CFP: SECAC October 21-24, 2015, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Call for Papers, SECAC 2015, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 21-24, 2015
Paper proposals deadline: April 20, 2015. Midnight, EDT
SECAC membership required within 10 days of acceptance

Submit abstracts, maximum of 200 words, via the Paper Proposal Form on SECAC’s website (https://secac.memberclicks.net/index.php?option=com_mc&view=mc&mcid=form_187575)

Traversing Borders: The Flâneur in Eastern Europe and Beyond

The flâneur has usually been envisioned through Baudelaire's “Painter of Modern Life”, with Guys and Manet as key figures, he was considered a 19th-century Parisian walker, an observer, an idler. In the 20th century, the flâneurr has also been a key figure in surrealism. In recent years, however, scholars have questioned whether the flâneur must be male, a dandy, French, solitary, or even ambulatory. As yet, there has been little exploration of flâneurie in European cities east of Paris and Berlin; this study is in its infancy. For this panel, we would like to explore ways in which artists in cities such as Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Krakow, St. Petersburg, Belgrade, Sofia, and Vilna may have acted as flâneurs or made art about the practice of walking the city. As a counterpoint, we would also be interested in papers that consider the existence of flâneurial practice/sensibilities in Pittsburgh, the home of so many Eastern European immigrants, was it possible to be a working-class flâneur there, or did mere survival devour one's energies? Were other residents describable as flâneurs? Could the irascible antebellum Pittsburgh painter David Gilmour Blythe, for example, be considered a flâneur? We invite your imaginative and scholarly proposals.

Session chairs: Kristen Harkness, West Virginia University, and Karla Huebner, Wright State University.

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