cfp.english.upenn.edu

Fat Studies is becoming an interdisciplinary, cross-disciplinary field of study that confronts and critiques cultural constraints against notions of “fatness” and “the fat body”; explores fat bodies as they live in, are shaped by, and remake the world; and creates paradigms for the development of fat acceptance or celebration within mass culture. Fat Studies uses body size as the starting part for a wide-ranging theorization and explication of how societies and cultures, past and present, have conceptualized all bodies and the political/cultural meanings ascribed to every body. Fat Studies reminds us that all bodies are inscribed with the fears and hopes of the particular culture they reside in, and these emotions often are mislabeled as objective “facts” of health and biology. More importantly, perhaps, Fat Studies insists on the recognition that fat identity can be as fundamental and world-shaping as other identity constructs analyzed within the academy and represented in media.

Proposals in the area of Fat Studies are being accepted for the 2010 PCA /ACA (Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association) National Conference in St. Louis, MO (March 31 through April 3, 2010 at the Renaissance Grand Hotel St. Louis). We welcome papers and performances from academics, researchers, intellectuals, activists, and artists, in any field of study, and at any stage in their career.

Topics may include but are not limited to:
• representations of fat people in literature, film, music, nonfiction, and the visual arts
• cross-cultural or global constructions of fatness and fat bodies
• cultural, historical, or philosophical meanings of fat and fat bodies
• portrayals of fat individuals and groups in news, media, magazines
• fatness as a social or political identity
• fat acceptance, activism, and/or pride movements and tactics
• approaches to fat and body image in philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology
• fat children in literature, media, and/or pedagogy
• fat as it intersects with race, ethnicity, class, religion, ability, gender, and/or sexuality
• history and/or critique of diet books and scams
• functions of fatphobia or fat oppression in economic and political systems

By December 1, 2009, please send an abstract of 100 - 250 words or a completed paper to Fat Studies Area Co-Chairs Julia McCrossin (jmccross@gwmail.gwu.edu) and Lesleigh Owen (goddess_les@yahoo.com).
Please include your complete contact information and a CV and/or 50 word bio, along with anticipated A/V needs. All submissions are welcome, but please use the information above to ensure your paper fits within the academic and political scopes of Fat Studies. Please also be mindful that Fat Studies is a political project and not merely an umbrella term for all discussions of larger bodies. Also, we encourage submitters to rethink using words like “obesity” and “overweight” in their presentations unless they are used ironically, within quotes, or accompanied by a political analysis.

Presenters must become members of the Popular Culture Association. Find more information on the conference and organization at http://pcaaca.org/conference/national.php.

The fifth annual Midwest Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee seeks submissions for “Obsolescence,” a graduate student conference to be held February 13-15, 2010, in conjunction with the Center for 21st Century Studies and its research theme for 2009-2011: “Figuring Place and Time.”

This year’s theme calls upon scholars to interpret and consider various notions of “obsolescence.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, the word “obsolescence” derives from the classical Latin obsolescere: “to fall into disuse, fade away, sink into obscurity.” Obsolescence thus presents a sense of expiration or decay; it represents some act, object or idea that is out of its own time. In contemporary life we hear much of technologies and their life-spans, often in terms of the fast-capitalist invention of “planned obsolescence.” Public life is also informed by the mainstream media’s focus on the immediate present or future; we are perpetually asking or being asked: what’s hot?—who’s now?—what’s next?

Given these observations, we are interested in exploring the theoretical, historico-cultural and political ramifications of identifying an act, object or idea as “obsolete.” In doing so, we expect to question the economic, political and cultural implications of temporality as tied to objects and media and to interrogate the assumption that value is inherently contingent on usability. However, we also wish to engage the concept of “obsolescence” as an active state of being, as a performative, and/or as indicative of political value. We aim to engage in a multi-day, interdisciplinary exploration of persistent tensions within the concept of obsolescence as well as in its obverse—utility.

Submissions that explore “Obsolescence” from a diverse range of fields and disciplines are encouraged. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

* Desire, Nostalgia and the Fetishization of Obsolescent Media (vinyl, Viewfinders, pre-digital cameras, typewriters, the retro gaming movement, Stereo 8)
* Storage and Transmission of the Past (packrats and hoarders, archives, museums, cemeteries)
* Discourses of Marketing: the “new and improved!!,” the (required) upgrade
* Obsolescence & Fashion, Style, Mode
* Cultural Panic and Obsolescence: Y2K, Digital Amnesia, Future Shock, “digital natives”
* Planned Obsolescence and Disruptive Technologies
* Transitional (Non-)Places (airports, dead malls, nuclear sites, junkyards, antique stores, Atari Landfill)
* Transportation, Obsolescence & Space/Place (repurposed tracks and canals as bike/hike paths, suburban sprawl and fuel prices, raising and razing of superhighways in downtown areas)
* Architectural augmentation, retro-fitting, efficiency and “greening”
* “The Post-s” (a post-racial America, post-modernism, post-gay, post-feminism, post-colonialism)
* Traditionalist Notions, Practices, and Spaces of Academic Study; the Tenure-Track academic
* Aesthetics and Un-useful Objects (knick-knacks, bric-a-brac, novelty stores, gift shops)
* Obsolescence & Ecology, Extinction, Conservation

This year’s keynote address will be presented by Matt Coolidge, founder and director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

Please submit a 250 word abstract, with title, for a 15-20 minute presentation as an MS Word file attachment (.doc or .docx) to: grad-conference@uwm.edu. Panel proposals for 75 minute sessions will also be considered (comprised of three presentations); please submit an abstract for each presenter and indicate that you are proposing a panel.

Deadline for Submissions: October 15, 2009

For more information, visit our website at: http://pw.english.uwm.edu/~migc

The American Association of Australian Literary Studies (AAALS) invites paper proposals for its 2010 Annual Conference, to be held in Washington, DC, February 25-27, 2010, in conjunction with ANZSANA (Australian and New Zealand Studies Association of North America). Papers addressing any aspect of Australian, New Zealand and South Pacific literary, film and cultural studies are welcome. Given the recent publication of The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (published in the United States by Norton as The Literature of Australia: An Anthology) and The Cambridge History of Australian Literature, papers addressing the theme “A New Moment in Australian Studies” are particularly welcome. Proposals from graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged.

Presentations should be 20 minutes long. Please send 250-word proposals by 1 December 2009, to Nathanael O’Reilly (nathanael_oreilly@uttyler.edu). Email submissions are preferred. Please label the subject line clearly.

Nathanael O’Reilly
2010 AAALS Program Chair
Department of Literature and Languages
The University of Texas at Tyler
3900 University Boulevard
Tyler, TX, 75799
nathanael_oreilly@uttyler.edu

http://www.australianliterature.org/

The sudden increase in the number of Arab satellite channels targeting
Arabs inside and outside the region has been paralleled by an explosion in
the number of women working as TV presenters, producers, and news
reporters in these various channels. Their appearance has not been
confined to women’s and children’s programmes, but has been markedly
noticeable in the serious genres of news and current affairs too.
Furthermore, women from the most conservative societies in the Arabian
Gulf have also gained access to these channels, and their presence has
indeed been enforced by the establishment of dedicated Gulf channels such
as Al-Jazeera, MBC, Rotana Gulf, IQRA, Dubai, Sharjah and Saudi Channel2
to name a few.

The aim of this special issue of Arab and Muslim Media Research is to
develop and publish a timely collection of papers representing current
research in gender and Arab media. Of particular interest are papers that
present empirical findings of fieldworks among Arab women media
professionals and which offer conceptual, methodological and analytical
rigour. Example topic areas for inclusion in this special issue include,
but are not necessarily confined to:
1. Factors that enabled, or conversely restrained, women’s access
to and
success in media industries
2. How women negotiate their success in a male-dominated field
3. How Arab women media professionals identify themselves and are
identified by others
4. Women’s representation in the media and the impact of this on their
interest in joining the media industries
5. The success criteria as defined by men and women in the media
industries.
6. Arab women’s consumption/interaction of a media congested world

This special issue will be dedicated to articles dealing with this rather
under-represented issue and it aims to gather scholarly views on gender
and identity in Arab media industry. Contributions based on empirical
studies are particularly welcome. To ensure the quality of the
contributions a variety of papers will be considered including for example
theory-informed case studies and critical review of current literature
(particularly in Arabic).

