cfp.english.upenn.edu

This proposed collection of essays seeks to address the interplay between nationalism (or nationalisms) and cultural memory in a range of texts for or about young people, including books, periodicals, films, television series, games, tourism sites, websites, and archives. The overall collection will be concerned with the ways in which cultural memory is shaped, contested, forgotten, recovered, and (re)circulated, sometimes in opposition to dominant national narratives, featuring young characters and/or targeting young readers who are often assumed not to possess any prior cultural memory. Submissions that examine the circulation of such texts across national borders are particularly welcomed.
Possible topics include:

• Texts for children and/vs. texts for adults (as well as crossover texts);

• Transnational co-productions or co-publishing ventures;

• Textual transformations (adaptations, translations, abridgments, retellings, parodies, fan/slash fictions, authorized or unauthorized sequels and prequels);

• Depictions of the past and the future (including history/biography, revisionist histories, science fiction and futurism);

• The circulation of colonial and postcolonial discourses (from empire to colony, or from former colony back to empire);

• Depictions of war and conflict, particularly contentious historical and political conflicts;

• The role of food, dress, and festival in the transmission of cultural memory;

• The cultural production of texts, including branding, genre, and assumptions about gender, race, class, sexuality, religion, and nationality;

• Reception of texts, either by critics/scholars or by young people.

The collection of essays will be edited by Benjamin Lefebvre, a Leverhulme Visiting Fellow at the University of Worcester. Deadline for 200-word abstracts and bionote: 15 November 2009. Deadline for 20- to 25-page chapters: 1 February 2010. Please direct abstracts to the editor by e-mail: ben@roomofbensown.net. Authors whose work is selected for inclusion in the volume will be invited to present part of their work in progress at a one-day symposium to be held at the University of Worcester in April 2010. Queries are welcomed at any time.

--
Benjamin Lefebvre, Ph.D.
Leverhulme Visiting Fellow
International Centre for Research in Children's Literature, Literacy and Creativity
University of Worcester
Worcester, Worcestershire, UK
--
http://roomofbensown.net/

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Recent Jewish American Literature and Trauma

Papers are invited for a proposed panel at the 2010 ALA Conference in San Francisco (May 27-30, 2010).

Much academic research has already been devoted to the problematic representation – in  literature, film, and other forms of art – of  primary traumatic experiences such as genocides or personal moments of crisis. Critics have also focused on the so-called inherited, transmitted, intergenerational, or transgenerational traumas that affect the second generation after the disaster. In the context of Jewish American literature, the second generation after the Shoah is represented by well-known authors such as Art Spiegelman, Melvin Jules Bukiet, and Thane Rosenbaum. Few critics have considered, however, exactly how – or whether – that historical burden also casts its long shadow over the subsequent generations. This panel would therefore like to investigate the ways in which the legacy of the Holocaust (possibly in conjunction with other traumata) is represented in the literary work of third and fourth generation Jewish American authors after the Shoah, writers such as Michael Chabon, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Judy Budnitz, Nathan Englander, Dara Horn, Joseph Skibell, Aryeh Lev Stollman, Ehud Havazelet, and others.

Please send an abstract of 250 to 300 words, together with a brief CV, to Philippe.Codde@ugent.be by November 27, 2009. Make sure to mention all necessary contact information, as well as any need for audio-visual equipment. Papers should be approximately 20 minutes.

This student-initiated conference aims to invoke the images of individuals and/in their communities, how they develop, focusing on the aspects of contemporary culture and society that influence this development.The discussions addressed involve concepts of individualism and self, work with identity within a community / social network: How is one defined based on (or in spite of) their surroundings? How do authoritarian governments impact current society and memory? How does the current economic situation impact how citizens—individuals and communities—act?

What molds the individual that inhabits these spaces? Movies and novels, the songs that play on the radio, the commercials and advertisements we see, all impact us. This environment can ignore and reject certain members, resulting in a marginalized subject. How does memory and politics influence developing, postcolonial countries living after authoritarian governments? In what ways do these influences manifest themselves in contemporary Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Cultures? What institutions determine the development of a subject and the subject’s identity? How do they do this? Is there a failed attempt at control or guidance? Can some sense of a subject be pinpointed, represented in the visual or written arts?

We strongly encourage submissions proposing transnational views that treat the contemporary subject as highly mobile and changing. We encourage submissions from students and faculty alike: papers, visual art, and short performance pieces. 

Honorary Poet: Guillermo Rebollo-Gil (Puerto Rico)

Keynote Speaker: TBA

For submission information visit: euyomeconference.blogspot.com or email euyomeconference@googlegroups.com.

Biomapping or biocolonizing?

Indigenousidentities and scientific research in the 21st century

Universityof Savoie (Chambéry) France

January 28-30,2010

Though, from a positivist point of view,scientific research represents the cornerstone of progress, it is undeniablethat such research has often been used to support a particular policy orideology. For example, during the colonization of the United States, Canada,Australiaand New-Zealand, physical anthropology (and in particular craniometry) was usedto show the inferiority of indigenous peoples and, thereby, justify theirdomination or annihilation. For this reason, and also for many others,indigenous peoples have looked on such research with suspicion, if not outrighthostility.

These reactions are still in evidence today asnew scientific studies are focusing once again on indigenous peoples. In thefield of genetics, decoding human DNA has made it possible to look atgroup-specific variations around the globe. While the first projects were centeredon mainstream populations of European origins, Luca Cavalli-Sforza’s call for amultiethnic approach focusing on “human diversity” and on “clues to theevolution of our species” (Genomics,Volume 11, Issue 2, October 1991) opened up the study to non-mainstream groups,and especially indigenous peoples.

While scientists were debating the origins ofthe Australian Aborigines, the Amerindians, or the Maoris (among others),indigenous peoples gathered in the International Working Group on IndigenousPopulations (WGIP) under the auspices of the United Nations in order to try toprotect their rights. This led to the drafting of the Declaration on the Rightsof Indigenous Peoples which, interestingly enough, the aforementioned countriesstrongly opposed (though Australiahas recently indicated its support for the Declaration).

Today many research groups and institutionshave understood that testing indigenous peoples to trace the migrations oftheir ancestors, for example, could generate fierce opposition among those whomay feel, once more, objectified. Thus, they have set up ethics committees todeal with such issues, and have placed greater emphasis on the necessity fordialogue with the communities that are the focus of such studies. However,while subsequent projects (such as ProjectGenographic) have taken pains to explain that they had no part ingovernment policies, would keep the data confidential, and would not use theDNA for commercial purposes, many indigenous groups still refuse to be tested.

The present conference seeks to explore thereaction of indigenous peoples to recent scientific research such as the HumanGenome Diversity Project or more specific studies on indigenous populations.Papers may focus on case studies – groups, nations or tribes who agree orrefuse to provide samples of their DNA for testing, for example. They may alsolook at opposition to scientific research from several angles: the clashbetween supposedly “hard” science and belief systems opposed to research on thehuman body, the often unspoken fear that genetic testing might uncover mixedorigins and thus lead to the loss of identification as an indigenous person orgroup, the refusal of genetic determinism, the belief that identity goes beyondthe merely scientific fact of DNA and is not to be questioned by outsiders –whether scientists or politicians – or the use of scientific knowledge for thepurpose of subjugation or domination throughout modern history. Finally, theymay inquire into the relationship between scientific or institutional bodiesthemselves and the indigenous populations being studied in order to determinehow dialogue is established, impaired or even severed.

Conference language will be English

Selectedcontributions will be considered for rewriting as book chapters

Email: draysha@iitm.ac.in

essaare@yahoo.com

Aysha Iqbal Viswamohan did her MA, MPhil (Literature) and PhD on the works of Arthur Miller. She has a Post Graduate Diploma in Teaching English and MPhil (English Language Teaching) from Central Institute of English & Foreign Languages, Hyderabad, India. She did her post-doctoral studies on Canadian cinema from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. She won the Ray Tongue Scholarship (UK) in 2005 and Canadian Faculty Enrichment Fellowship (2009).

She has over thirty publications in Indian and international journals. Her books include: Arthur Miller: The Dramatist & His Universe and It Happens Like This: a novella published by Writers Workshop, Kolkata. Her forthcoming book is City in Contemporary Indian Cinema to be published by Edwin Mellen Press, USA. She recently organized Chennai International Screenwriting Workshop, in association with actor Kamal Haasan, at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Her teaching and writing interests are Film Studies, Popular Culture, Drama and Contemporary Novels. She works as Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India.

Interdisciplinary Arts Conference 2010 

HOPE

Uncertainty, Pluralism, and Innovation

CALL FOR PAPERS

We invite submissions on the topic of interest from all Faculty of Arts
students, at both the Undergraduate and Graduate levels. Some related
topics may be, but are not limited to:

Human Rights; Global Issues; Philosophy; Religion and Culture; The Environment; Politics; Psychology; Economics; Multiculturalsim; Visual Culture and Media; Academia

To be held on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Deadline for abstracts, artwork and photography is JANUARY 15th, 2010. Please submit to r.c.executive@gmail.com.  For more details please visit our website at www.religionandculturesociety.com.

Hosted By: Religion & Culture Society, Wilfrid Laurier University

Biomapping or biocolonizing?

Indigenousidentities and scientific research in the 21st century

Universityof Savoie (Chambéry) France

January 28-30,2010

Though, from a positivist point of view,scientific research represents the cornerstone of progress, it is undeniablethat such research has often been used to support a particular policy orideology. For example, during the colonization of the United States, Canada,Australiaand New-Zealand, physical anthropology (and in particular craniometry) was usedto show the inferiority of indigenous peoples and, thereby, justify theirdomination or annihilation. For this reason, and also for many others,indigenous peoples have looked on such research with suspicion, if not outrighthostility.

