ABOUT
One of the unexpected side effects of the digital age has been the revival of poetry as a popular art form. Rupi Kaur’s collection Milk and Honey has become an astonishing worldwide publishing phenomenon, but she is only the most high-profile example of a new wave of poets who have bypassed the traditional routes to success. These poets create poetry that is generally short and places heavy emphasis on inspirational messages, and then use various social media platforms, most notably Instagram, to share their work directly with a reading public. Audiences that have traditionally been resistant to literary work have flocked to these writers, and in a few short years this movement – if indeed it should be classified as a movement – has become enormously popular.
At the same time, the poetry world has seen something of a backlash against these writers, most notably exemplified by Rebecca Watt’s essay “The Cult of the Noble Amateur” (PN Review, 2018). Instapoetry has also been largely snubbed by academia for several reasons, not least that much of the poetry itself is resistant to formal analysis on account of its simplicity of message and lack of formal innovation. Although some collections of Instapoems have achieved great success, most Instapoetry is ephemeral, never intended to leave the Instagram platform, and writers are often adolescent or even younger, untaught and not widely read. The sheer volume of Instapoetry, too, is daunting: #poetsofinstagram alone links to nearly nine million poems and poetic images. There is little critical consensus on how to deal with poetry that relies as much for impact on the language of visual design and hypertext/hashtagging as it does on the actual text of the poem.
This will be the first symposium of its kind devoted to academic discussion of these writings and what their content, appearance and functioning in a digital sharing economy can tell us about the current moment. We welcome proposals on any aspect of #instapoetry, including but certainly not limited to:
Precedents to Instapoetry trends, particularly in popular verse or past literary movements
Therapy cultures and the therapeutic value of #instapoems
Reformulations of race and gender in the #instapoetry feed, particularly given the predominance of young women of colour among prominent Instapoets
Poetry in material cultures (e.g. Victorian tapestry, seaside postcards or greetings cards) and its relationship to instapoetry
Digital humanities approaches to the #instapoetry archive
Analysis of the visual grammar of #instapoems
De-professionalisation of poetic labour in the digital economy
Global #instapoetry examples and their function in local cultures
Tagging culture and poetry sharing
One of our primary aims is to put together the basis for a collection of academic essays on poetry’s interaction with social media. We enthusiastically welcome non-traditional and interdisciplinary approaches. The aim is to open up discussion of this new poetic phenomenon, and we are hoping to have participation from one or more #poetsofinstagram.
Abstracts should be around 250 words, and should include your name, institutional affiliation, and email address. Please send abstracts to instapoetryconference@gmail.com by February 7th, 2020.
If you have any questions, please contact JuEunhae at Jueunhae.Knox@glasgow.ac.uk and/or James via j.mackay@euc.ac.cy.
ORGANIZERS
Get to Know Them
JUEUNHAE KNOX
University of Glasgow
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JAMES MACKAY
European University of Cyprus
SCHEDULE
Plan Your Day
Tuesday 14th July, 13:00-15:00 GMT
SESSION 1
Introduction & Literary Contexts
Tuesday 14th July, 16:00-18:00 GMT
SESSION 2
The Digital Environment
Weds 15th July, 13:00-15:00 GMT
SESSION 3
Instapoetry At/Across Borders
Weds 15th July, 16:00-18:00 GMT
SESSION 4
Intersections of Instapoetry
Thurs 16th July, 18:00-18:30 GMT)
CONCLUDING REMARKS
ORDER OF SESSIONS
Plan Your Day
Tuesday 14th July, 13:00-15:00 GMT
SESSION 1: LITERARY CONTEXTS
Shelby Judge
University of Glasgow
Contemporary Women's Adaptations of Myth for Feminist Purposes: #Instapoetry edition
Astrid DeWaele
KU Leuven
Quite the Rage: Community Construction Through 19th Century-Album Verse and Instapoetry
Keri Thomas
Independent Scholar
The Digital House of Fame: Chaucer and Instagram
JuEunhae Knox
University of Glasgow
Poe(t/m)-tagging: Forking Lightning through Hashtag Hyperlinks
This will be followed by a moderated breakout session in smaller groups to consider questions of literary tradition, aesthetic forebears and the literary merits of instapoetry.