Special Issue Editors:
Dr Noha Mellor, Senior Lecturer in Media & Cultural Studies, Faculty of
Arts & Social Sciences, Kingston University. She is the author of The
Making of Arab News (2005) and Modern Arab Journalism (2007).

Dr Noureddine Miladi, Senior Lecturer in Media & Sociology, School of
Social Sciences, University of Northampton, UK.

Submissions:
Manuscripts to be considered for publication should be submitted via
e-mail. Each manuscript should be no more than 8500 words in main text and
150 words in abstract. All submissions will be blind-refereed.
Please refer to the Submission Guidelines for the Journal of Arab and
Muslim Media Research before you formally submit your paper. Please make
sure that submitted papers include the following: Title, name of the
author, affiliation, complete contact details, abstract, keywords,
author’s bio, main body, bibliography etc. The style referencing must
follow the Harvard system all the way through.

Deadline for submission of full papers: 15th January 2010

Please send your complete papers to:

Noha Mellor: n.mellor@kingston.ac.uk
Or
Noureddine Miladi: noureddine.miladi@northampton.ac.uk

A Call For Proposals
for
The Second Annual International Conference on Popular Romance:

Popular Romance Studies: Theory, Text and Practice
Brussels, Belgium
5-7 August, 2010
The International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) is seeking proposals for innovative panels, papers, roundtables, discussion groups, and multi-media presentations that contribute to a sustained conversation about romantic love and its representations in popular media throughout the world, from antiquity to the present. We welcome analyses of individual texts—books, films, websites, songs, performances—as well as broader inquiries into the creative industries that produce and market popular romance and into the emerging critical practice of popular romance studies.
This conference has three main goals:
• To bring to bear contemporary critical theory on the texts and contexts of popular romance, in all forms and media, from all national and cultural traditions
• To foster comparative and intercultural analyses of popular romance, by documenting and/or theorizing what happens to tropes and texts as they move across national, linguistic, and cultural boundaries
• To explore the relationships between popular romance tropes and texts as they circulate between elite and popular culture, between different media (e.g., from novel to film, or from song to music video), between cultural representations and the lived experience of readers, viewers, listeners, and lovers
After the conference, proceedings will be subjected to peer-review and published.
IASPR is pleased and proud to announce that the Keynote Speakers for the conference will be Celestino Deleyto, University of Zaragoza, Spain, Lynne Pearce, Lancaster University, UK, and Pamela Regis, McDaniel College, USA.
Please submit proposals by January 1, 2010 and direct questions to: conferences@iaspr.org.
We are currently pursuing funds to help defray the cost of travel to Belgium for the conference. If these funds become available, we will notify those accepted how to apply for support from IASPR.
IASPR Webpage: http://iaspr.org
Conference page: http://iaspr.org/conferences/belgium

An Interdisciplinary Humanities and Social Sciences Conference

TEXTING OBAMA: politics/poetics/popular culture

7-10 September 2010
Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

Hosted by English Research Institute, the MMU Writing School and
The Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences Research

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Simon Gikandi, David Theo Goldberg, Bonnie Greer, Ato Quayson.
Readings from Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay and others

Barack Obama’s presidency is widely seen as the beginning of a new era, not only in world politics but also in global culture, with the present increasingly glossed as the ‘Age of Obama’. Our conference will ask what the terms of this naming might mean by addressing the diverse range of representational forms attached to Obama in contemporary world culture – as a person, icon and phenomenon. The conference will map and explore the specific historical, political and cultural climates in which Obama(’s) texts operate. It will interrogate the signifiers, signs and processes that circulate around Barack Obama, and explore his own contributions and interventions across diverse media.

Proposals are invited for papers or panels that engage with these diverse textualities. Questions might include: In what ways do Obama texts ‘travel’ and under what conditions? How might travelling theory or diaspora theory engage with Obama texts? In what ways might attention to Obama texts interrogate or develop extant or emerging frameworks at work in postcolonial, globalisation, media and cultural studies? How might a focus on transnational Obamas include or obscure local or national politics and expressions of black activism? How ought we to theorise pronouncements of a ‘post-racial’ America or/and a ‘post-Katrina’ America?

Possible streams might include: Postcolonial Obama: Kenya and Indonesia, Globalisation and Cosmopolitanism, Aloha Obama! Negotiating Hawaii, Obama and African-America, Rhetoric/Orature /Life writing, The Obama Families, Screening Obama, Obama and Hospitality, Black and Bi-Racial Masculinities, Race & Racial Politics, Obama in Europe, Publishing/Merchandising Obama, Ghosting Kennedy, Race and Fatherhood, Obama’s 100 days, Obama in the Academy, Law and Civil Rights, Black Activism, Obama’s Blackberry: New Technologies/Media and Race, Obama and Popular Culture: Watching The Wire, Obama and pedagogy.

Proposals should be emailed to textingobama@mmu.ac.uk by no later than 26 March 2010.

Organising Committee: Dr. Ellie Byrne, Dr. Julie Mullaney, Prof. Berthold Schoene, Department of English, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.

CFP – University of Turin – 24 to 28 August 2010

The 10th ESSE conference will be held at the University of Turin.

We invite papers for a series of 3 seminars on

The Enemy Within: Cultures of Terror in South Asian Literature and Film

The seminars will explore contemporary ethnic, religious and gendered violence in South Asia, a theme that is all the more relevant in the aftermath of 9/11, the terrorist attacks in Bali and Mumbai and on the 20th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's 'fatwa' on Salman Rushdie. The panel discussions will invite speakers to think beyond predominant vocabularies of political violence and the clash of civilisations in the wake of the US-led "war on terror". For such vocabularies are not only reactionary and objectionable, but they are also inadequate to address the complex and multiple histories of colonialism, secularism, nationalism, ethnicity and
religion that underpin violence in South Asia.

South Asia has had a long history of violence and conflict, which demands a
critical reassessment of the dominant discourse on terrorism: revolutionary
anti-colonialist movements, post-colonial secessionist uprisings, religious fundamentalism, gender conflicts, caste wars, 'racial' strife, ethnic struggles, regional conflicts, and terrorism.

We invite papers based on novels and films dealing with the following key
topics:

-- Martyrdom, Terrorism and suicide bombings: representations of violence and self-sacrifice in south Asian fiction and film

-- Jihad, Religious fundamentalism, Islamophobia, Sectarianism

-- State of emergency, State terrorism, Institutional terror and torture

-- Divisions of territory and the self: representations of partition in South Asian fiction and film

-- Nationalism (Hindutva, Sinhala, Tamil...), Civil War, Intifada, Refugees

-- Exclusion, Resistance to post-colonial order, imperialism and globalization Revolution (Naxalism, Dalit literature)

-- Oppositional cinema as a tool for resistance and social mobilization

Papers should be roughly 20-minutes long, and they will be arranged into panel sessions on related topics by the convenors. A selection of the papers presented at ESSE will be published in a scholarly journal and in a refereed volume.

Submit abstracts of 250 words and a short biography in RTF format by 15th December 2009 to all three convenors:

Dr Stephen Morton, Senior Lecturer at: s.c.morton@soton.ac.uk
Dr Pascal Zinck, Associate Professor at: cap.zinck@wanadoo.fr
Dr Veronica Thompson, Associate Professor at: thompson@athabascau.ca

Deadline for receipt of full articles is 30th June 2010.

Registration and accommodation details will be available from 1st March, see the links to the Contact information for the conference application form, downloadable at The ESSE – Turin website: http://www.unito.it/esse2010/home/index.php?contenuto=home

Registration Deadline: 1st June 2010

Presently receiving & reviewing submissions for the Winter 2009 issue

Authors are asked to critically discuss meanings of ‘nature’ or ‘environment’ that clash or harmonize with discourses and/or conservation practices across cultures and time.