These reactions are still in evidence today asnew scientific studies are focusing once again on indigenous peoples. In thefield of genetics, decoding human DNA has made it possible to look atgroup-specific variations around the globe. While the first projects were centeredon mainstream populations of European origins, Luca Cavalli-Sforza’s call for amultiethnic approach focusing on “human diversity” and on “clues to theevolution of our species” (Genomics,Volume 11, Issue 2, October 1991) opened up the study to non-mainstream groups,and especially indigenous peoples.

While scientists were debating the origins ofthe Australian Aborigines, the Amerindians, or the Maoris (among others),indigenous peoples gathered in the International Working Group on IndigenousPopulations (WGIP) under the auspices of the United Nations in order to try toprotect their rights. This led to the drafting of the Declaration on the Rightsof Indigenous Peoples which, interestingly enough, the aforementioned countriesstrongly opposed (though Australiahas recently indicated its support for the Declaration).

Today many research groups and institutionshave understood that testing indigenous peoples to trace the migrations oftheir ancestors, for example, could generate fierce opposition among those whomay feel, once more, objectified. Thus, they have set up ethics committees todeal with such issues, and have placed greater emphasis on the necessity fordialogue with the communities that are the focus of such studies. However,while subsequent projects (such as ProjectGenographic) have taken pains to explain that they had no part ingovernment policies, would keep the data confidential, and would not use theDNA for commercial purposes, many indigenous groups still refuse to be tested.

The present conference seeks to explore thereaction of indigenous peoples to recent scientific research such as the HumanGenome Diversity Project or more specific studies on indigenous populations.Papers may focus on case studies – groups, nations or tribes who agree orrefuse to provide samples of their DNA for testing, for example. They may alsolook at opposition to scientific research from several angles: the clashbetween supposedly “hard” science and belief systems opposed to research on thehuman body, the often unspoken fear that genetic testing might uncover mixedorigins and thus lead to the loss of identification as an indigenous person orgroup, the refusal of genetic determinism, the belief that identity goes beyondthe merely scientific fact of DNA and is not to be questioned by outsiders –whether scientists or politicians – or the use of scientific knowledge for thepurpose of subjugation or domination throughout modern history. Finally, theymay inquire into the relationship between scientific or institutional bodiesthemselves and the indigenous populations being studied in order to determinehow dialogue is established, impaired or even severed.

Conference language will be English

Selectedcontributions will be considered for rewriting as book chapters

Université de Savoie,Chambéry, France

Laboratoire LLS (Langages,Littératures, Sociétés - Équipe d'accueil 3706)

Cluster 14 - RégionRhône-Alpes

Contact:

Susanne Berthier (University of Savoie, France)susanne.berthier@univ-savoie.fr

Sandrine Tolazzi (University of Grenoble, France)sandrine.tolazzi@u-grenoble3.fr

Sheila Whittick (University of Grenoble, France)sheila.whittick@u-grenoble3.fr

Please send a 250-word abstract to theorganizers. Deadline for proposals: November 15, 2009.

Acceptations will be sent November 30, 2009

Papers must not take longer than 20 minutes.

This CFP is for a panel at the 2010 American Literature Association conference, to be held May 27-30, 2010, in San Francisco, California.

Kate Chopin in Other Media.  Although there has been significant scholarly attention paid to the literature of Kate Chopin, we are seeking papers or presentations that focus on Kate Chopin in other, less conventional, media, such as films or videos, stories or lore about Kate Chopin, or Kate Chopin in the blogosphere. We encourage innovative proposals. Please submit a 200/250-word abstract, as well as academic affiliation, to Kathleen Nigro at nigrok@umsl.edu <mailto:nigrok@umsl.edu> , by 08 January 2010. Requests for audio-visual equipment must accompany your proposal.

Call for Papers

The H.D. International Society invites papers to be delivered at a panel at the American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco, May 27-30, 2010.  Papers are sought that address any aspect of H.D.’s writing or life.

Please send abstracts of 250-500 words by January 15 to Annette Debo (adebo@wcu.edu) and Lara Vetter (lvetter@uncc.edu).

Annette Debo

Co-Chair of the H.D. International Society &

            Associate Professor, Department of English

Western Carolina University

Lara Vetter

Co-Chair of the H.D. International Society &

            Assistant Professor, Department of English

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

3rd Global Conference

Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, Ideas

Thursday 6th May – Saturday 8th May 2010

Prague, Czech Republic

Call for Papers

Following last year’s successful second conference, the Intellectuals:
Knowledge, Power, Ideas Project will hold its Third Annual Conference in
Prague in May 2010. The conference is a keystone of the ’Intellectuals’
Inter-Disciplinary.Net project that seeks to explore the role,
character, nature and place of intellectuals and intellectual work in
contemporary society.

This conference seeks to explore the role, character, nature and place
of intellectuals and intellectual work in contemporary society. Whilst
the ‘intellectual’ emerges as a particular category with the development
of modernity, the ‘knowledgeable’ and knowledge producers have been an
important historical agent and social actor since the early Greek
philosophers, and knowledge production, whether religious, scientific or
philosophical, has been important in shaping social, political, economic
and cultural change. Intellectuals and the knowledge they produce have
been subject to competing representations: from an ‘elect’ producing
knowledge for its own sake to different forms of philosopher king,
servant of the state or dissenting movement intellectuals connecting
politically with change in the social world. In contemporary ‘knowledge’
societies, much of the focus on the intellectual as a ‘public’ figure,
residing within the media intelligentsia or institutions of higher
learning, but competing theories of intellectuals and their work
identify elitist, meritocratic and radical alternatives about who
intellectuals are, what they do, how they are connected to and divided
from other social institutions, and why we understand them the way we do.

The Project underpinning this inaugural conference seeks to build, by
annual conferences and network activity, both an evidenced and critical
understanding of the intellectual and intellectual work in the past and
a critical understanding of intellectuals and intellectual work in the
present, and its prospects for the future. In doing so, it recognises
that the interdisciplinary basis of such an analysis will take in the
fields of cultural studies, education studies (with a particular focus
on higher education), history, literature, philosophy, politics,
sociology, social theory and open avenues to wider and more diverse
disciplinary connections, and the project welcomes interdisciplinary
explorations.

This year we wish to particularly encourage papers around two themes:

Intellectuals and the End of the Academy

Traditionally, the academy has been the fulcrum of intellectual
endeavour, but the massification, commodification and vocationalisation
of higher education with an overarching instrumentality to the way in
which academic work is being shaped towards employment and economy may
well bring a final separation of ‘academy’ as an idea and a set of
values and the University and research institute system and the dominant
sites of knowledge production. How should we understand the role of
intellectuals in this transformation? Are academic values and freedoms
dying? Is this a new crisis or symptomatic of past crises or the real
face of the academy beneath lofty rhetoric? How will this change
knowledge production, intellectual work and the intellectual as a
subject? How should intellectuals respond and what alternatives are there?

Intellectuals after the Cultural Turn

With the ‘cultural turn’ now a feature of intellectual history and its
promotion of inter-disciplinary practice for intellectuals across the
arts and humanities and social sciences firmly established, how do we
look back of the nature of the changes that it brought? Has it
encouraged a frivolous post-modern disregard for the intellectual rigour
of disciplinary knowledge and particular theoretical approaches to study
or has it been a surface layer of creativity atop deep and persistent
and entrenched disciplinary bodies? Has it encouraged a greater sense of
deep engagement with the experiential in social life or has analysis
become superficial and self-absorbed as intellectuals write for
intellectuals? How has the cultural turn related to the rise of a media
and culturally saturated society and how has that impacted on the
intellectual? Has the cultural turn, however much it has transformed
bodies of knowledge, been the means by which intellectuals’ structures,
processes of engagement and practices have remained more continuous than
changed?

Some indicative themes are suggested below to indicate the types of
issues that might be addressed in conference papers and workshops.

A. History, the Intellectual and Intellectual Work.

How do we understand intellectuals and intellectual work in the past?
What relationships characterised the categorisation, role, nature and
place of intellectuals within society and social institutions in the
past? How have the roles, natures and places of intellectuals changed
through history? How have we come to understand the intellectual both
before and after that particular identification emerged within the onset
of the enlightenment project and modernity? What different models or
characterisations of the intellectual emerge historically and how
persuasive are they? What do historical understandings of the
intellectual tell us about the intellectual today?

B. Intellectuals and their Troubling Relationship to Knowledge.

What is knowledge? Is it a commodity, ‘mere’ information or something
more intrinsically apart from the production of information? What, if
anything, is the difference between knowledge and information? What
different relationships does the intellectual have with knowledge and
how do we understand them? What is the place of various types of
credentials in contemporary society and how does that relate to
intellectual status and intellectual work? To what extent is knowledge
only understood within the social context of its production and to what
extent has it a universal or divorced from social context?

C. Intellectuals and the Knowledge Society

How has the intellectual changed in their role, character and place in
the knowledge society? How have the internet and ICT’s changed the way
intellectuals work and intellectual work is produced, distributed and
exchanged? How has the knowledge society changed our understanding of
the intellectual in society? Have we moved from the primacy of the mode
of production to the primacy of the mode of information?

D. Public Intellectuals and the Intellectual in Public and Political Life.

What is a public intellectual and how is a public intellectual
distinguished from other intellectuals and knowledge producers? What
roles and places do public intellectuals have in past and contemporary
societies? Are intellectuals and is intellectual work always political?
What political and public roles do intellectuals play?

E. Intellectuals and Cultural Life.

How have intellectuals impacted on cultural life, in shaping everyday
experience, providing frameworks for understanding and producing
cultural enrichment? In what ways have intellectuals played a role in
shaping the cultural milieu? What is the relationship between the
intellectual and the artist or producer of cultural knowledge and
products? What is the relationship between intellectuals and the aesthetic?