Tuesday 14th July, 16:00-18:00 GMT
SESSION 2: THE DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT
Camilla Holm
Oslo Metropolitan University
Reading the Metadata of Instapoetry
Danai Tselenti
University of Athens
Instagram’s "Applied Poetics": The Greek Instapoetry Landscape
Justin Tonra
National University of Ireland
Social Media Poetics: Traces of Twitter in Alt Lit
Jeneen Naji
Maynooth University
The Posthuman Poetics of Algorithmic Poetry
Ryan Prewitt & Max Accardi
Saint Louis University & Washington University in St. Louis
Poetry-by-Numbers: Exploring the Implications of Machine-Generated Instapoetry
This will be followed by a moderated breakout session in smaller groups to consider digital modes of writing and reading, and the impact of digital landscapes on literature.
Wednesday 15th July, 13:00-15:00 GMT
SESSION 3: INSTAPOETRY AT/ACROSS BORDERS
Yasamin Rezaei
University of Miami
Instapoetry among Iranian Instagram Users
Tanja Grubic
University of Western Ontario
Poetry Beyond Borders: Instapoetry and the Transcendence of National Borders of Literature
Kila van der Starre
Utrecht University
Instapoetry in the Netherlands and Flanders: Online poetry from a National and Global Perspective
Diana Cullell & Noelia Diaz-Vicedo
University of Liverpool; Queen Mary University of London
From Paper to Screen and from Screen to Paper: Spanish Contemporary Poetry in and Beyond Social Media
Eva Ridao
University of Granada
A Poetic Connection Beyond Boundaries: Elvira Sastre
This will be followed by a moderated breakout session in smaller groups to consider the breakdown of linguistic and cultural barriers in instapoetry.
Wednesday 15th July, 16:00-18:00 GMT
SESSION 4: INTERSECTIONS
Maria Carla Sanchez
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Fat, Fly, Brown, and Inspirational: The Pedagogical Lessons of Poetry and Social Media Activism
Amaia Soroa
University of the Basque Country
Writing for Her Homegirls: The Poetry of Yesika Salgado
Laura Gallon
University of Sussex
Genre, Gender and Ethnicity: Instagram's Identity Poetics
Laura Tansley
University of Glasgow
Former Contours: Posts, Pregnancy and Creative Practice
Shweta Khilnani
University of Delhi
The Digital is Personal: Affect, Feminine Identity and Instapoetry
This will be followed by a moderated breakout session in smaller groups to consider instapoetry’s potential for radical recentering of female and minority poets.
Thursday 16th July, 13:00-15:00 GMT
SESSION 5: IMAGE AND BRAND
Zak Bronson and Warren Steele
University of Western Ontario
Algorithmic Poetry: Platform Capitalism and Branding in Rupi Kaur and rh Sin
Melissa Sarikaya
Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen/Nuremberg
How to Be a Successful #instapoet: The Strategies of Instapoets Based on a Case Study of Hollie McNish as a "Sexy", Shocking and Relatable Poet
Eleonora Ravizza
University of Bergamo
Poetry as a Popular Genre: From "pop poetry" to "instapoetry"
Sam McCracken
University of Michigan
Poet as Maker, #Instapoet as Influencer: The (Literal) Weight of the Printed Book
Stephen Allard
Bournemouth University
'Unlikely Heroes: How the 'Underdog Image' has Characterised the Instagram Poetry Movement.'
This will be followed by a moderated breakout session in smaller groups to consider the commercial context and impact of instapoetry, along with questions of authenticity.
Thursday 16th July, 16:00-18:00 GMT
SESSION 6: AFFECT, INTIMACY AND IMAGE
Maria Manning
University College Cork
Performing Life, Performing Poetry: Instapoetry and the Self
Megan Jewell
Case Western Reserve University
The Unimaginable Afterlife of a Forgotten Genre: Women's Instapoetics and the Sentimental Keepsake
Yara Gawrieh
Instapoetry Practitioner
The Confessional Voice of The Female Poet and The Rise of 'Insta-Poetry'
Briony Hughes
Royal Holloway, University of London
A Personal Utterance: The Selfie, Tweet and Status as 21st Century Digital Lyric
Millicent Lovelock
University of Manchester
Healing is Everyday Work: Instapoetry, Intimate Publics, and the Language of Self-Help
James Mackay
European University Cyprus
What's the Carbon Footprint of a Poem? Reading #poetsofinstagram Through an Ecological Lens
This will be followed by a moderated breakout session in smaller groups to consider the affect of instapoetry and its potential as a healing practice.
Thurs 16th July, 13:00-15:00 GMT
SESSION 5
Image and Brand
Thurs 16th July, 16:00-18:00 GMT)
SESSION 6
Affect, Intimacy and Image