Possible Topics to be Explored (in no way exhaustive)

Competing Views of Nature

a. Creation stories – nature as a gift
e.g.: Genesis, Shinto, Buddhist, animist, pantheist, secularist, etc.

b. Instrumental – nature as object for human use; humans possess inherent subject status that affords them the self-proclaimed right to exploit
e.g.: Drilling for oil, gas, coal. Diverting rivers, damming rivers, etc.

c. Warehouse – storing genetic materials for present and future human use; rainforest and other eco-systems as repositories of presently and conceivable value for future human need
e.g.: drugs, medications, new strains of plant life for human consumption

d. Cathedral-Holy place – nature as a source of inspiration and worship
e.g.: Nature parks, national parks; also literary productions extolling oneness with other forms, etc.

e. Holistic – nature as a value in itself, independent of human need or desire
e.g.: Every life form has its own reason for being, independent of human use or intent. Every life form – at least sentient life – has an interest in living, etc.

* * * * * *

All submissions will be evaluated using a double-blind (at least three reviewers) peer review process.

Details regarding the submission process appear at http://www.synaesthesiajournal.com/

If you wish to be added to or removed from the mailing list, please respond to editors@synaesthesiajournal.com

31st Annual Conference February 10-13, 2010
Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association
http://swtxpca.org/
Abstract Deadline: 10/20/09, Priority Registration Deadline 12/15/09
Conference Hotel:
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras
Albuquerque, NM 87102
505.842.1234

Panel Title: The Transgressive Cinema of Pedro Almodóvar

This panel seeks papers that examine the films of Pedro Almodóvar through the lens of transgressive cinema. Any of his films and the themes explored are viable for inclusion on the panel. The notion of transgression extends itself to his use of popular culture, aesthetics, and style. Ambiguity, the boundaries of identity, his films’ relationship to female, gay, and trans characters are all of interest. How does tradition play out in his films? What about genre?

Scholars, teachers, professionals, and others are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are also particularly welcome with award opportunities for best graduate papers.

Please share this CFP with colleagues.

Please send a short curriculum vitae and a 250-350 word abstract to mjonet@nmsu.edu or to the physical address below by 20 October 2009.

Dr. M. Catherine Jonet, European Popular Culture and Literature Area Chair
MSC 3WSP
New Mexico State University
P.O. Box 30001
Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001

CFP: EDWARD UPWARD -- ESSAY COLLECTION

Spanning nearly eight decades, the work of Edward Upward (b.1903, d. February 2009) is without parallel in English letters. Upward’s influence on the literature of the ‘Auden generation’ (from his quasi-Surrealist Mortmere fantasies to his political stories of the thirties) was outstanding; his life-long commitment to the Communist cause made him the moral authority for left-wing writers from the 1930s onwards. At the same time, Upward’s own writings have sometimes been eclipsed by the works of the authors he influenced – most notably W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood.

Upward continued to produce significant writing after World War II. His three-volume autobiography The Spiral Ascent (publ. between 1962 and 1977) stands as one of the great politico-literary confessionals of the second half of the century. Upward’s later story collections – An Unmentionable Man (1994), The Scenic Railway (1997), The Coming Day 2000) and A Renegade in Springtime (2003) –signal new artistic departures, even while they continue to offer a characteristic combination of political spokesmanship and artistic disappointment, of fantasy, autobiography and realism. Upward’s passionate, though characteristically fraught, “blending of twentieth-century styles” (Frank Kermode) remains unique in English literature. Following Upward’s death, his works stand in need of revaluation.

The collection of essays will consider Upward’s works from the 1920s until the 2000s, paying attention to the artistic, critical, political and socio-historical contexts of his oeuvre. The aim is an edited book publication or a special issue of a journal.

A wide spectrum of responses to Upward’s oeuvre are invited. Topics of interest might include, but are by no means restricted to:

- Upward and (anti-)modernism; Upward as an avant-garde writer
- Upward’s influence on other writers -- or vice versa -- from the 1920s to today (e.g. the impact of Blake, Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, Yeats; his influence on Auden, Isherwood)
- renegotiations of ‘realism’ (socialist and otherwise) in Upward’s writing
- the tension between autobiography and fiction in Spiral Ascent and Upward’s later stories
- Upward and genre (historical fiction; Utopian fiction; social problem novel; fantastic writing, e.g. in the Mortmere stories and Journey to the Border)
- Upward and questions of canonization
- insanity and hysteria in Upward’s prose / Upward and psychoanalysis
- ‘Englishness’ in Upward’s writings
- the Victorian legacy in Upward’s works
- the 1930s as a continuing point of reference for Upward
- sexuality / gender issues in relation to Upward's writings
- religion / prophecy in Upward’s oeuvre
- Upward and the English Left after 1945

Please send abstracts of around 500 words and a brief CV, plus any queries to Benjamin Kohlmann (benjamin.kohlmann@lincoln.ox.ac.uk) by December 31st 2009.

Completed essays will be 7-9,000 words. A tentative submission deadline for finished papers is October 31th 2010.

Extended CFP: Gender, Sport, and the Olympics (new deadline: Oct 20, 2009)

The editors of /thirdspace: a journal of feminist theory and culture/ invite submissions for our forthcoming issue on gender, sport, and the Olympics.

Prompted by the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, we are interested in exploring the central role which gender and sexuality play in shaping ideas about athleticism, sport culture, and the body, and the significant ways in which athletic events such as the Olympics work to transform conceptions of public space, national boundaries and identities, and gendered self-presentations and performances. This issue invites contributions on:

o the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver
o sport, athleticism, and ability
o the Para Olympics
o LGBT participation in athletics and the Olympics
o legal impacts on gender and sport (i.e. Title IX legislation in the
United States)
o sport and masculinities/femininities
o the role of gender in sporting competition
o gendered perspectives on Olympic events
o the use of prosthetics and technologies in athletic competition
o the impact of the Olympics on the environment
o sports/the Olympics and the use of public space, including
displacement of individuals/communities, the environment, and urban renewal
o and other topics relevant to the theme of gender, sport, and the
Olympics.

We welcome submissions from a wide range of disciplinary and geographical perspectives. Submissions from researchers working within, or among, the disciplines of geography, sociology, literature, area studies, cultural studies, film/media studies, art, history, education, law, and women’s/gender studies are particularly encouraged.

We accept the submission of work from scholars of any rank or affiliation, and encourage submissions from emerging feminist scholars, including graduate students.

All submissions to the journal must be submitted electronically through our online submission process. All submissions are peer-reviewed by established, senior feminist scholars. For more information on our publishing policies
see:
http://www.thirdspace.ca/journal/about/editorialPolicies

To submit: Please follow our online submission process at http://www.thirdspace.ca/journal/about/submissions

** Deadline: Oct 20, 2009 **

For more information, please contact us at info [at] thirdspace.ca

The E. E. Cummings Society and the Society's journal, Spring, invite abstracts for 20-minute papers for the 38th annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, February 18-20, 2010, at the University of Louisville. Considering the range of Cummings’ modernist experiments, yet culturally informed poetry and prose, we invite papers that examine Cummings’ multi-faceted engagement with the modern. In particular, we welcome papers that address his exploration of the popular vernacular across gender/racial boundaries and ethnic differences, celebrating the spirit of the individual from characters in comic strips such as Krazy Kat, mountain dancers, Jazz dancers, the burlesque, etc. All are part of his efforts to stage another modernism. Papers on Cummings and war and his re-imaginings of genre through language, typography, and many art forms (from the lyric to prose non/fiction, to stage plays, and to the visual arts) are also welcome. Please send 250-300 word abstracts (double-spaced and titled) and a brief bio by October 10th, 2009 to: gch7u@uvawise.edu

Or mail submissions to:
Gillian Huang-Tiller
Associate Professor of English
128 Zehmer Hall
University of Virginia’s College at Wise
Wise, VA 24293
(O) 276-376-4552
FAX: 276-328-0173

Special issue of Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems (http://indecs.eu) - INDECS
is devoted to Globalisation.

Deadline for manuscript submission is 15 June 2010. Details are given further in the text, or here: http://indecs.eu/index.php?s=cfp_8_2.