F. Intellectuals and the Development of Bodies of Knowledge.

How do intellectuals produce and create knowledge? How should we
understand the processes of knowledge production and creation as social
and political and well as research processes? How should we understand
notions of discovery, exploration and speaking truth in the context of
critical perspectives on knowledge creation? How have particular bodies
of knowledge developed historically and come to play determining roles
in social, cultural, political and economic change?

These are intended as illustrative themes and proposals on related areas
are encouraged. Panel proposals, workshops and joint presentations are
also welcome. The conference aims to bring together people from
different areas, disciplines, professions and interests to share ideas
and explore questions in a way that is innovative and exciting.

Papers will also be considered on any related theme.

300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 27th November 2009. If
an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be
submitted by Friday 19th March 2010.

300 word abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising
Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the
following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e)
body of abstract.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes
and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold,
italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper
proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you
should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in
cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic
route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Paul Reynolds

Reader in Sociology and Social Philosophy

Edge Hill University, Lancashire

United Kingdom

E-mail: prr@inter-disciplinary.net

Rob Fisher

Network Founder and Leader

Inter-Disciplinary.Net

Freeland, Oxfordshire,

United Kingdom

E-mail: ikp3@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Critical Issues programme of research
projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and
interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are
innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at the
conference will be eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook.  Selected
papers may be developed for publication in a themed hard copy volume(s).

For further details about the project please visit:

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/transformations/intellectuals-knowledge-power/

For further details about the conference please visit:

http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/transformations/intellectuals-knowledge-power/call-for-papers/

STUDIES IN DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHIESTHE EDITOR OF A COLLECTION ON STUDIES IN DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHIES SEEKS QUALITY PAPERS ON THE FOLLOWING RELATED SUB-THEMES:DALIT AUTOBIORPHY AS A LITERARY GENREDALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY AS A COLLECTIVE NARRATIVEDALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERARY THEORYDALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND AESTHETICSSTUDIES OF INDIVIDUAL DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHIESCOMPARATIVE STUDY OF DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHIESCOMPARATIVE STUDY OF DALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY WITH THOSE OF OTHER OPPRESSED SECTIONS LIKE RACE EtcDALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY VIS-A-VIS MAINSTREAM AUTOBIOGRAPHYDALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGEDALIT AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND ORAL TRADITIONDALIT FEMINISM AND AUTOBIOGRAPHYDALIT IDENTITY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY Papers should be between 3,000-7,000 words in the latest MLA format. Full papers will be due by 01 January 2010. Send your articles with Bio to
kpku62@gmail.comProf K. Purushotham Department of English
Kakatiya UniversityWarangal (AP)India - 505009  

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-GB
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}

In the wake of the digital revolution and
globalisation policies the whole world is witnessing formation of certain
conditions which are having and will continue to have tremendous impact on the
production, reproduction, access, dissemination and appreciation of visual
arts. While the old art forms and artworks are being revisited and reproduced
in wholly new ways and for a variety of purposes, new types in the forms of
digital arts are surfacing not only on the internet but also every place of our
visual culture. The place and workplace of the artist also has undergone a radical
change. The artists are themselves very keen to define their position globally
as the web makes it possible, and along this they are also ready to take up
social and political challenges (as always was the case).

Like convergence in all other fields, in the sphere
of visual arts we are also witnessing a convergence of all the art forms in the
case of computer games. With 2D video games giving way to highly complex PC
games, we find attempts at accommodating real-life 3D experiences and complex
situations into the digitally recreated virtual reality. In combination with
the web a professional team of experts has been able to create virtual worlds,
where millions of people—irrespective of age, gender, class, caste and
race—have started ‘living’. This kind of converged art is allowing the
reader/player/resident the highest ever freedom not only to enter the ‘text’
but also to modify and manipulate it up to a certain limit.

Keeping in mind this kind of situation we are
inviting critical writings on a variety of areas. While we are open to the
suggestion from the writers for the inclusion of any particular area, for their
convenience we are giving below a list of probable areas for submission:

i.            
Aesthetics of digital arts

ii.          
Aesthetics of photography

iii.        
Aesthetics of website design

iv.         
Our visual culture—sociology/psychology of the need
for the visual

v.           
Sociology of the reproduction of old art forms and
art objects

vi.         
21st century artist and the digital
technology

vii.        
Artist and the global politics

viii.      
Viewers as users

ix.         
Gender and visual arts today

x.           
Focus on any artist/tradition from new perspective

xi.         
Open Access and Fair Use Policies and Visual arts

For
submission of critical writings, please send:
* Completed article (3000-5000 words)
* Abstract (100-200 words)
* 3 to 5 Keywords
* Brief CV

For
submission of creative works, please send:
* Analytical Description of Works
(2000-3000 words)
* Maximum 5 images in JPG format, at least 800 pixels wide or tall.
* Abstract (100 words)
* 3 to 5 Keywords
* Brief CV

Website
address: www.rupkatha.com

Visit to know more about the journal
and the submission process: http://www.rupkatha.com/submissionguidelines.php

Please send submissions and queries to:
editor@rupkatha.com

DEADLINE
FOR SUBMISSIONS: December 31, 2009

The deadline to submit abstracts for the 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference has been extended to November 1st. We are receiving many exciting proposals, but we want to be sure that everyone who is interested has ample time to apply. For more information, please visit our website (www-english.tamu.edu/bwwc18) and see our cfp below.

The 18th Annual 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX

"Journeys"
April 8-11, 2010

Keynote Speakers: Kate Flint and Felicity A. Nussbaum
Plenary Panel Speakers: Mary E. Fissell, Jillian Heydt-Stevenson, and Erika Rappaport

Call for Papers

This year's conference will explore the abundant varieties of journeys found in 18th- and 19th-century British women's writing. We encourage interdisciplinary considerations of topics such as migration, travel, exile, exploration, tourism, border crossing, religion, travel writing, art, fantasy, children's literature and more.

Proposals for panels and individual papers might consider, but are not limited to, the following issues:

-Travel writing/art
-Biographical narratives
-Marriage/Honeymoon
-Continental tours
-Motherhood
-Childhood
-Colonialism and Empire
-Philosophical investigations
-Scientific inquiry
-Religious explorations
-Spiritual awakenings
-Transatlantic movement of persons, ideas, and/or goods
-Immigration/Emigration
-Memory as travel
-Dreams
-Re-envisioning the past/future
-Mapping the body
-Rites of passage
-Crossing class boundaries
-Movement between private and public spheres
-Exile (Social, Political, Familial)
-Women and work
-Education
-Intertextuality

Individual proposals should be two pages: a cover sheet including name, presentation title, university affiliation, address, email address, phone number, and brief biographical paragraph; and a 500-word abstract. Please do not include any identifying information on the abstract.

Panel proposals should include a coversheet--containing panel title, presenters' names, presentation titles, university affiliations, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, brief biographical paragraphs, and the name of the moderator--followed by separate abstracts (500-word) that describe the significance of the panel topic and each presentation. Please do not include any identifying information on the abstracts.

Proposals must be submitted electronically as an attachment in .doc or .rtf format by November 1, 2009 to the conference email address BWWC18@tamu.edu.

For more information and updates, please visit our conference website www-english.tamu.edu/bwwc18.

Meghan Parker and Elizabeth Talafuse
2010 BWWC Organizing Committee
Texas A&M University

Call for Papers
Submission by December 15, 2009

Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference.The Appalachian Studies Area of the PCA/ACA National Conference seeks to further understanding of this unique and interesting location within the United States and welcomes presentations covering a broad area of study.Possible subject areas include but are not limited to the following:

Literature
Art
Photography
Music
History
Education
Ecology
Film, Television and other Media
Heritage
Culture
Gender
Ethnicity
Native American Cultures
Celtic Influences
Economics

Presentations should be developed for a 15-minute reading.  Please submit a 250-word abstract as an email attachment to Dr. Leslie Worthington, lworthington@gsc.edu, by December 15, 2009.  Contributors will be notified by email in December.  The Association requires that proposals be submitted to only one subject area at a time.Please include the following contact information in your email: name, affiliation, home address, email address, and phone number.Join us Wednesday, March 31 through Saturday, April 3, 2010. The Conference will be held at the Renaissance Grand Hotel St. Louis, with additional space reserved at the America's Center, 701 Convention Plaza--across the street from the Renaissance Grand Hotel.Renaissance Grand Hotel St. Louis
800 Washington Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri 63101
(314) 621 9600
1 (800) HOTELS-1 (800 468-3571)

Deadline for proposal submissions is 15 December 2009. Information about membership, registration, and hotel reservations can be found at the PCA/ACA website, www.pcaaca.org, under the menu title National Conference.  Also feel free to contact me if you have questions or require additional information. 

