INNC

INNC Symposium (International Network of Nineteen-Fifties Culture) 

Date: June 19, 2024 

Location: online 

Confirmed keynote speaker: Dr Tamlyn E. Avery, University of Queensland, Australia (author of The Regional Development of the American Bildungsroman, 1900-1950, Edinburgh University Press, 2022) 

The long 1950s in America (c. 1945-67) was an unusually ambiguous moment in which to come of age, a period of immense change, growth, and transformation. The economy was booming, and the general well-being of Americans improved significantly. But at the same time, after the horrors of the Holocaust and World War 2, and with the Cold War brewing in the background, the fifties were also a period of deep apprehension and despair for the future. Perhaps precisely for that reason, the long 1950s was a period in which coming-of-age novels proliferated. From Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar in the early 60s, a new generation of novels struggled with the question of how to develop a self in a society where conformity had become the central norm. This era of post-war prosperity, cultural shifts, and ideological changes had a profound impact on literature, culture, and film.  

For our second INNC symposium, we invite scholars, researchers, and enthusiasts to explore the multifaceted theme of Coming of Age in the long 1950s’ America. We are pleased to announce a call for papers for an online academic symposium that seeks to investigate and celebrate the diverse aspects of the coming-of-age experience in America of the long 1950s (c. 1945-67). We invite interdisciplinary contributions that explore this topic through the lenses of literature, culture, and film. 

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to: 

• the Bildungsroman in 1950s’ American literature 

• coming of age in 1950s’ American film 

• teen culture and subcultures, including the influence of music, fashion, and popular culture on the coming-of-age experience, in literature and film 

• coming of age and gender roles 

• coming of age and LGBTQIA+ 

• coming of age and race/ethnicity 

• coming of age and class 

• rebellion and conformity 

• individualism 

• intermedial representations of coming of age 

• counter-culture/avantgarde 

• social and political developments that shaped coming of age 

Please submit your abstracts by March 31, 2024 to: sanna.melin@univ-nantes.fr 

Notification of Acceptance: early April, 2024. 

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Conference Organizers: 

Annika J. Lindskog, Lund University 

Sanna Melin Schyllert, Nantes University