Globalisation is a phenomenon discussed constantly in academic works, its impact is analysed daily, and research communities regularly put efforts to assess and predict its consequences in order to find ways of their alignment with the desired consequences.
Independently of the study area, due to its causes, phases and long-term consequences, the term globalisation covers a wide variety of phenomena of interdisciplinary nature.

One of the opinions of the current globalisation is, somewhat paradoxically, that it is a phenomenon unique of the modern time. Significant amount of data about contemporary events indirectly contribute to the opinion that the current globalisation is intrinsically bound to our modern, multiple and thoroughly networked world.

However, globalisation is a rather regular phenomenon in the history of the humankind. Dispersion of knowledge, skills, viewpoints, experiences, innovations, norms etc., is generally implied by the term globalisation. Whether the underlying interpretation invokes a single globalisation that develops throughout the human history, or several well-separated globalisations, is a separate topic. Nevertheless, that does not interfere with observed constant existence of globalising processes.

Human history has been marked with constant globalising of which we know mostly consequences, but rarely – the more rarely the more ancient the process in question – the corresponding phases and causes.

Systems science’s approach to globalisation reveals that numerous globalising processes could be represented by their objectives, area, epoch as well as flows of information, energy and matter. In the globalisation occurring in our time, the objectives are determined largely by multinational corporations. The area is always contemporary known world. Probably the most influential, recent characteristic of globalisation is significant narrowing of time interval of its rising. Information dissemination is a real time process. Numerous products and living beings are transportable within a day between almost any two points in the world. Recently, the first globalising use of matter has been determined – the spreading of stone tools, lasting from 2.6 to 2.4 million years before the present time, with a pathway from Gona in Ethiopia to Olduvai in Tanzania.

The systems science approach to globalisation encouraged this call for papers for the special issue of the INDECS journal. We invite prospective authors to submit their manuscripts to be considered for publishing. The topics expected are those related to the current or historical globalisations, which include but are not limited to analyses of similarities or differences among globalisations or different phases of a single globalisation, their duration and lasting of their consequences, short- and long-term impact on the society or its segments, a specific area of influence, a specific globalisation, etc.

Manuscripts should be prepared in English or Croatian, and submitted not later than 15. June 2010. The consideration of manuscripts will follow the regular review process of the INDECS journal.

Accepted articles will be published in the issue of INDECS 8(2), December 2010.

Cordially,

Prof. Igor Catic, Guest Editor
Prof. Josip Stepanic, Editor-in-chief

Member-organized Session:
Critical Literary Regionalisms
Organizer: Susie DeCoste (Waterloo)
Frank Davey has argued that regionalist ideology tends toward environmental determinism, resulting in certain assumptions about what effects place should have on a person. Within this set of assumptions, any identification with other possible grounds of identity, such as race or gender, is less important. More recently, in Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and
Culture in the American Landscape (2007) Douglas Powell contends that region is rhetorical: it is just as much a persuasion as a description. In light of these observations, it may appear that regionalist literatures are as limited as the geographical space they intend to depict. On the other hand, regional literatures perhaps require sustained critical exploration of the relationships between region and race, and region and gender. This panel can gesture toward a criticism of regionalist literatures which explores the construction of region and its effects on subjectivity. This panel welcomes papers on any aspect of the relationship between criticism and regional
literature from any disciplinary perspective and any time period. Papers may focus on a specific text(s), or may address theoretical concerns for the study of regional literatures.

Following the instructions on the ACCUTE website (www.accute.ca, under Conference), send your 700 word proposal (or 8-10 page double-spaced paper), a 100 word abstract, a 50 word biographical statement, and the submitter information form, to susiedecoste@gmail.com by November 15th.

Note: You must be a current ACCUTE member to submit to this session.

We are seeking papers for a panel on gender and violence in U.S. Latino literature and popular culture for the 2010 LASA Conference: Crisis, Response and Recovery. More specifically, this panel will address the representations of violence in cultural productions since 911 as a way to rethink the shifting negotiations of gender and nation. We are especially interested in papers that explore violence in cultural productions since the economic crisis. Topics may include, but are not limited to, immigrant-related violence, gang violence, war, border violence and emotional violence in contemporary cultural productions. Some of the papers in this panel will explore the recent works of writers such as Ana Castillo and Daniel Alarcón.

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to magnani.jessica@spcollege.edu by Sept. 28, 2009. Please include your name, affiliation, and email address.

The Sixth Biennial Conference will be held in Paris and the banlieue (Saint-Denis), France, a geographic move that marks the first biennial held outside the U.S., in keeping with the extensive
reach and import of Morrison’s oeuvre and her role as artist, editor, teacher, and intellectual. A goal of the conference is to promote the broad exchange of ideas among the larger international community of Morrison scholars, including translators, artists, publishers, teachers, students and
everyday readers. This choice of Paris, its historical and cultural significance for people of the African Diaspora and its history as an expatriate destination for artists and intellectuals, encourages an examination of the reception, translations, and transformations that Morrison’s work inspires within
and across borders. The city and the surrounding region, which Morrison has called “le chez soi de l'étranger'”(the stranger's home), serves as a point of departure for exploring the deeper meaning of circuits of imagination / Les circuits de l’imaginaire: those dynamic itineraries, movements, and agency that Morrison’s imagination engenders. She requires us to look at what occurs within the boundaries of the book as well as what extends beyond. Facing the limitations of a real world, Morrison’s imagination is key to accomplishing what she sees as her task as a writer: “to alter language, to free it up, to open it up” so that we encounter new relationships between written, oral,
and aural texts; between the physical landscapes and the interior spaces within the novels; between different ways of knowing and comprehending knowledge; between the power that is real and
power that is evoked through the senses.

The search for these circuitous routes into Morrison’s oeuvre is our way of opening up new conversations-- critical and aesthetic--and providing new points of departure from and re-entry into all of Morrison’s texts. The search takes us to a central question to be addressed at the conference.

How does the imagination fashion new geographies of knowledge, and how do new geographies—dynamic, diasporic spaces—in turn, resonate in Morrison’s work?

The Sixth Biennial will enhance
participants’ appreciation for Morrison’s literary and intellectual practice: her refusal to disengage with the reader, her insistence on an artistic gaze that focuses on the silenced and discredited, her need to write as if it were indeed a “dance of an open mind.” We encourage an approach to Morrison that explores “ the face behind the face ... the words hiding behind talk,” and considers hidden energies and “vehicles” of style, intricate paths, and the coded messages that appear in her entire corpus -- fiction, non fiction, essays, librettos, children’s books, and plays.

10-minute presentations culled from longer formal papers should focus on the newness of Toni Morrison’s work and a wide range of critical reader responses. A special international “Language
Matters” workshop will be available for teachers and other educators interested in bringing Morrison into the classroom. Topics for panels and papers include the following:

· Morrison and the Black expatriate legacy in Paris and beyond
· Morrison in translation: reception and challenges
· Reading Morrison through contemporary critical, visual and performance
theories and practices
· Morrison in French literary and cultural spheres
· Nature, the natural and other worlds in Morrison
· Comparative readings and constructions of Morrison and other writers in
France and the African Diasporas
· Morrison and multiple reading communities
. Morrison and new geographies of knowledge

Abstracts should be sent to the conference co-chairs at paris.tms@gmail.com by January 3, 2010.
You must be a member of the Toni Morrison Society to present at the conference