Mortified:
Representing Women’s Shame

CFP: Essay collection

Interest in shame has gathered momentum in
recent decades, fuelled by the work of Helen Block Lewis, Leon Wurmser, and
Andrew P. Morrison, and by the revival and extension of the affect theorist
Silvan Tomkins in the work of Donald L. Nathanson, Gershen Kaufman, and others. Eve Sedgewick and Adam Frank’s 1995 edition
of Shame and Its Sisters: A Silvan
Tomkins Reader notably brought shame into the mainstream of literary
criticism. Even more recently, scholars
have begun to explore a consistent finding that women are more shame-prone than
men. Helen M. Lynd, Sandra Bartky, J.
Brooks Bouson and others have outlined how shame functions as a gendered emotion. Joseph Adamson and Hilary Clark summarize the
connections between shame, humiliated fury, and depression in women’s
experience thus:

[S]hame has
traditionally shaped the experience of women under patriarchy. Women and others who suffer from inequality
in power are particularly prone to the humiliated rage that stems from
unacknowledged shame, a rage turned on the self and transformed to guilt
because one does not feel entitled to it.
Again, as the passive experience of being devalued and disempowered,
shame is linked with low self-esteem and depression; it has been established
that roughly twice as many women as men suffer from depression. (Scenes of Shame 22)

Mortified: Representing Women’s Shame seeks to explore how representations of women’s experiences
benefits from contextualizing those representations in a gendered understanding
of shame. To that end, we seek papers
that examine women’s shame in a variety of contexts and disciplines. Topics may include:

·
shame and the body

·
shame and money

·
shame and trauma

·
shame and guilt

·
shame and embarrassment

·
shame and depression

·
the intersection of gendered
shame with other such shaming ideologies as colonialism, homophobia, etc.

·
the poetics of shame

·
shame and orientalism

·
national shame

·
shame as affect or emotion

·
political shame

·
shame and silence

Please send a 500-word abstract by December
15, 2009 to both Patricia Moran (patricia.moran@ul.ie) and Erica Johnson (erica.johnson@wagner.edu).

Imagining Other Histories: Illusion, Elusion, and Reality in Historical Fiction. The SW/TX PCA/ ACA in the area of Historical Fiction invites papers on the role of history and alternate history in fiction. To what extent have fiction writers, poets, filmmakers, myth makers, and other producers of pop culture bent the paths of history into different directions, into ur worlds, friendlier worlds, bleak worlds, parallel worlds, idealist worlds? Take, for example, the way that the reality of African American history was initially omitted from standard American historical accounts and the paths of history were bent toward the hegemony of a White world. Other examples might be how Plato imagined the course of human history in parallel worlds; or the America imagined by Nathaniel Hawthorne in House of the Seven Gables. Submission deadline is December 1, 2009. The conference is held from February 10-13 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Please consult the website at http://swtxpca.org/ for other information, registration deadlines, and conference organizer contacts.All queries are welcome. Email queries and abstracts to me at solizc@fvsu.edu or at csoliz@csoliz.com. Please submit a vita with your abstract and a short biographical statement (1 paragraph) with your abstract. Cristine Soliz, Area Chair of Historical Fiction, Fort Valley State University, Bond 014, 478-827-3125, Fort Valley, Georgia 31030

Call for Papers
“Affairs of Race: Interracial Relationships in Film and History”
2010 Film & History Conference: Representations of Love in Film and Television
November 11-14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Milwaukee
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory
Second Round Deadline: November 1, 2009

AREA: Affairs of Race: Interracial Relationahips in Film and History

Love across the boundaries of race and ethnicity has most often been depicted, in film and television, as a love that defies social norms.  Traditionally fraught with challenges, beset by problems, and laden with danger, it is a category of relationships that reveals social fears of miscegenation and elicits cautionary tales of its consequences – both mirroring and shaping mainstream audiences’ perceptions as society’s ideas about interracial love have shifted.

Affairs of Race creates a space for considering the various manifestations and outcomes of love across racial and ethnic boundaries in film and television, from the reexamination of such classics as Sydney Poitier’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and A Patch of Blue, John Ford’s The Searchers and My Darling Clementine, Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, and Denzel Washington’s Mississippi Masala, to more recent offerings.  Examples from outside the United States, such as Mathieu Kassovitz’ Café au lait, and from Asian, Native American, or Hispanic perspectives are especially welcome to extend the discussion beyond issues of “black” and “white.”  

This area, comprising multiple panels, welcomes papers and panel proposals that examine all forms and genres of film or television productions featuring racial and ethnic boundaries as a determining aspect of love and its outcomes.  Possibilities include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• The Production Code and anxieties of race, sex, and gender.
• Hollywood fantasies and the creation of interracial and interethnic desire
• From a directorial point of view (looking at limitations enforced by the industry at large)
• Beyond Black and White (considering the issue from other ethnic combinations)
• Latino(a) lovers
• New frontiers (examining films from emerging centers of production in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Mexico)
• European vs. American attitudes toward interracial or interethnic romance
• Love stories vs. immigration trials
• Social class as context in interracial or interethnic romance
• Sexual orientation as context in interracial or interethnic romance
• Post-colonial theory (assessing its influence on “affairs of race” in film and film studies)

Please send your 200-word proposal by e-mail to the area chair:

Carole Martin, Area Chair
Texas State University
Department of Modern Languages
601 University Drive
San Marcos, TX 78666
Email: cm25@txstate.edu (email submissions preferred)

Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory).

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;}

CALL
FOR PAPERS

The editorial team of the International Review of Scottish Studies, published annually under
the auspices of the Centre for Scottish Studies at the University of Guelph, is
now accepting article submissions for our 2010 volume.

Submissions may cover any range of topics
pertaining to Scottish Studies, including, but not limited to, history,
literature, religion, and the diaspora. 
Articles should not exceed 8,000 words in length and should conform to the
conventions of the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, with
endnotes.  Authors should also include a
cover letter indicating his/her name, institutional affiliation, contact
information (including email address and phone number), and a brief bio.  All articles will be peer-reviewed.

*Students enrolled in a masters or doctoral program in any discipline of
Scottish Studies are encouraged to submit articles for our first annual Scottish
Studies Foundation Graduate Publication Award, with a prize of $250 awarded to
the graduate student with the best article. All submissions will also be
considered for publication in the 2010 volume of the IRSS.*

Submissions for the upcoming issue should be submitted electronically as MS
Word documents to Jodi Campbell and Heather Parker at scottish@uoguelph.ca no later than March
1, 2010. 

REQUEST FOR BOOK REVIEWERS

The editorial team is currently expanding our panel of book
reviewers.  If interested, please send us
your name, institutional affiliation, and areas of study.  We will contact you when an appropriate book
becomes available or you may request a book to review.

Book review information should be
sent to scottish@uoguelph.ca.

More information, including past volumes of the IRSS, can be viewed at http://www.irss.uoguelph.ca/index.php/irss/announcement/view/16. 

1898 and Transnational American Studies

As Amy Kaplan has suggested, the events surrounding U.S. interventions and acquisitions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawai’i in 1898 were not an imperialist “aberration” from the course of US history. Research focusing on the Spanish-American War of 1898 has exposed important continuitiesbetween these overseas sites and domestic U.S. politics and culture. Scholarssuch as Kaplan, Ann Laura Stoler, Victor Bascara, Alfred McCoy, and FranciscoScarano have investigated the “intimacies of empire,” the “anarchy” it fosters,and the various ways in which the nation’s new unincorporated territoriesserved as a “colonial crucible” for new developments in covert policing,surveillance, public health, and environmental management. Others—such as E.San Juan Jr., Vera Kutzinski, and Frances Negron-Muntaner—have uncoveredpolitical and literary continuities connecting 1898 with longer independencestruggles in Cuba and the Philippines, and to subsequent developments such asthe racialized migration of Filipinos and Puerto Ricans or the ongoing foreign interventions that have characterized the U.S.’s informal empire. Still, much work remains to be done in synthesizing and theorizing the range of cultural responses to the consolidation of U.S. imperialism in and around 1898.

This Special Forum for the Journal of Transnational American Studies will bring together cultural and critical perspectives from a range of locations in order to further our understanding of the reconfigurations of cultural and social space brought about by discrete but interconnected events including the Spanish-American War, the Philippine-American War, the annexation of Hawai’i, the occupation of American Samoa, and the U.S. assisted Panamanian declarationof independence. Possible contributions include considerations of visual,historical, and literary archives; theoretical essays that reframe understandings of U.S. empire, comparative anticolonial struggles, and the post/colonialliteratures of 1898; new translations, with commentary, of significant textsthat address events surrounding 1898; studies of domestic transformationsprecipitated by U.S. empire; analysis of gendered strategies of rule andresistance; comparative discussions that draw connections between differentlypositioned groups; and speculations on the resonances between 1898 and subsequent U.S. interventions.

Proposals for essays of 6,000-7,500 words should include a 1-page description of the contribution and a brief CV. Proposals are due by January 15, 2010, and should be submitted by email to Hsuan L. Hsu (hlhsu@ucdavis.edu). Completed essays, due by July 30, 2010, will be peer reviewed.

