FORTHCOMING CONFERENCE – Agatha Christie: Hidden Horizons

Tomorrow, 19 September, submissions will open for Agatha Christie: Hidden Horizons, or, #Agatha2015! A section of this website will be given over accordingly. We have three very distinguished – and totally different – key-note speakers and a whole host of activities to make this an extra-special conference.

Agatha Christie: Crime, Culture, Celebrity was such a success in 2014, that delegates demanded a bigger, better experience in 2015. I’ll be confirming more during my talk, Agatha Christie in the University, as part of the International Agatha Christie Festival tomorrow. For now, here is the first Call for Papers.

Call For Papers

AGATHA CHRISTIE: HIDDEN HORIZONS

A two-day conference at the University of Exeter

13-14 April 2015

 Confirmed Keynote:

SOPHIE HANNAH Author of The Monogram Murders

Author of over eighty mystery novels, Agatha Christie was the best-selling writer of the twentieth century. Her detectives

Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are iconic and her play The Mousetrap is the longest-running in history.

Since her death in 1976, Christie’s popularity has only increased, and her legacy has been interpreted in various, sometimes surprising new ways. In addition, new perspectives on the Queen of Crime’s life and works have opened up. As her grandson, Mathew Prichard, said in 2014, ‘Agatha Christie is so much more than an author.’

Agatha Christie: Hidden Horizons will unite researchers across the humanities with scholars and enthusiasts for an exploration of the Agatha Christie phenomenon. In addition to research presentations, the events will feature three keynote speakers and a trip to the theatre, courtesy of the Exeter Little Theatre Company.

Proposals are invited for twenty-minute papers. Possible themes include, but are by no means limited to:

• Teaching popular fiction
• New or alternative readings
• Creative interpretations
• Agatha Christie and archaeology
• Mary Westmacott
• Christie on Stage
• Genre and identity
• Gender and sexuality
• Film, television, or radio adaptations
• Pastiches, tributes, and continuation projects

Please email an abstract of 250 words with a short biographical note to the conference organisers, Jamie Bernthal and Mia Dormer, at agathachristie@exeter.ac.uk, no later than Friday 28 November. Organisers welcome questions or queries sent to the same address.

#Agatha2015