Shakespeare’s plays were conceived and first performed in a political, cultural and economic metropolis, London around 1600, which drew audiences from different social spheres and countries to its theatres. While England was foremost a rural country, London radiated a climate of social change that was negotiated in theatrical presentations of the city, often evoking a non-civilised, barbaric, or utopian other. Our seminar aims at tracing the negotiation of urban spaces on the early modern stage, in contemporary theatrical productions and film adaptations. Which influences did London around 1600 exert on Shakespeare’s plays, and in how far can non-English settings of the plays tell us something about early modern notions of these cities and countries? In how far did the presentation of urban life in Shakespeare's plays contribute to the self-fashioning of Londoners (and other citizens) in his time and perhaps even today? Which topographies of the city (and its other – the countryside, the forest, the island) do Shakespeare’s plays present and how do they relate to cultural, social and economic concerns? How do the plays enact the demarcation and intersection of public and private spaces? How are spaces gendered? Which allegorical conceptions of the city can we trace?
Our seminar plans to address these and related questions with a panel of six papers during the annual conference of the German Shakespeare Association, Shakespeare-Tage (22-25 April 2010 in Essen, Germany), which will focus on “Shakespeare and the City” and include keynote addresses by Steven Mullaney (Michigan) und Mary Bly (Fordham, NY). As critical input for the discussion and provocation for debate, panelists are invited to give short statements (of no more than 15 minutes) presenting concrete case studies, concise examples and strong views on the topic. Please send your proposals (abstracts of 300 words) and all further questions by 30th November 2009 to the seminar convenors:
Dr. Felix Sprang, Universität Hamburg, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik: felix.sprang@uni-hamburg.de
Dr. Christina Wald, Humanities Center at Harvard: cwald@fas.harvard.edu

See also: http://www.shakespeare-gesellschaft.de/en.html

29th Annual AHVA Graduate Symposium and Exhibition: Sights/Sites of Spectacle

Call for Submissions:

In 2010, the city of Vancouver will become the site of an immense international spectacle. On the eve of the Olympic Games, the AHVA 2010 Graduate Symposium and Exhibition will engage with the notion of spectacle as theoretical concept, historical phenomenon, and artistic theme.

Performance, subjectivity, power, agency, and mediation have been central to the theorization of spectacle. In his oft-cited The Society of the Spectacle (1967), Guy Debord presents the modern spectacle as hinging on, and being indicative of, issues of economic control, disempowerment, and mass consumerism. Shifting the study of spectacle to contexts beyond those of capitalist consumption, postmodernist and poststructuralist scholars have worked to deconstruct the rhetoric of empire, the symbolic uses of political power, and the ontological categories of race, gender, and sexuality as they relate to various kinds of spectacle. In pre-modern and early-modern contexts, scholars have nuanced our understanding of spectacles by viewing them in conjunction with other concepts—such as the carnivalesque—that interrogate the structure and negotiation of power within social relationships.

The 29th Annual AHVA Graduate Symposium and Exhibition, held on the Vancouver campus of the University of British Columbia, includes a two day symposium on January 29th and 30th, concurrent with a two week exhibition scheduled from January 29th to February 11th, 2010. The AHVA Graduate Symposium and Exhibition Committee invites proposals for papers, presentations, and projects from emerging scholars, including current and recently graduated Masters, Doctoral students, Post-Doctoral scholars, and up-and-coming artists. For more information, please visit the symposium and exhibition website at: http://ahva.ubc.ca/infoDisplay.cfm?Keyword=Graduate%20Symposium

The Columbia French Graduate Student Association is pleased to announce the inaugural issue of its journal of graduate work, Épitextes, on the subject of:

“Circulation”: Networks, Knowledge and the Literary

In his article “Pouls” for Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopedia, Ménuret de Chambaud propagated circulation as the sine qua non of health. Part of a project largely defined by its attempt to create a large system of knowledge and to be propagated to as many as possible, this article, pivotal in the debate between Cartesians and Mechanists, can in this sense be said to act as a part mirroring the whole, and exemplifies the polyvalent utility of the concept of circulation for the literary scholar. Blood circulation, the creation and role of knowledge networks in the dissemination of ideas, and the interaction between the eastern and western worlds are but a few examples of the ramifications of this concept. The way in which literary texts affect or ought to affect individuals’ relations to one another, be distributed among those individuals, and whom they ought to reach has fueled rivalries, inflamed tirades and informed national policy. From before the Aeneid’s celebration of Roman nobility and valor to Malraux’s Ministry of Culture and beyond, how a literary creation should circulate has been the business of writers and readers. This year’s FGSA conference hopes to explore how this business has affected and continues to affect French or Francophone texts and their study.

Equally important (and contentious) have been authors’ own attitudes towards the dissemination of their work, and those works’ representation of the circulation of ideas. Some texts are intended to behave as viruses on their audience, circulating throughout the system until passed on to the next host, as Sade’s unique blend of the erotic and the politically subversive, while some others seem more predisposed to sustain themselves within the cerebral frames of a few lecteurs avertis, exemplified by Mallarmé’s notorious impenetrability. What parameters drive a writer to seek or shun notoriety and what does the result entail for a text’s posterity?

Finally, and from the reader’s perspective, how well a text circulates and its relation to other texts has also been a central literary concern. A major pillar of literary history (and analysis) has for some time been the understanding of a text’s contexts and references. Also, how far a text has traveled and how much it has been commented has often determined its success or infamy, at least in part. Throughout history theologians have been equally prompt to tout their scriptures’ ubiquity or esoteric status as proof of their faiths; likewise, success or failure in globalized markets plays an ambivalent but significant role in current readers’ evaluation of a text’s integrity or desirability.

We invite graduate students from all disciplines to help us extract some of the more notable ways in which circulation has placed its stamp upon French literature. Articles of 15-25 pages, submitted electronically to epitextes@columbia.edu , with name, email and institutional affiliation, in French or English and dealing with this topic and within any period of French and Francophone literary history will be considered until November 15, 2009. Any and all approaches and perspectives, including from other fields in the humanities, are acceptable, and encouraged.

POST SCRIPT CALL FOR PAPERS

SPECIAL ISSUE: REPRESENTATIONS OF MASCULINITIES IN SPANISH FILM: CROSS-CULTURAL AND INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES

Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities (Texas A & M University-Commerce) welcomes submissions on Representations of Masculinities in Spanish film for a special issue. Post Script encourages original manuscripts in this area from scholars and academics as well as filmmakers.

Topics related to the representation of masculinities may include, but are not limited to:

•Spanish film before 1936, the Postwar, and the political transition (1975-1980);
•Analysis/readings of individual films or film projects;
•Stereotypical representation of men in Spanish films as “Iberian machos”;
•Deconstruction of patriarchal forms of masculinities;
•Representations of men by women;
•Masculinity and violence;
•Shifts in representations of traditional family structures;
•Masculinity, femininity, and androgyny;
•Masculinity in crisis;
•Masculinity and immigration;
•Men and sexuality;
•New gender and culture approaches to masculinity;
•Spanish male actors and masculinities;
•Images of a nation-state through representations of masculinities;
•Images of the bullfighter;
•Models of masculinity and the media;
•Masculinities and cultural productions;
•Masculinity and the Catholic tradition;
•Masculinity and film aesthetics;
•Substantive interviews with filmmakers (actors, directors, screenwriters);
•Reviews of recently (last two years) published books in the area;
•Bibliography of recent works (books, essays, etc.);
•Filmography of films and media;

Please note that Post Script does not reprint previously published material. Please submit proposals (of 250-750 words) to guest editor Inma Cívico-Lyons at the address below by December 1, 2009. Completed essays (of no more than 7,000 words, MLA format) will be due by January 31, 2010, and should be sent as both an attachment (virus free) and a hard copy. Manuscripts must be in English.

Inma Cívico-Lyons
Department of Literature and Languages
Texas A & M University-Commerce
P.O. Box 3011
Commerce, Texas 75429-3011
USA
Inma_Lyons@tamu-commerce.edu

For questions about Post Script not related to this special issue, contact the general editor: Gerald Duchovnay

Keynotes: Carol Adams and David Clark

The emergent field of animal and animality studies is rapidly being articulated across scholarly boundaries. We invite graduate students to enter this growing conversation and approach the topic from perspectives reflecting the broad (inter)disciplinarity of this field. Discussions will use animal studies as a conceptual lens in order to investigate issues including the boundaries between self and Other, agency and biological drive, and reason and non-reason; the codes that permeate our conceptions of non-human animals; and the implications of troubling and/or making porous the human/animal divide. Is understanding human beings as embodied subjects ontologically bound to our relationship to non-human animals? In what ways is animal wellbeing crucially implicated in how we think ourselves into and against animals? As part of these discussions, we welcome investigations into the ways that (as Val Plumwood contends) animals, nature, and racial, colonial, and gendered Others function, now and historically, as overlapping sites of difference. We also invite considerations of the relationship between the conceptual economy that posits animality as an exploitable trope and forms of Othering that render animals as salable things. In approaching these topics, we encourage participants to consider how animal and animality studies has impacted other theoretical lenses, including critical race theory and feminist, postcolonial, and ecocritical/environmental studies, as well as the attendant politics of our disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to the field.

Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

* Thinking with animals / intro-species boundary disruption
* Becoming animals and biocentric ethics
* The boundary between domestic and wild, sentiment and
terror
* Making animals 'matter' and the role of affect
* Animal poetry and ecopoetics
* Animals and the nation in the nineteenth century and beyond
* Animals and spectacle (both alive and dead)
* Urban and wild animals and the politics of space
* Animal geographies and environmental histories
* Animals and transnational ecologies
* Speciesm and racism
* Animals and desire / animality and sexuality
* Vegetarianism and the politics of meat
* Animals in language / symbolic animals
* The discourses and iconography of animals in various
cultural forms
* The uses of animals in war and torture
* Animal studies now and its future directions

Proposals may reflect traditional and innovative formats, including papers, panels, roundtables, and community dialogues, as well as creative submissions. Please send an abstract of approximately 250 words, along with your name, department, affiliation, and e-mail address to jaime.j.s.denike@queensu.ca. For creative submissions, send 30 lines of poetry or a 300 word excerpt. For information about our call for artistic submissions for our connected Just Act Natural art exhibit, please contact visser.lisa@gmail.com .

The deadline for submissions is October 1st, 2009.

1st International Akşit Göktürk Conference
15-16 April 2010
Call for Papers

Deadline for Submissions: 22 January 2010

The 1st International Akşit Göktürk Conference entitled “Visions of the Future Now and Then” in literatures in English will be held by the English Language and Literature Department, Istanbul University on 15-16 April 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey.
Nowadays, a decade after the millennium, apocalyptic belief, once again, insists that the end has come for all humanity, indeed, the entire planet earth itself: ecological disaster, epidemic diseases, a technology and science gone wild, cloning, genetic engineering, overpowering mass media, global terrorism, famine and many other threats appear to signal the End. Post-modernism, engages with the ghosts of an unresolved past, rather then visions of a new future, reinforces this sense of an ending. These critical times are, then, the right time to reconsider visions of the future, both utopian and dystopian. Writers, of, practically, every century, have, traditionally, not only looked at the past and the present, but also directed their gaze at the future, constructing intriguing visions of the evolution or regression of humanity.
Papers are invited on any aspect on the conference theme. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
Millennial literature
Utopia/dystopia
Science fiction
The redefinition of the human being in the face of cloning and genetic engineering
The redefinition of sex/gender and sex/gender politics
Possible new worlds, both cities and rural spaces
Revolutionary technology and science
The future of literature

Please send an abstract of no more than 250 words in length, including your name, position and institutional affiliation to iagc2010@istanbul.edu.tr.

CFP for Edited Collection
Trans/National Asian Identities in Pan-Pacific Cinemas
Edited by Philippa Gates and Lisa Funnell

Hollywood’s representation of Asians and Asian Americans has often been regarded by critics and scholars as inadequate and/or offensive. Historically, Asian characters have been portrayed as stereotypical or absent from images of mainstream America; the last decade, however, has seen a change in the representation of Asian identity. Once the “model minority” but now the action hero/ine, Asian characters embody positive, if often conflicting, associations of national and transnational identity. American film does not exist within a vacuum and influences—but also is influenced by—other cinemas with the exchange of not only the images of national and diasporic identities but also film industry talent from directors to stars.

The unprecedented international success of the Hong Kong-Chinese/American film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Lee 2000) helped to usher in a new phase of mainstream/commercial Pan-Asian film production. In light of the increasingly transnational character of Asian film production and the prevalence of multi-ethnic and multi-national casts, David Desser argues that “questions of national origin must take a back seat to what is obviously Pan-Asian and even global filmmaking. Film producers and distributors are thus already acknowledging what academics seem reluctant to admit: the transnational character of contemporary filmmaking in Asia” (2005: 218). In the wake of increasing globalization— which is often construed as Americanization—there has been a lack of critical attention focussed on the performance of Asian and Asian-American screen identities in Pan-Asian films.

The aim of this collection of essays is to explore the transnational exchange of Asian and Asian-American screen identities mediated through Hollywood and Asian films and/or co-productions. Since our goal is to present global perspectives on contemporaneous issues, we welcome scholarly contributions from outside North America.

Proposals are welcome on topics that include:
- transnational Asian and/or Asian-American stardom
- transnational Asian and/or Asian-American identities
- identity construction in transnational co-productions
- multiracial and multiethnic casting in Pan-Asian cinema
- revisiting/reclaiming Asian-American screen identities of Classical Hollywood
- mainstreaming of Mainland Chinese Cinema and its globalizing aspirations
- residual impact of the Hong Kong action cinema on Hollywood in the 2000s
- impact of Hollywood on Pan-Asian filmmaking
- the rise of multiracial and multiethnic action heroes in mainstream action films
- the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis on Pan-Asian filmmaking
- the transnational work of Asian directors or choreographers
- the exchange of themes between American, Pan-Asian, and/or other cinemas
- other relevant topics

Please send your 500 word abstract (with bibliography/filmography) and an author bio as email attachments by January 15, 2010 to Philippa Gates and Lisa Funnell

- Decisions regarding the successful proposals will be completed by March 1, 2010
- Final papers will be required by July 1, 2010

The English Graduate Advancement and Development Society (EGADS!) at the University of Texas at Brownsville is proud to host its annual graduate/undergraduate English studies conference on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2010. This year’s topic is “Bridges and Borders: Exploring the Confluence of Languages, Disciplines, and Cultures.”
Bridges are frequently built up and torn down, and borders often change. The boundaries between people, places and things blur and break. This happens with governments, but it is equally true in literature and rhetoric. Authors frequently challenge our notions of what is acceptable, they point out our close-mindedness, and they show us new paths.
UTB/TSC, at the southern tip of Texas, is just a step away from the large Mexican city of Matamoros and only 30 minutes from the white sandy beaches of South Padre Island.
Abstracts (250 words) must be submitted to EgadsConference@gmail.com by Dec. 15, 2009. This year’s conference panels are: rhetoric and composition, creative writing, American literature, British literature, and theoretical and pedagogical issues in English studies. All papers will be considered.

Volume 3 Issue 1 January 2010
The Journal of Social and Psychological Sciences invites all submissions in the humanities and social sciences that have a Psychosocial orientation. Examples of topic areas include: Gender and Identity, Embodiment of Gender, Psychosocial Rehabilitation, Psychoanalysis and Social Theory. Manuscripts may be in form of reviews, short communications, letters to the editor, research papers, commentaries and replies to other articles or research papers.

Important Dates:
All papers must be submitted by the 29th of November 2009
A notification of acceptance will be sent on the 20th of December 2009

Submission guidelines can found at http://www.jspsciences.org/guidelines.htm

Any submission related queries should be addressed to Mauro Pereira:
jsps@jspsciences.org

Manuscripts should be sent via e-mail to manuscripts@jspsciences.org

Or posted to:
Oxford Mosaic Publications,
131 Barns Road
Oxford,
OX43RB
For more information please visit: http://www.jspsciences.org/

People make cities and cities make people. Reductive as that claim is, it stands at the heart of much of the ethnic American experience. Immigrants originally inherit the cities in which they settle. Then, as they come to know their new culture and as their children grow and develop, they remake their communities, creating places that reflect the multiple strands of their origins. For scholars of ethnic literature, American cities stand, in part, as texts themselves. They reflect the immigrant experience as it has taken place, and they contextualize the possibility for future immigration.
We invite paper abstracts and complete panels, workshops, and roundtable proposals on all aspects of the multi-ethnic literatures of the United States. We are particularly interested in proposals for papers that explore literature of the city and theories of the urban experience in a multi-ethnic context.
Submissions should detail requests for specific audiovisual equipment, if needed. We also ask that a proposal for a complete panel, roundtable, or workshop include a brief description of the central topic, supplemented by brief abstracts of individual speakers’ contributions.
The deadline for abstracts and proposals
(250 words) is
December 21, 2009.