<strong>IFAW (Israel Forum for Academic Writing) & MOFET(Institute of Research,
Curriculum and Program Development for Teacher Education)</strong>
Announce
<strong><em>“Academic Writing and Beyond in Multicultural Societies”</em></strong>
<em>Israel’s First International Conference on Academic Writing July 28-29,
2010</em>
;
The conference will address current issues in first, second, and foreign
language academic writing in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and other languages. Parallel
sessions will include individual presentations, panels, round table discussions,
and workshops for those in higher education and those who prepare students for
higher education. ;
;
<em>Who should submit abstracts?</em>
<ul>
<li>Writing professionals & educators</li>
<li>University & college researchers</li>
<li>Deans & heads of departments</li>
<li>Instructors from all disciplines</li>
<li>Educators, writers & editors from the business world & from government
agencies</li>
<li>Graduate & qualified undergraduate students</li>
<li>Other interested parties</li>
</ul>

<em>What are some suggested themes for presentations?</em>
<ul>
<li>Writing within and across disciplines </li>
<li>Writing and technology</li>
<li>Academic writing in different cultures</li>
<li>History of writing pedagogy</li>
<li>Feedback and assessment of writing</li>
<li>Reflective writing</li>
<li>Writing in the workplace</li>
<li>Bridging the gap between writing in secondary school and at tertiary level.
</li>
<li>Academic writing and creativity</li>
<li>Dealing with plagiarism</li>
<li>Development of writing centers</li>
<li>Gaining administrative support for writing programs</li>
<li>Supporting doctoral students and post-graduate writers</li>
<li>Issues in translation and translation instruction</li>
<li>Writing as engaged citizenship</li>
<li>Writing in a second/foreign language</li>
</ul>
<br><br><em>What is the venue?</em>/ The new facilities of MOFET (Institute of Research,
Curriculum, and Program Development for Teacher Education) 15 Shoshana Persett
Street, Tel-Aviv
<br><br><em>Where can I get further information?</em> From the conference chair,
Dr. Trudy Zuckermann, trudy@vms.huji.ac.il
<br><br><strong>Rationale</strong>
<br><br>At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, more and more educators
have come to realize the importance of academic writing programs both in and
beyond academia. The view that those entering higher education are able to
cope with their writing tasks without guidance has been widely challenged.
The need for quality writing ability after leaving higher education is clear.
Beyond the academy, with globalization in today’s worlds of business, research,
and culture, writing skills are a necessity for all who wish to advance professionally.
Especially in multicultural societies where students come from many different
cultural and linguistic traditions and are often expected to write in more
than one language, supporting student writers at all levels of study and preparing
them for writing after their studies are pedagogical imperatives.
<br><br>Two years ago, the Israel Forum for Academic Writing held its first meeting
at Tel Aviv University. Its purpose was to connect people engaged in the teaching
and research of academic writing in Israel. Instructors in academic writing
in Hebrew and English from colleges and universities throughout the country
attended this meeting. Since then, our organization has grown – we now have
over 150 members on our mailing list. Visitors from abroad as well as local
members have addressed issues such as responding to and assessing student
writing, the use of technology in the teaching of writing, and how to gain
administrative support for our programs. We have been fortunate in finding
a home and support for our organization through the MOFET Institute.
<br><br>In keeping with the intercultural and multi-linguistic nature of today’s
societies, invited speakers at the first international conference on academic
writing in Israel will address current issues in first language, second (third,
fourth, etc.) language and foreign language writing. We are also planning
to present a panel of writers in English, Hebrew, Arabic, and perhaps other
languages on the topic, “Universals and Specifics of Academic Writing across
Languages”. Participants will address the question of what it means to write
in their various languages. Parallel sessions will include individual presentations,
round table discussions, and workshops. The program is designed to engage
all those interested in academic writing programs and the writers they educate.
Keynote and plenary sessions will be delivered in English. Papers and small
group presentations may be given in Hebrew, English, or Arabic. Research-based
contributions, as well as practical approaches to the teaching and learning
of academic and professional writing are welcome.
<br><br><em>Types of Presentations</em>
<ul>
<li>Individual paper or presentation: 40 minutes including at least 10 minutes
for discussion</li>
<li>Panel presentation: three 25-minute presentations with 15 minutes for
discussion</li>
<li>Workshop: 90 minutes allowing at least 30 minutes for non-presenter participation</li>
<li>Round-table discussion: 90 minutes including non-presenter participation
Poster presentation </li>
</ul>
<br><br><strong>Abstracts for all proposals</strong> should consist of a maximum
of 300 words, and should be written in English. Abstracts written in another
language should include a translation into English. All abstracts should include:
Title Language of presentation Type of presentation and participant interaction
(e.g., workshop, paper, demonstration of classroom practice/method or technological
program) The issues/approaches/skills to be explored
<br><br><em>Completed Abstracts</em> Email completed abstracts as word documents,
Times New Roman, 12-point font, double-spaced To: Miri Yochanna, myochanna@yahoo.ca
Subject line: IFAW Abstract Body of email: Please include title of presentation,
name of presenter(s), institutional affiliation(s)), contact information,
and country in the email message. Do not include presenter information in
the word document.
<br><br><em>Selection of Abstracts for Presentation</em> Abstracts will be evaluated
blindly, based on the following criteria: Is the topic relevant to the conference
theme? Is the approach to the topic original? Are the issues presented appropriate
for the conference participants? Is the presentation placed within a theoretical
framework? Is the issue that prompted this presentation clearly stated? Are
the implications for pedagogy or research clearly stated?
<br><br> <strong>Important Dates</strong>
<ul>
<li><em>Deadline for submission of abstracts</em> – January 15, 2010 </li>
<li>Notification of accepted abstracts by: March 1, 2010 </li>
<li>Conference: :July 28-29, 2010 </li>
</ul>
<br><br><b>Further information about the conference</b> (e.g., registration, accommodation)
will be available on our website, which is currently being developed.

**This is a two-part post. Please read carefully. (1)   Call For Papers for a Special Roundtable Discussion at the Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association (SWTXPCA) 31st Annual Conference on: (2)   Call for Essays/Articles for an Edited Collection On: The Life and Writings of Fabiola Cabeza de Baca

The documentation of southwestern history is integral for the maintenance of cultural ties, traditions and recognition of a people often forgotten in the story comprising the American record. More specifically, the history presented by, of and about New Mexican women is even less prevalent in the accounts detailed in books, films and art. The focus of this roundtable discussion is Fabiola Cabeza de Baca, a historically significant New Mexican woman who was ahead of her time in documenting life on the staked plains of New Mexico. Cabeza de Baca is a figure who has been largely studied in American studies, Chicana/o studies, cultural studies, women’s studies, environmental studies, culinary studies, educational studies, and literature. Nationally, Cabeza de Baca has served as the inspiration for a number of scholarly articles and essays.

The roundtable discussion at the SWTXPCA conference focuses on her life and work(s) (either published or archival). If you are interested in how Cabeza de Baca has contributed to southwestern history, education, culture, tradition, folklore, land, the environment, or cookbooks as historical documentation, please submit your 250-word abstract, along with a current CV by December 15, 2009 to kroybal1@unm.edu.

In addition to the roundtable discussion at the SWTXPCA conference, I am collecting essays/articles for an edited collection of writing about Cabeza de Baca’s life and work(s) (either published or archival). If you are interested in submitting an essay/article for possible publication in this collection, please submit your 250-word abstract, along with a current CV by December 15, 2009 to

Karen Roybal

Department of American Studies

The University of New Mexico

310 Ortega Hall

Albuquerque, NM  87131

kroybal1@unm.edu

**Please be sure to indicate if you are interested in the roundtable or the edited collection.

Conference information:

Albuquerque, New Mexico February 10-13, 2010 Hyatt Regency Albuquerque 330 Tijeras Albuquerque, NM 87102 Phone: 1-505-842-1234 Fax: 1-505-766-6710 Priority registration deadline: November 1, 2009 Conference website: <http://www.swtxpca.org/> (updated regularly)    

The UCLA Center for Performance Studies announces THE SECOND ANNUAL
NATIONAL GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE IN PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Anxieties of Overexposure: Enlargements, Contagions & the Dark

April 30th & May 1st, 2010

University of California, Los Angeles

Set in the quintessentially spotlighted culture of Los Angeles, this
conference explores how performance processes of exaggeration, display
and mystification interact with meaning-making and critique. Because
brightness obscures detail in overexposed images, panels and
performances could address the political and cultural consequences of
this “blowing out,” paying particular attention to their underlying
anxieties. Discourses of marginalization address this simultaneous
hypervisibility and indistinction, and performance studies is rooted
in deconstructing and negotiating these racialized, disabled, queer,
indigenous, gendered, classed and transnational terrains. Proposals
may also address that which is “drowned out” due to selective
amplification, thereby facing underexposure, containment and even
erasure. We invite submissions that explore a breadth of related
themes, with interest in how performance studies both invests in and
critiques national (de)formation, sensationalism, corporeal
manipulation, canonicity and their attendant abjections.  How does
performance as an artistic form, a quotidian method and an academic
field reproduce these overexposures while also intervening in them?
What are the political possibilities, as well as the limits, of
overemphasis?

In addition to proposals, applicants are invited to submit papers for
a Spotlighted Scholarship panel. The selected scholars will be awarded
stipends for travel and accommodation, as well as publication in the
UCLA Center for Performance Studies journal Extensions.

Please submit proposals and papers by Monday, January 11th to
overexposure@tft.ucla.edu with the subject heading “Conference
Submission.”

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All submissions should include contact information, as well as
university and departmental affiliation.

*Spotlighted Scholars papers should include a 300-word abstract, as
well as a paper of no longer than 12 double-spaced pages (including
bibliography).

*Individual paper proposals should include a 300-word abstract and bibliography.

*Panel Proposals should include a 400-word panel description in
addition to three individual paper proposal abstracts of 300 words.
Please clearly indicate the individual panelists’ university and
departmental affiliations.

*Performance-as-Research Proposals should include a 500-word critical
description of the practice-based research engaging in artistic,
theoretical, epistemological or political themes relating to the
conference.  Means of inviting critical engagement with the research
should also be indicated. Due to resource constraints, practice-based
research proposals should have minimal staging needs beyond
audio-visual technologies.

Please email overexposure@tft.ucla.edu if you have additional questions.

Call for Papers 

Annual Interdisciplinary
Graduate Student Conference: 

The Poetics of Pain: Aesthetics,
Ideology, and Representation 

February 25th-26th, 2010

Pain has always occupied a
problematic space in any discipline investigating the human condition.
The question of how to manage the unmediated experience of pain in the
face of the social and ethical imperative to communicate it has spawned
countless theories of and approaches to pain itself and its representation. 
This conference seeks to foster dialogue between a broad range of approaches
to pain and suffering, including medical-scientific investigations of
the neurological processes involved in the experience of pain, socio-historical
analyses of the connection between individual pain and collective trauma
and literary/linguistic inquiries into the possibilities and limitations
of a poetics of pain.   Theorists and thinkers will include,
among others, Jean Amery, Elaine Scarry, Sade, Sacher-Masoch, Deleuze,
Wittgenstein, Foucault, Ballard, Mirbeau and Kafka. 

