Telling the truth? Authorship, audiences and authenticity across discourse, texts and narratives

This online conference explores the role played by “telling the truth” across literature and non-literary discourses, both contemporary and historical. Drawing on a range of analytical approaches from across linguistics, literature, creative writing and translation studies, contributions to the event will focus not only on truth as epistemic accuracy but as a relational function, a premise for action, an ideological tool, an ethical act, a self- and other-positioning resource, an organisational device, and a mechanism of persuasion and control. The conference likewise proposes to examine how the nature and circulation of truth-claims across languages, literature and discourses are liable to be impacted by shifting technologies and media ecologies. It explores how authorship and authority shape what counts as truth and its consequences across a variety of circumstances and time periods. It also invites an evaluation of the relationship between authority and authenticity, or the shift from notions of factual certainty to concepts of lived experience, personal sincerity, and emotional truth. Finally, it touches upon the novelty of the contemporary ‘post-truth' crisis, highlighting a long history of unreliable narration, scepticism, conspiracy theory, falsehood, misinformation and countercultures, reconceptualising post-truth as an inherent part of the human condition whilst seeking to understand its twenty-first century realisation. We welcome submissions that engage with a wide range of relevant issues across disciplines including: discursive issues of dis- and misinformation // political and historical storytelling // ideological bias // all forms of literature and creative writing, both fiction and non-fiction, written and performed // literary mimesis // unreliability in narration (both fictional and political) // ‘fictionality' as an aspect of art // everyday and social media narratives // identity play // authenticity on social media // moral and affective positioning across contexts // online misinformation and polarisation // Wikipedia and crowdsourcing // authorship and forensic linguistics // truthfulness and/or bias in translation and interpreting, pseudotranslations // truth in AI contexts // narrative, creativity and authenticity // authority and epistemic certainty // negotiating truth claims in mediated and face-to-face interaction // evidentiality across languages // legal, philosophical and historical discussions of truth.

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