Please email abstracts to:
Prof. Joe Kraus & Prof. Susan Mendez
melus2010@gmail.com

More information at www.melus.org
Full PDF at http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/Conference%20CFP%20for%20website.p...

Call for submissions to the premier issue of Red Feather Journal (www.redfeatherjournal.org), an online, international, interdisciplinary journal dedicated to the study of the child image. The first issue will be published February 1, 2010.

Red Feather Journal facilitates an international dialogue among scholars and professionals through vigorous discussion of the intersections between the child image and the conception of childhood, children’s material culture, children and politics, the child body, and any other observations of the child within local, national, and global contexts. The journal invites critical and/or theoretical examination of the child image to further our understanding of the consumption, circulation, and representation of the child throughout the world’s visual mediums. The journal welcomes submissions that examine a broad range of media’s: children’s film, Hollywood and independent film, international film, Television, the Internet, Youtube, print resources, art, or any other visual medium that features the child image. Some sample topics include, but are certainly not limited to: studies of images of children of color; image of the child as commodity; images of children in Africa, Asia, Middle East, South America, etc.; political uses of the child image; children in film; children in advertising; visual adaptations of children’s literary works; child welfare images; images of children and/in war; or any other critical examination of the child image in a variety of visual mediums.

Red Feather Journal is published twice a year, in February and September, and adheres to the MLA citation system. Authors are welcome to submit articles in other citations systems, with the understanding that, upon acceptance, conversion to MLA is a condition of publication.

Interested contributor’s please submit the paper, an abstract, and a brief biography as attachments in Microsoft Word to debbieo@okstate.edu

Deadline for submissions for the premier issue is December 15th 2009.

We invite critical writings and book reviews from writers for the Second Issue (Autumn, Number 2, 2009) on Indian Writings in English. We also seek and original innovative works from artists whose artistic activities are influenced by colonial and postcolonial discourses.

* For submission of critical writings, please send:

Ø Completed article (3000-5000 words)

Ø Abstract (100-200 words)

Ø 3 to 5 Keywords

Ø Brief CV

* For submission of creative works, please send:

Ø Analytical Description of Works (2000-3000 words)

Ø Maximum 5 images in JPG format, at least 800 pixels wide or tall.

Ø Abstract (100 words)

Ø 3 to 5 Keywords

Ø Brief CV

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

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 30th September

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

JEWISH COMICS: SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL SHOFAR

The scholarship surrounding comics and “graphic novels” has proliferated over the past several years, as has studies focusing on particular comics themes or visual texts created by certain ethnic communities. Indeed, over the past three years alone there have been at least six critical studies investigating the links between comics and Jewishness. Given this emergent field of inquiry, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies will devote a special issue to Jewish comics (slotted for Summer 2010). The scope of this volume will take in the theoretical, literary, and historical contexts of graphic narrative and its links to Jewish identity and discourse. Possible topics could include, but are certainly not limited to:

• The ways in which comics have articulated the American Jewish experience
• Comics and the Holocaust, as expressed in such narratives as Maus, Auschwitz, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, We Are on Our Own, Mendel’s Daughter: A Memoir, and Yossel: April 19, 1943
• The contributions of Jews in the history of comic strips and comic books
• Images of Israel in the works of Joe Sacco, Rutu Modan, Ari Folman, Miriam Libicki, and the Dimona Comix Group
• Jewish identity through superheroes and villains, from Superman to The Spirit to Shaloman
• The form of the contemporary “graphic novel” by Jewish writers/artists such as Kim Deitch, Joann Sfar, Miss Lasko-Gross, Ben Katchor, and Aline Kominisky-Crumb
• Graphic adaptations of Jewish texts and legends
• Immigration and ethnic urban landscapes in the works of comics artists such as Will Eisner and Ben Katchor
• Comics, the Diaspora, and Jewish internationalism
• Jewish identity and world conflict, from the world wars to 9/11
• Jewish autobiographic comics (e.g., Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor and Will Eisner’s autobiographic fiction) as well as graphic biographies of such figures as Franz Kafka, Emma Goldman, Houdini, and Anne Frank
• Representations of the Jewish gangster in comics
• The uses of the golem and its relation to the superhero

All essay submissions should be between 5,000 and 8,000 words, including notes. Contributors should format submissions based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, and use footnotes. Authors will be responsible for securing copyright permission for all images used. Address all inquiries, and submit all completed manuscripts, to the guest editor, Derek Parker Royal at Derek_Royal@tamu-commerce.edu. Please include the words “Jewish Comics” in the subject heading.

Deadline for final manuscript submission is November 2, 2009.

Shofar is published for the Midwest Jewish Studies Association, the Western Jewish Studies Association, and the Jewish Studies Program of Purdue University by the Purdue University Press. For more information on the journal, please visit http://www.cla.purdue.edu/jewish-studies/shofar/.

For a graphic version of the CFP, see http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/droyal/CFP-jewishcomics.pdf

Greetings fellow scholars,

This is a CFP for the Fall 2009 Humanities Review, a literary journal for the St. John’s University English Department in Queens, NY.

Our current theme focuses on the contemporary construction of American Identity.

We are also strongly requesting art submissions that best exemplify the theme. Limited color or mono-chrome are preferred. Please submit .TIFF FILES ONLY @ 800 dpi to the email address below.

Some matters to consider:

How has the social practice of culture formed / continue to form the ideological condition of “being American?” With that said, what does it mean to be an American in the 21st Century? What are the ontological pieces that plait our parsonage?

How do you see American visual culture as reifying the American historical repository? Particularly with advertising media that in its polysemous state is most imbued with meaning, how does our interaction with such forms help us create our priorities and manufacture our delight?

To what degree is the American Identity defined by a national literature? What complicates this part of the nation's Identity? For example, is time or nationality of author a factor in relevance to the nation as a whole?

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

The deadline for all submissions is NOVEMBER 1ST, 2009.

All essays are to be limited to 15 single-spaced pages with 12 pt. Times New Roman Font. MLA citation style only. Please submit essays via email to sjuhumanities@gmail.com or via snail mail to:

The Humanities Review
c/o The Writing Center
St. John's University
8000 Utopia Parkway
Queens, NY 11439

Thanks and good luck!

“In Media Res: Gender, Race, and Popular Culture”
November 13th-14th 2009
Bucknell University
Call For Papers/Abstracts

“In Media Res” is a series of programs and events, including an academic symposium that will be held at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The symposium will feature emerging scholarship on race, gender, class, media, and popular culture. “In Media Res” is loosely defined/translated as: “in the middle of things or affairs.” It is a literary term used to describe the technique that authors/poets use to pull readers into the narrative by beginning the story in the midst of its narrative arc. To that end we invite and hope to encourage a wide range of scholars, speakers, and artists who will in turn extend and transform conversations centered on the conference topics/themes.

“In Media Res” begins on the evening of November 13th with an opening keynote program featuring a talk/lecture by Dr. Imani Perry. Professor Perry is the author of Prophets of the Hood and Professor of Africana Studies at Princeton University. On the evening of November 13th, Blu (of Blu & Exile/Johnson & Jonson) will perform at Uptown Café located on the campus of Bucknell University.

The academic symposium will be held during the day on Saturday, November 14th. Several panels will be held concurrently during morning and afternoon sessions. The final (late-afternoon) session will be a closing keynote panel, featuring Gbenga, Akinnabe – Bucknell Alum and star of HBO’s The Wire.

The “In Media Res” organizers are accepting proposals for panels and/or abstracts for individual papers on scholarly work focused on race, gender, class, media, and/or popular culture. Special consideration will be given to those panels or papers that wrestle with the intersections of two or more of the symposium’s topics (e.g. race, gender, and media or gender, class, and popular culture) in specific fields of study, in/across literary, historical, and/or political, texts. The following topics are some suggested examples, but any proposals or abstracts related to the subject matter of the conference are welcome and will receive consideration. Panel proposals should approximately 4-500 words and individual paper proposals should be about 250-300 words. All submissions are due by October 10th and should be sent to: jbp016@bucknell.edu Please put IN MEDIA RES in the subject line of all email correspondence.