How can the ineffable sensation
of physical torment be conveyed by its sufferer, or acknowledged by
the other? How is individual suffering converted into collective experience? 
How, in turn, is an individual’s experience of pain socially determined? 
How do the varying discourses of pain bring the sufferer into contact
with the world and break down the barriers between self and other? What
are the conceptual mechanisms that guide our understanding of this physiological
experience?  

We invite papers from all disciplines approaching the subject from a
variety of critical perspectives that explore the ways in which pain
is articulated, narrativized, framed, interpreted, subjectivized, and
imbued with meaning.  

Topics may include but are not limited to: 

•       Torture, War 
•       Illness Narratives 
•       Medical and Diagnostic Language of Pain 
•       Sadomasochism - from Rousseau and de Sade to LGBT  “Leather Scenes” 
•       Biopolitics  
•       Animality and Humanism 
•       Martyrdom and Religious Representations of Suffering 
•       Theaters of Cruelty 
•       Politicization of Pain and Collective Accounts of Past Suffering  
•       Violence and Politics 
•       Survivor Memoirs 
•       Victims of Crime and Assault 
•       Trauma and Testimony 
•       Physical Suffering in Light of the Cartesian Mind/Body Problem 
•       Religious and Secular Theodicies 
•       Victimhood, Voice and Agency 
•       Desire, pain and subjectivity. 
•       "Technologies of Punishment" 
•       Bioethics

Please submit a 300 word abstract
for a 15-20 minute paper by November 10th to painconference@gmail.com.  Proposals should include the title
of the paper, presenter's name, institutional and departmental affiliation. 
We also welcome panel proposals (3-4 papers).

Politics and the Corpse
Panel for 2010 American Comparative Literature Association Annual Meeting
April 1 through 4 2010, New Orleans
Deadline for papers: November 13, 2009
Submit proposal to http://www.acla.org/submit/index.php

ACLA site:  http://www.acla.org/acla2010/

Politics and the Corpse

The traditional sense of politics links up the functioning of the polis with the living bodies that people it. But what is the relation between politics and the dead body? How does the corpse inform the political sphere? How does politics give meaning to the corpse? To what extent is the labor of mourning bound up with political concerns? And what is the difference between the political meaning of a dead body and its "human" significance? This seminar proposes to investigate the relation between politics and the corpse from a variety of theoretical perspectives and in a range of contexts, including political assassinations, conspiracy theories, natural disasters, memorials, genocide, and war. Though the subject matter is broad, we hope to encourage a conversation that draws from a variety of theoretical perspectives to examine the manner in which politics inflects our understanding of the dead body, and the way that death informs our sense of the political.

Co-organizers of panel:  David Kelman (Cal State Fullerton) and Jennifer Ballengee (Towson University)

Submit proposals to the ACLA site:  http://www.acla.org/submit/index.php

Questions can be sent to dgkelman@gmail.com

Call for Papers

 ELN 48.2, Fall/Winter 2010

 “Juris-Dictions”

 This special issue of ELN invites contributions on the interface between law, literature, and space, in an effort to redefine and revitalize the concept of a legal and literary inter-discipline. The assumption underlying this goal is that law, literature, and culture do far more than intersect at a place where they reflect each other or, conversely, long for the other’s essence, as when law is said to look to literature for its ostensibly greater moral compass and literature to law for its power. Under the rubric of jurisdiction—defined narrowly as the power and authority of courts to hear and determine judicial proceedings, but more broadly (and etymologically) as the speaking of the law or of the norms that constitute a bounded society—we find rather that the legal and the literary are mutually constitutive, that they share a crucial dependency on spatial, territorial, and geographic organization in order to define the world in which and of which they are trying to make meaning. The force of law emerges, as does the force of language, from the space it encompasses or designates as its own and from the contrasts between that space and what lies beyond it.

We welcome contributions on a broad range of issues and topics, including but not limited to:

-The formation of personal and communal identities through jurisdictional practices
-The relationships between certain spaces and genre or period designations, e.g. realism or the novel
-The relationship between identities of exclusion and inclusion e.g., strangers or criminals
-Migrations, asylums, homelessness
-Investigations of discrete historical periods in which the drawing of territorial and/or colonial boundaries were especially troubling
-The intersection of the written and the visual as spatial orders
-The difference between local and global jurisdictions
-Cyberspace or cyber jurisdictions
-The spaces of sovereignty and of multi-sited territories, e.g., the European Union
-Jurisdictions of the body
-Legal geographies

Position papers and essays of no longer than twenty manuscript pages are invited from scholars in all fields of literature, law, history, sociology, philosophy, art history, media studies, and the arts. Along with analytical, interpretive, and historical scholarship, we are also interested in work that moves traditional forms of literary analysis into new styles of critical and creative writing. The editors also encourage collaborative work, notes submitted together as topical clusters or debates, and review essays on relevant books.

Please send double-spaced, 12-point font contributions adhering to the Chicago-style endnote citation format in hard copy and on CD-ROM to the address below:

Special Issue Editor, “Juris-Dictions”

English Language Notes

University of Colorado at Boulder

226 UCB

Boulder, CO 80309-0226

Specific inquiries regarding issue 48.2 may be addressed to the issue editor, Nan Goodman at nan.goodman@coloroado.edu. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2010.

         Moving Type: Consequence in Cultural Production
       Free Exchange Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference
                                  University of Calgary
                                  13-14 March 2010

The Free Exchange Graduate Student Conference at the University of Calgary seeks abstracts for papers for our forthcoming conference on the roles of type in cultural production. We are most interested in work that engages with the topic of this multi-disciplinary conference in original ways,from material print culture to identity politics; from examinations of migration to site-specific textual analysis. Whether questioning existing methods of literary production or engaging with the gender/genre dynamics of cultural production, we embrace vigorous research on the complicated life, mobility, and circulation of text.
Please submit 250 word abstracts for original academic papers on the conference theme by January 8th, 2010 to freeex@ucalgary.ca. We invite participation from graduate students of any discipline, including but not limited to English literature, film studies, visual culture, gender studies, and cultural studies. Please send your abstract submissions to the following email address: freeex@ucalgary.caWe also welcome creative writing submissions for our creative writing panel and events.

Topics might address but are not limited to the following:
•      Type-writing
• Translation and typography
• Print culture
• Scribal handwriting
• Literary production
• Selected Letters
• Writing as object
• Travelling types
• Materiality and migration
• Space, place, time
• Encoding and memory
• Modes of performance
• Screen-life
• Site-specific text

Please contact Carmen Derkson and Colin Martin if you have questions regarding the conference at freeex@ucalgary.ca.

Carmen Derkson                               Colin Martin
PhD Student                                       PhD Student
Department of English                      Department of English
University of Calgary                        University of Calgary
caderkso@ucalgary.ca                    colinmart@gmail.com 

Normal.dotm
0
0
1
820
4677
University of Northampton
38
9
5743
12.0

0
false

18 pt
18 pt
0
0

false
false
false

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:"New York";
mso-hansi-font-family:"New York";}

EACLALS TRIENNIAL
CONFERENCE 2011

AT: Bogazici (Bosphorus) University,
Istanbul, Turkey, from 26 to 30 April 2011

THEME: ‘Under
Construction: Gateways and Walls’

This conference proposes
to examine the state of postcolonial studies using the concepts of
(re)building, transition and change, process and construction, in order to
discuss the social and political crises and dilemmas of the contemporary moment
which urgently need addressing.

The Gateway, the Wall:
these conceptual figures suggest the practical and piecemeal yet also
provisional nature of our discipline and scholarly explorations, and the way
that knowledge may be constructed to function as both barrier and pathway to
further modes of enquiry. Delegates might
like to reflect on the current state of postcolonial theory, which is
increasingly used alongside new models taken from migration studies or globalisation
theory. This expansion offers a ‘gateway’ to new discourses and disciplines,
but correspondingly traditional postcolonial frameworks are also inevitably in
danger of losing their critical purchase. Questions to be posed might include:
Can postcolonial studies act as ‘gateways’ to the understanding of the
contemporary world by intersecting with other theoretical models? Or do
postcolonial models act as ‘walls’ that block perspectives currently only
available if used in conjunction with other discourses and disciplines? Can
earlier postcolonial discourses still be confidently applied to current
economic and political conditions (e.g. the rise of the BRIC countries,
especially China and India)? What new challenges do postcolonial modes of
thought face today (the Middle East, for instance, is one amongst other complex
areas of inquiry)? Such questions can be explored either from a theoretical angle
or through particular case studies in the fields of literature, language,
cinema and visual arts.

The theme ‘Under
Construction’ also reflects the conference location in Istanbul, a city of
‘border-zones’ that straddles East and West, Europe and Asia, but which
historically has also been a gateway between North and South, between the Black
Sea and the Mediterranean, between ‘wild Scythia’ and the ‘civilised’ Roman
Empire, between orthodox Russia and the Byzantine metropolis of Constantinople.
It hints at the layered political status of Turkey, a complex multicultural
nation which was once the centre of an empire and currently seeks a ‘gateway’
into a larger community of nations through entry into the European Union.
Turkey also images the geopolitical shifts currently occurring due to globalisation,
and suggests that remappings of older notions of how the world is divided up,
such as empires, colonies, nation-states and regions, are now required. How
adequate in the global/glocal third millennium are current conceptual
frameworks constructed around terms like cosmopolitanism, the transnational and
the transcultural? What new terms and frameworks can we use to address the
provisionality of contemporary life: terrorism, global warming, migration,
multilingualism, diasporic subjects and groups who lack a definitive homeland?

