Everett Studies is at a key stage of its development,
and 2024 represents a pivotal moment in Percival Everett’s
career generally – as shown by the publication of his
24th novel James by major publishing houses, and the
Academy Award and BAFTA wins of American Fiction,
which is an adaptation of his 2001 novel Erasure. The
first two Everett monographs were also published in
2019 and 2020 (written by the American scholars
Derek C. Maus and Anthony Stewart), and in 2021
and 2022 Everett was a Pulitzer Prize and Booker
Prize finalist. In British academia, Everett has been
historically underappreciated and underdiscussed
despite his increasing reputation elsewhere or in other
sectors.

This conference will take place on Friday the 6th of
December 2024 at King’s College London, with support
from the British Association for American Studies.
It seeks to accelerate the growing research interest in
Everett’s work in the UK through collaboration with
international scholars (particularly from the US and
France) who have worked on or taught Everett for
decades. Plans for the event include an “Everett in
Context” roundtable featuring a French translator
of Everett’s work (Anne-Laure Tissut), a publisher
of his work from Influx Press (Kit Caless), and a
documentary filmmaker who has directed a film about
him (Alexandre Westphal). The event will also include
a cinema screening of this documentary – L’écrivain et
son double – as well as a keynote lecture from a guest
speaker.

This event invites 250-word abstract submissions for
20-minute individual paper presentations by students
and scholars at all career stages, as well as full panel
submissions of three 20-minute papers. Postgraduate
and early-career researchers are particularly encouraged
to submit. Papers are welcome in traditional and new
or innovative formats. Abstracts will be gladly received
on, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Everett’s novels, short stories, poetry, or children’s
book and the topics of academia, autofiction,
metafiction, or (post-)postmodernism
• Everett’s literary work and the detective, western,
Greek myth, epistolary, or Choose Your Own
Adventure genres
• Everett’s work and humour, comedy, parody, or
pastiche
• The subjects of race, inequality, or history in
Everett’s work
• James and its position within Everett’s oeuvre
• Everett alongside other contemporary American
authors, such as Paul Beatty, Ben Lerner, George
Saunders, Brandon Taylor, David Foster Wallace,
Jesmyn Ward, and Colson Whitehead
• Everett’s work in interdisciplinary contexts,
alongside fields such as Film and Television Studies
or Philosophy
• American Fiction or the unmade adaptation of
Everett’s 1983 novel Suder
• Everett’s paintings or other non-literary work

 

250-word abstracts and 75-word bios (with an additional 150-word panel description if submitting as
a full panel) should be sent in the body of an email to george.kowalik@kcl.ac.uk.
Abstract deadline: 9th of August. Confirmation of conference programme: 6th of September.