Call for Papers - The Ageless Agatha Christie

The Ageless Agatha Christie: Adaptations and Afterlives

A One-Day Conference at the University of Exeter, Monday 20^th June 2016

Confirmed Keynote Speakers

Sophie Hannah, author of Hercule Poirot mysteries

Dr Mark Aldridge, Southampton Solent University

When Agatha Christie died in 1976, she was the acknowledged Queen of Crime. The bestselling novelist and most successful playwright of the twentieth century, she created the immortal detectives Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Forty years after her death, her play The Mousetrap is in its seventh decade in London’s West End, while the BBC’s And Then There Were None was the most viewed television drama on Boxing Day 2015. With continuation novels, apps and video games, and big screen adaptations forthcoming, the Christie brand continues to adapt and evolve.

This conference will consider Agatha Christie in the context of adaptations and afterlives. We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers relating to this theme in any way. Suggested topics include but are not limited to:

Christie in the 21^st century

Continuation and tribute novels

Fandom, fanfiction, and fan studies

Stage, Screen, or Radio legacy

The art of adapting

Christie as a fictional character

Graphic novels

New strategies, new readers

Politics and globality

LGBTQ+ readings and appropriations

Detective fiction today

Translation

National identity and heritage

Rediscovery and re-evaluation

Please email abstracts of around 200 words to the organisers Dr Jamie Bernthal and Mia Dormer, at agathachristieconference@gmail.com no later than Monday 29^th February 2016. We also invite unorthodox or creative approaches to the theme.

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