Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George Athas" <gathas AT hotkey.net.au>]

The notice below has been passed on to the list by the moderators. Please 
direct any inquiries to the conference organisers.

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Conference notice and call for papers

On 16th-17th December 2005 a conference will be held in University College
London with the title "Framing Plots: the Grammar of Ancient Near Eastern
Narratives". The aim of the conference is to provide a forum in which
ancient Near Eastern literatures (including Egypt) from the earliest times
to late antiquity may be examined with the analytic tools of linguistics
(especially discourse analysis), narratology, literary criticism, and
related disciplines.
  'The grammar of narrative' has a twofold import, literal and
metaphorical. In the literal sense, the focus is on matching grammatical
patterns with the unfolding of the story, and detecting how grammar was
used to achieve desired narrative effects. In the metaphorical sense, the
focus is how narratives were assembled: how plots were structured, what
constraints were placed on language and topoi, what strategies were
employed to enrich the narrative.
  Contributions are invited which throw light on these, and related topics.
They may concentrate on single or multiple literary works. Contributions
from outside the field of Near Eastern studies (e.g. Classics and Medieval
literatures) will also be greatly valued if they illustrate methodologies
with a rewarding applicability to ancient Near Eastern literatures. Papers
may last twenty minutes, with ten for discussion, or forty minutes, with
twenty for discussion. Poster presentations are also welcome. Contributions
should be submitted, or enquiries made, to
plots.conference AT oriental.cam.ac.uk.
  We are delighted to announce the participation of several distinguished
scholars as keynote speakers. A full listing, including titles and (in due
course) abstracts, may be found on the Conference website:
www.oriental.cam.ac.uk/FramingPlots.
  It is expected that (revised versions of) the papers will be published in
a refereed volume, to be offered in the first instance to UCL Press.
  The cost of attendance is £15, £5 for students and the unwaged. Further
details about the conference, including (in due course) instructions for
registration, may again be found at www.oriental.cam.ac.uk/FramingPlots.

The organisers:

John Tait
Yvette Balbaligo
Fredrik Hagen
Wendy Monkhouse
Kathryn Piquette
Martin Worthington