• The Social Impact of lost Popular Culture Icons
• Gender bias in the Media and Popular Culture
• Defining Race in a Post-Racial Era

There is a conference registration fee of $25. Symposium participants and/or their home institutions will be responsible for housing and transportation expenses. A full schedule and information regarding local accommodations will be forthcoming. Please address any questions to Jessica Hess: jah018@bucknell.edu

31st Annual Conference February 10-13, 2010
Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association
http://swtxpca.org/
Abstract Deadline: 10/20/09, Priority Registration Deadline 12/15/09
Conference Hotel:
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
330 Tijeras
Albuquerque, NM 87102
505.842.1234

Panel Title: Provocation and Dialogue: Interrogating the Films of Michael Haneke

“My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.” – Michael Haneke, “Film as Catharsis”

In an article about Michael Haneke for senses of cinema, Mattias Frey makes the case that “[o]n the whole, Haneke's polemical filmic program attempts to lay bare the coldness of European society and challenge Hollywood's blithe treatment of violence.” This panel seeks papers that critically examine films by Haneke. Any of his films and the themes explored are viable for inclusion on the panel. The unifying theme of the panel is how each film attempts to provoke or/and prompt dialogue.

Scholars, teachers, professionals, and others are encouraged to participate. Graduate students are also particularly welcome with award opportunities for best graduate papers.

Please share this CFP with colleagues.

Please send a short curriculum vitae and a 250-350 word abstract to mjonet@nmsu.edu or to the physical address below by 20 October 2009.

Dr. M. Catherine Jonet, European Popular Culture and Literature Area Chair
MSC 3WSP
New Mexico State University
P.O. Box 30001
Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001

The Humanities Review, the literary journal of St. John's University English Department, is searching for the cover art for its Fall 2009 edition. The theme is American Identity--we are interested in anything that illustrates a piece of the modern American self or America today.

Details:
We are open to drawings, paintings, photography, and even pictures of original sculpture. All submissions should have a black and white or limited color palate (four or less) and not exceed sizes of 9x12".

Please send submissions in jpeg format to sjuhumanities@gmail.com or via snail mail to:

The Humanities Review
c/o The Institute for Writing Studies
St. John's University
Jamaica, NY 11439

Deadline: November 1, 2009.

Guest Editor: Frank Stevenson
Deadline for Submissions: February 28, 2010
Website: http://www.concentric-literature.url.tw/

This special issue, entitled “M,” focuses on the significance, literally the signifying force of the letter “M.” Any interpretations are possible but the editors particularly had in mind the “economic” senses of “M,” as in money, Marx, mass production. In this context, the deep central “V” in “M” might suggest extremes. Kenichi Ohmae, the Japanese business strategist and writer, says we are becoming an “M-shaped Society”: as the traditional distribution pattern changes, the middle class is disappearing and people are becoming either richer or poorer. Indeed, already in the mid-19th century Benjamin Disraeli, in his novel Sybil or The Two Nations (1845), deplored what he saw as a gulf in England between the “Two Nations,” the nations of capital and labor, rich and poor. Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto three years later in 1848, and the specter of that work continues to haunt not only Europe but the world.

In perhaps a further expansion of this economic meaning, “M” also can stand for modernity, metropolitanism, mass media. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) presented audiences with a futuristic capitalist dystopia set in the year 2000: the factory owners live in luxury on the upper floors of the corporate city-state’s extraordinary Art Deco skyscrapers while the workers live underground, laboring to sustain the lives of the privileged. In the “M” of McDonald’s the mass media join forces with mass production: like other all-American labels (“Microsoft” and “Mickey Mouse”) the “McDonald’s” brand helps to spread this fast-food giant’s products to every corner of the globe, and the Golden Arches brood like an ever-watchful, glowing mother hen over our civilization and its discontents. The sociologist George Ritzer even uses the term “McDonaldization” to describe the process by which an entire society takes on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant.

We see the mesmerizing force of an increasingly global pop culture in our iconic sports stars (Mickey Mantle and Michael Jordan), movie stars (Marilyn Monroe) and singers (Madonna, the other MJ, Eminem). Indeed, “M” thrives in its crossing of global space and time-zones, sending out its rhizome-like tendrils in every conceivable direction. Moreover, its historical echoes are literary and religious as well as economic, political and cinematic. For instance, “M” may stand for Mary (the Virgin Mary but also Mary Magdalene) and motherhood in general as well as for our latter-day Madonna. It also may signify Mephistopheles and the monstrosity of Faust’s desires which this agent of Satan encourages, or Melville’s monstrous white whale Moby Dick and the monstrosity of Captain Ahab’s obsession with killing it. In fact “M” can suggest death itself (morte) and murder, as in Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue” or the 1954 American film, “Dial ‘M’ for Murder.”

“M”—nourished by lassez-faire and greed and pure desire—is perhaps an out-of- control desiring-machine, an impulse which urges people to go to extremes, to embark on the path of pure becoming: becoming-intense, becoming-money, becoming-might (power or pure contingency), becoming-M. How vast might be the multiple and molecular traces and folds of such a monstrous machine? This special issue of Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies on the theme of “M” em-phasizes, then, the multifarious manifestations of this letter. It invites papers on any subjects which mark the significance of “M.”

Guest Editor: Fang-mei Lin
National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Deadline for Submissions: September 30, 2009

Tremendous changes have come about in Taiwan in recent times, especially in the last ten years. It would be no exaggeration to say that the entire cultural, social, economic, political, and demographic landscape of this country has been transformed. In the period following the lifting of martial law we have seen the emergence and growth of a Taiwanese national(ist) consciousness—a “turn” which became highly visible around the time of the 2000 presidential election but which has been accompanied, in the cultural and literary fields at least, by an opposing tendency to posit value in the experience of diaspora as part of a critique of Taiwanese nationalism. Fundamental to the post-nativist account of identity in Taiwan has been the belief that Mainlanders and their descendents, as well as indigenous people, should be encouraged to record their tribal and familial memories of displacement and migration.

  At the same time, a tide-wave of even greater proportions has swept across all aspects of society. From educational reform to election campaign sloganeering, television commercials and far beyond, “globalization” is not merely a buzz word denoting a fashionably international lifestyle; it encapsulates the reality for millions living in Taiwan today. One of the consequences of globalization for Taiwan has been the influx of foreign brides and workers. According to official statistics, one out of every eight new-born babies has a foreign mother. Meanwhile, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants and food-stands have become familiar sights – to pick a few of the most obvious examples of the many kinds of “immigrant” businesses that have flourished in Taiwan in the last decade.

The Spring 2010 issue of Concentric will be called “Transnational Taiwan.” We welcome contributions in the form of research papers from literary and cultural studies. While the term “international” foregrounds the interaction between nations carried out by their respective representatives and thus maintains as axiomatic the significance of national boundaries and sovereignty in any group or personal identity, “transnational” brings into focus non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civilians who have crossed national borders and maintained networks of social relations in both their “home” and “host” countries and arguably helps us to interrogate lingering presumptions. With these considerations in mind, we wish to address the following questions:
 
◆Do transnational approaches offer special theoretical insights not currently available to diaspora theory?
 
◆To what extent will “transnational Taiwan” as a cultural and historical imaginary mark a turning-point in the “China-Taiwan complex”? Could this way of thinking eventually lead to increasing levels of participation in Taiwanese cultural life for immigrants and (other) marginal groups? Are there grounds for skepticism about the usefulness of this term (a case of “old wine in a new bottle”)? Will the Taiwanese national(ist) movement lose its relevance or will it continue to be productive of the forces at the center of our cultural and political debates?
 
◆What are the implications of KMT’s return to power in the presidential election of March 2008 for a transnational Taiwan? Will there be a more critical assessment of globalization amid the wreckage of the global financial crisis – a tendency, perhaps, to see globalization as a form of capitalism from above? Will transnational studies – hopefully defined as diaspora and globalization studies from below – give us integrative perspectives with which to look back but also ahead?