On my way to the Tampere University of Technology for this year’s ALUS general meeting and mini-symposium. Looking forward to meet up with colleagues from Åbo Akademi, University of Tampere, University of Helsinki, University of Nottingham, University of London, among others.

On the agenda: overview of the latest activities of ALUS; with ao. our recent symposium in Stockholm; upcoming activities, with symposium next February at the University of Essen-Duisburg, and plans for a conference in Ireland later next year. And an overview of our recent publishing activities that have come out of ALUS events, including our latest book Literary Second Cities (Palgrave) and the forthcoming Materiality of Literary Narratives in Urban History (Routledge). We’ll also talk about the new Palgrave series in Literary Urban Studies, which has published its first two volumes. Exciting times for the Associaton for Literary Urban Studies.

Program of the mini-symposium:

14.00-16.00: mini-symposium

‘Urban and rural spaces in the post-Second World War literature of the U.S. South’

Salla Toivola, Comparative Literature, University of Turku

‘The European City and Fantastic Literature during Modernity (19th century narratives)’ Patricia Garcia, Helsinki Collegium, University of Helsinki

‘Maria Edgeworth’s Ormond (1817) from island to country house to commercial metropolis: impressions of worldliness in fictions of development’ Aino Haataja, Åbo Akademi University

‘Heterodox City: Railway Arch Theology in the work of Maurice Davies and Moncure D. Conway’ Peter Jones, Institute of Historical Research, University of London