does historical context play in fictional narrations which deal with (anti-)hybridization and human/non-human relations? Which literary strategies are employed in representing human/non-human relations? In what way is (anti-)hybridity contested or celebrated in literary fiction? How do rhetorical tropes (prosopopoeia, metaphors, metonymy, personification, and objectification) contribute to strategies of (anti-)hybridization? Might literary genres reflect the anxiety and exhilaration associated with (im)purity?

The conference will take place in person at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich; participation is free of charge. Unfortunately, virtual participation is not possible, and we cannot offer speakers any financial support for travel or accommodation costs. We welcome junior scholars (doctoral candidates, postdocs, early career researchers) to explore (anti-)hybridity within literary and media studies as well as from theoretical perspectives. Please send abstracts for 25-minute papers in English (~250 words) along with a short bio note to hybridity-conference@lrz.uni-muenchen.de by October 1, 2023.

For more information and the full call for papers, please visit: https://www.prolit.uni-muenchen.de/projekte/antihybridityandnarration/index.html

Kind regards,

the Organizing Team 

Steph Berens, Jorge Ernesto Centeno Vilca, Mohamed Gouffe-Dedji, Simone Guidetti, Michael Lorper, Marlene Reich, Tina Werner