Subthemes offering pathways towards
and around the theme of ‘Under Construction’, and images of gateways, walls and
border-zones:

Interactions
with the Orient as the ‘Other’

• revisiting Edward
  Said’s Orientalism and Eric
  Auerbach’s Mimesis
• worlding the Text
  and the Critic

 
Interdisciplinarity
and Postcolonial Studies

• the ‘post-postcolonial’
  and the globalised world
• is world literature
  postcolonial?
• postcolonialism and
  transnationalism

 
Nation-states
and Nationalisms

• the nation’s
  gateways and walls
• global networks
  versus the nation-state?
• governmentality and
  its discontents
• global English and
  language choices

 
Geopolitics
of East and West

• revisiting empires,
  colonies, and commonwealths
• dying and reviving
  states
• China, the new
  empire

 
History
and Memory

• after Gallipoli:
  reconstructions and representations
• national myths and
  identity
• trauma, mourning
  and memory

Postcolonial
Aesthetics

·      
to
write life or not to write life

·      
is there a postcolonial genre?

·      
electronic gateways: the death of the book?

 
Bosphorus – Interfaces under Four Winds
·      
North-South/East-West ambiguities and divergences

• myths of
  ‘wilderness’ and ‘civilisation’
• postcolonial
  romanticisms

 
Minority
Subjects and Communities

• debating the
  ‘Other’ inside
• minority versus
  majority identitarian discourses

Ocean Flows and Networks

·      
the
Black Aegean, the African Mediterranean

·      
islands,
archipelagos, and isthmuses

·      
the
sea as history

 
Postcolonial
Migration and Cosmopolitanism

• the neo-liberal
  subject and globalisation
• constructing
  utopias, the ‘shock of the new’
• where is the new
  cosmo/polis?
• diasporas, exile
  and migration as crossings

 
Ethics
as Boundary and Marker

• an environmental
  ethics under construction
• terrorism, the
  subject and globalisation
• what is a
  postcolonial ethics?

 
Gender as Threshold and Border

• geographies of
  gender
• trans/gendering the
  subject
• globalising the queer

Abstracts: Deadline for abstracts is 31 March 2010.

Please submit abstracts
of about 200 words for individual presentations (20 minutes) or panel proposals
for three speakers (90 minutes) to EACLALS2011@googlemail.com.
Include your name, affiliation, email address and a brief biography (for
attachments include your name as part of the file name). Add 5-6 key words and
an indication of the most appropriate subtheme for your paper.

Delegates must be
EACLALS members. Check the EACLALS website at http://www.eaclals.org
for subscription rates and for further information.

Normal.dotm
0
0
1
661
3771
University of Northampton
31
7
4631
12.0

0
false

18 pt
18 pt
0
0

false
false
false

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ascii-font-family:"New York";
mso-hansi-font-family:"New York";}

Scholarly
Networks in the British Empire

Transnational & Imperial
connections after 1850

Wadham College, Oxford

5 – 6 July, 2010

CALL FOR  PAPERS

In recent years historians of various persuasions have taken
a renewed interest in questions of empire.  Despite differences in
focus and approach, they have been particularly concerned with the material, human and discursive connections that they have seen as straddling global and imperial geographies and as helping to produce identities and power structures both within Britain and outside it. 
Scholars have increasingly thought about human and material networks as
sites for investigation. However, despite a large body of material concerned
with science and empire, and significant research addressing universities in
national and European contexts, very little has been written by imperial
historians about universities and academics. Neither, despite a shift since the 1960s to consideration of the social and cultural history of education, have educational  historians considered the imperial dimensions of British academia. This is especially  surprising given that the world of academia serves as a particularly interesting site for the exploration of networks.

This workshop will provide a forum to consider the relationships
that existed between scholars and universities located in different parts of
Britain and the Empire in the years after 1850. By examining the historical
lineages of these networks, it seeks a critical understanding of the processes
that helped to shape the topographies of today’s entangled scholarly community.

Papers from a variety of disciplinary and geographic  perspectives addressing the following themes are sought:

Institutions
–  What was the impact of formal and informal networks on the foundation and development of universities in Britain and the Empire?

Disciplines –  What role did imperial and international connections play in shaping the emergence and development of disciplinary communities, their nature and operation?

Scholars –  What importance did scholarly networks hold for individual scholars: who were they and how was their scholarship, their careers and their self conception influenced and affected by their participation in  scholarly networks?

Nations –             To what extent did scholarly networks help construct national communities and identities?

Presenters might pay close attention to what constituted a
scholarly network.  Did  it consist of formal or informal connections? How was it created and how did  it change over time? Who did it include and exclude? To which regions and individuals did it extend?  What were its effects and consequences on individual scholars and their scholarship? Did it involve academic interchange and mobility? They might also consider the extent to which scholarly connections within the British Empire did or did not also extend to Europe, the United States and the wider world, as well as the relationship between such networks and various kinds of nationalism and imperialism.  In particular workshop participants are reminded that it is the university that is the site of investigation – an institution that in this period dramatically expanded its remit creating new
forms of access, developed a new relationship with the state, and played an
increasing and important role in the shaping of the professions, the
codification of knowledge, and in the moulding of culture and character.

Proposals for papers of 20 minutes addressing these and other questions can be submitted to Tamson Pietsch (tamson.pietsch@new.ox.ac.uk)
before 31 December 2009.  They should include a title, a 200-300
word abstract, a short CV and should indicate which of the four themes will be examined.

It is hoped a publication in the form of an edited collection will result from this workshop.

Organisers:             Tamson
Pietsch (New College, Oxford)

Janet Wilson (University of
Northampton)

Venue:              Wadham
College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Website:            http://sites.google.com/site/scholarlynetworks/

Deadlines:             Submission
of proposals for papers: 31 December,
2009

                        Registration:
1 February 2010 (discount); 1 May 2010 (final)

Contact:              Dr
Tamson Pietsch

                        Email:
tamson.pietsch@new.ox.ac.uk

                        New
College, Oxford

                        Professor
Janet Wilson

                        Email:
janet.wilson@northampton.ac.uk

                        University
of Northampton

Call for Papers: Alfred Hitchcock 

Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association - 31st Annual Conference

Albuquerque, New Mexico

February 10-13, 2010

Hyatt Regency Albuquerque

330 Tijeras

Albuquerque, NM 87102

Phone: 1-505-842-1234

Fax: 1-505-766-6710

Submission Deadline: December 15th, 2009

Priority Registration Deadline: November 1, 2009

Conference Website: <http://www.swtxpca.org/> (updated regularly)

Panels now forming for presentations on the films and career of Alfred Hitchcock. Listed below are some suggestions for possible presentations.

• Hitchcock and Music
• Hitchcock and Television
• Hitchcock and Pedagogy
• Hitchcock and Film Theory
• Hitchcock and Film Genres
• Hitchcock and Voyeurism
• Hitchcock and the Silent Era
• Hitchcock and Gender
• Hitchcock and Black Humor

This list of topics suggests a few possible ways to consider Alfred Hitchcock's work, but it is not final. Any other approaches to discussing the “master of suspense” are certainly welcome.

Please send a 250 word abstract, as well as a current curriculum vitae, by December 15th 2009 to Michael Howarth at the e-mail or physical address below:

Michael Howarth, Alfred Hitchcock Chair

Assistant Professor of English

Missouri Southern State University

3950 E. Newman Road

Hearnes Hall Room 300

Joplin MO 64801

417-625-3051

Howarth-M@mssu.edu

CALL FOR PAPERS “New Worlds: Cross-Cultural Exchange East and West” Graduate Conference in Medieval and Renaissance StudiesApril 17, 2010 University of Maryland, College Park 

Keynote speaker: Bruce Holsinger, Professor of English and Music, University of Virginia

 The Department of English at the University of Maryland and the Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute at George Washington University invite graduate students from across the humanities to submit presentation abstracts for “New Worlds,” a one-day conference to be held on April 17, 2010.  

The “New Worlds” conference will examine various European responses to encounters with people, culture, and lands to the east and the west, as reflected in medieval and early modern literature, art, and music. “New Worlds” aims to elucidate the shifts that these new interactions precipitated in various European philosophies, epistemologies, and perceptions. We intend this theme to be defined broadly, to open up intellectual possibilities, and to offer a broad geographic and cultural scope in keeping with, and advancing, current and emergent scholarly conversations.

     Participants might consider a range of approaches to the conference’s topic of cross-cultural exchange, including:

• What kinds of “New Worlds” were medieval and early modern people encountering?
• How did “New World” encounters shape literature, culture, politics, religion, philosophy, and science, and how did cultural and geographic newness figure as a force for change in European cultures and states?
• In what unique ways did Mediterranean and Eastern European countries, which represented cultural crossing-points between West and East, respond to European encounters with American New Worlds? How did these responses differ from the arguably more isolated position of England? Or, alternatively, did they differ?
• How might a broader understanding of “New Worlds” complicate the bifurcated focus on East/West relations in past scholarship of the medieval and early modern periods?
• What roles do empire, colonization, and nationhood play in “New World” encounters?

Abstracts of 400-500 words for 20-minute papers related to the conference theme should be emailed to gradconf.umd@gmail.com no later than January 15, 2010. Accepted abstracts will be posted on the conference website, http://medrencopia.blogspot.com/.

Troy, Ur, Sumer, Babylon, Samarqand, Timbuktu, Jerusalem, Cairo, Bagdad, Damas, Constantinople/Istanbul, Prag, New York, London, Dublin, Berlin, Paris, Tangiers, Delhi/Indraprastha are just a few names in the long list of real/mythical urbanities.

The birthplaces of cultures, they symbolize better than everything else the expressions and contradictions of fictional identities. Ulysses wants to go back to Ithaca, Stephen Dedalus wants to leave Dublin, Mahfouz’s "beggar" roams the streets of Cairo in search of wisdom…

Almost every major work of world literature fiction, theater and/or poetry is linked, in some way or another, to a city, whether a small fisherman’s village or a metropolis.

In the age of globalization, the city as fictional background takes on an acute signification, as the paradigms keep on shifting, not only from the micro to the macro and back, but also transversally, from culture to culture, from gender to gender, from dominant to dominated.

In this issue of THE JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE (an international bi-annual refreed journal), all aspects of the problem will be considered, revolving around these main topics:

-Origins and identities.

-Narrative architectures.

-Gender relations within an urban frame.

-Dominant cultures vs local resistance.

-Travels between cities – encounters and confrontations.

-Poetry within – urban metaphors.

-Modernity and globalization – the city as a problematic.

-North, south, east, west: cardinality of the cities.

-Myths and social-realism – urban narration today.

-Urbanity and genre.

An abstract of not more than 500 words can be sent to prof. Sébastien Doubinsky at sebdoubinsky@yahoo.fr. Deadline: February 1st 2010.

faire—modern or historical. Scholars of theatre / theater, drama, performance studies, American studies, popular culture, religion, history, and non-western traditions are encouraged to apply. Since the conference is in St. Louis, any papers relating to festivals and faires in the city or in Missouri or Illinois are greatly appreciated. Other specific areas of interest for this year’s panels include, but are not limited to:

1.    Burning Man

2.    Contemporary American Renaissance Festivals & Faires, including performative panels

3.    Festivals which reflect or relate to American culture, sub-culture, or counter-culture (broadly defined)

4.    Festivals & Faires from outside of Europe and North America

5.    Festival atmosphere and environment in non-traditional settings, i.e. conferences, work, school Inquiries about possible papers or proposals for sessions are also welcomed and encouraged.

If your paper is accepted, you will receive an acceptance letter, registration information, the information you’ll need to join the PCA/ACA, and the room reservation information.

Address a 250 word abstract or inquiries to: DrKTKorolEvans@yahoo.com

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}

The MELUS Conference theme for 2010 seeks to “explore literature of the city and theories of the urban experience in a multi-ethnic context.”  In keeping with this theme, this panel wants to engage with the story collections of Edward P. Jones, specifically Lost in the City (1992) and All Aunt Hagar’s Children (2006).  The preponderance of scholarship on Jones’s work heretofore has focused primarily on his Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Known World (2003).  Therefore, this panel wants to widen the scope of Jones critical study to include these other texts with a variety of questions in mind.  How does the setting for these texts (Washington D.C.) function within the texts?  How does the urban environment relate to U.S. ethnic and racial experience?  How is ethnicity and race molded and influenced by the city, and vice versa?  In what ways does the short story, story collection, or short story cycle enhance or detract from representing such a complex relationship?  How can narrative tools such as narrator, narratee, implied author, time, duration, etc. help us understand how these stories come together?  How can these texts help us better understand not only relationships in terms of race but also other hegemonic interactions?  We are open to a wide array of approaches to these texts.  Abstracts may explore particular stories within one the story collections, an entire collection, or both collections in concert with one another.  Please send your abstracts of 250 words to Christopher Gonzalez (gonzalez.283@osu.edu) by December 1, 2009.  You must be a member of MELUS in order to present at the conference.  Please visit the MELUS website (http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/) for more information on the society and the conference.

Call for Proposals

Annual Conference of Performance Studies international 
PSi 16 Performing Publics
Toronto, 9-13 June 2010

PSi 16, Performing Publics, will take place in Toronto as part of a collaboration between York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts and the Ontario College of Art & Design. The conference will investigate the power of performance to intervene in, reshape, and reinvigorate the public sphere at the beginning of the twenty-first century. We invite proposals that take up notions of “public” in a variety of ways, pointing to the critically generative and fraught aspects of the term as it has been adopted within performance studies.

The conference will theorize the relationship between performance, “official” public culture (public culture framed and sanctioned by state and/or corporate institutions), and the production of what Michael Warner calls “counter-publics” (social formations developed in opposition to the discourses and interests of the official public sphere). As such, it will explore the coming together of individuals as a social totality – as a community, nation, organization, etc. – and the enactment of public as a form of social activism, as a means of rehearsing, querying, and producing alternative forms of local and global citizenship. In both contexts, performance has the potential to frame affective and critically nuanced responses to public events, issues and crises and thus to model politically and ethically engaged forms of public life. The conference also seeks to problematize the idea of “publics” as it has been applied to performance by exploring the limitations of this term and the kinds of social exclusions that it often has been used to rationalize.

Guiding questions will include: How are we hailed by various publics, and how does this shape our behaviors and social interactions? How are publics spatially and temporally constituted? In what ways do publics participate in forms of activism, civic engagement, and “poetic world-making” (Warner)? What affects and effects are produced by such utopian interventions? Our discussion of these issues will reflect the vibrant history of urban intervention and “public spacing” movements in Toronto in which artists and activists have worked together to change the shape of our shared local and civic spaces.

Proposals might address (but are not limited to):

- publics and counter-publics

- issues of public space

- performance and civic engagement

- performance as an act of public witness

- performance and public relations

- the audience (live or virtual) as public

- public events: rallies, protests, flash mobs, etc.

- the relationship between the public and the private

- the role of gender, sexuality, race, and class in performing publics

- public feelings and affects

- performative utopias and utopian performatives

- site-specific performance and urban intervention

The conference will be staged during Toronto’s annual Luminato Festival, and will provide several opportunities for participants to experience and reflect on its dynamic arts programming. Luminato is a multidisciplinary festival that celebrates music, dance, theatre, film, literature, and the visual arts, and showcases the work of local, national, and international artists.  As part of its mandate to offer “accidental encounters with art,” Luminato is committed to presenting a variety of free events in public spaces. These public art projects run concurrently with exciting performance premieres at venues throughout the city.
Paper proposals (Due November 15):

Proposals for individual papers should include a 250-word abstract. Conference papers are normally allotted 20 minutes. Traditional and performative papers are welcome.

Panel proposals (Due November 15):

Panel proposals and proposals for other discursive formats (roundtable discussions, position papers, etc.) should include a 250-word abstract, along with the names, paper titles (if applicable) and affiliations of participants. Panels are normally allotted 1.5-2 hours. Proposals that interweave traditional and performative papers are welcome.

Shift proposals (Due November 1):

Continuing the explorations of PSi 15, we invite proposals for “shifts”: innovative session formats that push the boundaries of the well-constructed panel. These may include workshops, performances, and interactive events. We welcome shifts that engage with “Performing Publics”—e.g., site-specific projects that activate public space, the urban landscape, or the immediate environs of the conference site. Proposals should include a 250-word abstract. Please note that shifts and panels will receive the same basic level of AV support, and there will be a limited number of places for shifts at PSi 16.

All proposals should be submitted online by filling out the PSi 16 “Proposal Form” at: http://psi16.com/cfp/submissions/

Questions about the conference can be directed to: info@psi16.com

Call for Papers: Transatlantic Literature at CEA 2010

Body:

Call for Papers, Transatlanticism at CEA 2010

Annual Conference | March 25-27,2010 | San Antonio, Texas

Sheraton Gunter Hotel; 209 EastHouston Street, San Antonio, TX 78205

The College English Association, agathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes

 proposals for presentations onTransatlantic literature for our 41st annual conference.

This panel seeks a broad variety of papers on Transatlantic literature. While papers dealing with the conference's general topic of Voices are welcome, the submissions need not be limited to the conference's main theme. 

General Conference Theme: Voices

In addition, CEA welcomes proposalsfor presentations on the general conference theme, Voices.

Voiceson opposing sides of the conflict culminating at the Alamo spoke for twodistinctly diverse cultures.  Andwithin those cultures were voices and texts that influenced the actions duringthat struggle -- significant cultural markers of time, place, and being.

Beforeand after the struggle there, writers everywhere have reflected and influencedthe events of their day, and from their experience, the great writers havecreated texts that have become ageless connections to what is past, or passing, orto come.

Their voices also call for us toacknowledge or recognize beauty or to realize or remember significant lessons-- perhaps via a character like Professor Farber from Fahrenheit 451 ora place like a raft on a river in Huckleberry Finn -- with an urgency noless than the Alamo’s.  Thiscorrespondence we find within ourselves is our human condition -- but it is thecapacity to listen for and to those whose message or memory is unlike our ownthat makes us scholars.  Our voicesblend with those we admire or abhor -- creating a text, which (if it stands the test of taste and time) willblend with still other voices, like those of our students, newly discovering “apeak in Darien”-- all wishing to be heard and remembered. 

In the shadow of San Antonio’s famous symbol of voices thatcall for attention and allegiance, College English Association asks you tosubmit papers on any aspect of the theme of Voices.

General Call for Papers

CEA also welcomes proposals forpresentations in any of the areas English departments typically encompass,including literature, creative writing, composition, technical communication,linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our workas academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountabilityand assessment, student advising, academic leadership in departments andprograms, and the place of the English department in the university. 

Submission: August 21-November 1, 2009

For more information on how tosubmit, please see the full CFP at http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2010.htm

 Membership

All presenters at the 2010 CEAconference must become members of CEA by January 1, 2010. To join CEA, pleasego to http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/membership.htm  

More information

·        Find out more about the College English Association: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea

·        Find out more about lodging and registration:

http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conferencetravel2010.htm

·        Contact CEA officers: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/officers.htm 

 Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com.  

Sincerely,  

Karen Madison

CEA 1st VP and ProgramChair

English Department

331 Kimpel Hall

University of Arkansas

Fayetteville,AR 72701

cea.english@gmail.com