category: medieval

Apollon eJournal - Undergraduate Submissions deadline 6/15/2013

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:43:39 -0400

Check the website, apollonejournal.org, for submission details on publication, or for an application to work with us

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION
Apollon invites undergraduate students to get published in, review submissions for, or help edit a the third issue of our peer-reviewed eJournal, Apollon. By publishing superior examples of undergraduate academic work, Apollon highlights the importance of undergraduate research in the humanities. Apollon welcomes submissions that feature image, text, sound, and a variety of presentation platforms in the process of showcasing the many species of undergraduate research.

ABOUT THE PROJECT
Apollon, an undergraduate humanities eJournal, is a peer-reviewed publication for undergraduate humanities majors. Apollon features undergraduate research developed in humanities courses, and thus emphasizes faculty-student collaborations beyond the classroom. We invite interested students to join us by contributing leadership or original work to Apollon. Our student team participates at all levels of this ongoing project (design, review, and publication) to offer their peers a real outlet for intellectual work in the humanities. For more information you can go to the program website, www.apollonejournal.org, talk to your professors, or contact the Faculty Director, Jason Cohen, at (859) 985-3765 or cohenj@berea.edu.

SAMLA Special Session on Creating or Expanding a BA Program in English During Uncertain Times (June 20th- Abstract Deadline)

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:05:03 -0400

This panel invites participants from any college or university where there is an interest in building a B.A. in English or establishing a new programmatic track within the discipline. Participants need not be at any particular point in the process, and we hope to incorporate a diverse array of experiences and viewpoints. In other words, participants may only be thinking about the possibility of creating a program or they might be on the other side of the process. This panel will also consider what types of programs should/need to be created to meet the changing needs of students in the 21st century. We hope that this session will produce a vibrant dialogue that will serve as a bridge to future cooperation.

Because of the collaborative nature of this panel, we would like to create a roundtable atmosphere in which the audience plays an active role. Participants will each provide an informal 5-10 minute talk about their experiences and the advice they have about the process and then the rest of the session will be dedicated to having an open dialogue.

Instead of traditional proposals, those interested should send a brief 250 word description of their experiences and what they would like to gain from participating in the panel. Accepted descriptions will be shared with all participants to help generate a productive discussion. In order to be considered, these descriptions should be sent to SOrtolano@Edison.edu by June 20th.

Featured Speaker: Dr. Kristie Fleckenstein, Professor of English at Florida State University; co-collaborator in the creation and administration of FSU's undergraduate program in Editing, Writing, and Media

NeMLA 2014 Monstrous Maternity: Mothering Monsters, and Monsters as Mothers, Deadline 9/30/13

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:33:17 -0400

Monstrous Maternity: Mothering Monsters, and Monsters as Mothers

45th Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
April 3-6, 2014
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Host: Susquehanna University

Historically, the flaws of offspring have been placed as a burden on the mother, marking the maternal figure as responsible for all aspects of her progeny's development; if a child is born with a deformity then a shock experienced during gestation is to be blamed, and if a child suffers from a caustic disposition it is the mother's care that comes under scrutiny. These questions continue to be reflected in literature and film, as texts seek to place blame for monstrous acts, and texts seek to find a space for maternity in the monstrous or supernatural. So what can be said of the mothers of monsters? Or of the offspring of monstrous women? This panel proposes an examination of the subject of monstrosity and maternity as presented in literature and film, from *Beowulf* to *Wuthering Heights*, ‘Psycho’ to 'Mommy Dearest' to ‘Twilight’, examining the development of monsters as both mothers and progeny, and how the maternal role contributes to the defining of what is monstrous.

Areas of interest include:
• Mothers in Gothic novels
• The absent mother in monster literature
• Monstrous mothers
• Mothering monsters
• Depictions of monstrous mothers in film
• The question of blame and the true crime genre
• Supernatural motherhood
• Alternative maternity in literature and film

This panel will examine the correlation between motherhood and monstrosity, as represented and defined in both literature and film. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: mothers in gothic literature, the absent mother in monster texts, monstrous mothers, mothering monsters, depictions of monstrous mothers in film, the question of blame and true crime, supernatural motherhood, and alternative maternity in literature and film. Please send proposals and brief biographical notes to A.L. Mishou, USNA, almishou@gmail.com.

Deadline: September 30, 2013
Please include with your abstract:
Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)

The 2014 NeMLA convention continues the Association's tradition of sharing innovative scholarship in an engaging and generative location. This capitol city set on the Susquehanna River is known for its vibrant restaurant scene, historical sites, the National Civil War museum, and nearby Amish Country, antique shops and Hershey Park. NeMLA has arranged low hotel rates of $104-$124.

The 2014 event will include guest speakers, literary readings, professional events, and workshops. A reading by George Saunders will open the Convention. His 2013 collection of short fiction, The Tenth of December, has been acclaimed by the New York Times as “the best book you’ll read this year.” The Keynote speaker will be David Staller of Project Shaw.

Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however, panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable. http://www.nemla.org/convention/2014/cfp.html

Translatio--Medieval and Renaissance Graduate Student Conference at The Ohio State University

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:18:45 -0400

October 4-5, 2013

The Medieval and Renaissance Graduate Student Association at The Ohio State University is currently accepting abstracts for the second year of its graduate student conference, Translatio. Prospective papers will be considered on any topic that would be of interest to an audience working in the fields of Medieval or Renaissance studies. We are planning to organize a panel of professors that will discuss issues of periodization in our fields, as has been explored recently by James Simpson in Cultural Reform and Revolution, who explains that the means by which we develop “periods” are as important as the periods themselves—and thus ultimately questions the periods. Abstracts that intersect with this theme are greatly encouraged, but our aim is to make this conference open to any graduate student in Medieval and Renaissance studies, so do not hesitate to submit an abstract on any topic or from any discipline. We also encourage papers that expand the discussion beyond western scholarship.To submit an abstract or request further information, contact MRGSA via email at mrgsaosu@gmail.com by August 15, 2013.

Littérature et anachronisme, NeMLA, Harrisburg, PE, April 3-6, 2014 (deadline September 30)

Sat, 11 May 2013 19:07:23 -0400

Littérature et anachronisme

45th Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
April 3-6, 2014
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Host: Susquehanna University

Ce panel cherche à mettre à profit dans le champ de l’histoire littéraire francophone la critique récente de la version téléologique de l’histoire. Usant du rapprochement et de l’anachronisme, la pensée glissantienne offre un modèle pour une telle tentative. Quels autres paysages littéraires et culturels émergent d’un tel déplacement épistémologique ? Merci d’envoyer les propositions de communication accompagnées d’une courte description biographique à maxime.philippe@mail.mcgill.ca.

Deadline: September 30, 2013
Please include with your abstract:
Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee with registration)

The 2014 NeMLA convention continues the Association's tradition of sharing innovative scholarship in an engaging and generative location in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This capitol city set on the Susquehanna River is known for its vibrant restaurant scene, historical sites, the National Civil War museum, and nearby Amish Country, antique shops and Hershey Park. NeMLA has arranged low hotel rates of $104-$124.

[UPDATE]"Past Tense, Future Tensions" SCLA Conference Oct. 18-19, 2013 (abstract deadline extended)

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:30:21 -0400

DEADLINE EXTENDED: Abstracts due 6/1/13.

The tenuous relationship between the past, present, and future complicates the practice of creating as well as translating time in imaginary works. Grammatically, tense marks more than temporality; it also highlights degrees of being that remain unreachable or forever distant. At the 2013 SCLA conference we will examine what it means to stage the past and direct the future in our literary and artistic texts. Whether anachronistic, politicized, or asynchronous, tense marks the uneasy space where recollection and projection meet.

Keynote Speaker: Wai Chee Dimock (William Lampson Professor at Yale University, and author of Through Other Continents: American Literature Across Deep Time).

We welcome 250 word paper proposals or 500 word panel proposals sent to Prof. Heather Hayton (sclaconference@guilford.edu) by June 1, 2013. Graduate students who wish to be considered for an SCLA Travel Scholarship should indicate this in their cover letter and include a short vita (2 pages maximum). We will also hold 2 undergraduate sessions and welcome undergraduate proposals (please specify).

See website for full conference cfp: http://complit-scla.org/id14.html

Positively Papist: Catholic Culture and Renaissance England

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:25:08 -0400

Pamphleteers, clergymen, and political officials demonized recusant Catholics in Renaissance England, but early modern English culture is inextricable from the influences of the medieval Catholicism from which it emerged. This SAMLA session will look at the ways that Catholic culture, broadly interpreted, influences English literary and artistic endeavors between 1534 - 1660.

We are accepting papers that show the subtle ways that visual and textual representations incorporate evidence of a continuing Catholic culture in an officially Protestant England. How is English Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism complicated by artistic forms? Under what circumstances is Catholic influence viewed favorably? How do writers and artists nuance our understanding of the numerous religious conflicts in the period?

By June 14, 2013, please send abstracts of 250-300 words to Christina Romanelli, University of North Carolina Greensboro, at c_romane@uncg.edu.

SAMLA 85 will take place November 8-10 at Atlanta Marriott Buckhead Hotel & Conference Center in Atlanta, GA

The Medium, Before and After Modernism (EXTENDED: 13 May)

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:17:41 -0400

The medium and its specificity have oriented the discourse on the arts throughout various historic and historiographic periods. For modernism, for example, Clement Greenberg advocated the specificity of the medium as the legitimate drive of artistic production for the avant-garde. The critical discourse that emerged around Greenberg and his followers was oriented around the various articulations and possibilities of the medium, an investigation played out across the history of the twentieth-century’s art and its historiography. While the advent of performance, installation, and new media art challenged these particular narratives and developed new spaces of investigation, the discipline of art history as a whole still bears traces of these divisions along areas of specialization and study, given that the question of the medium emerged alongside the birth of the discipline, specifically in G. E. Lessing’s Laocoön (1766), itself a response to the work of Johann Winckelmann.

In past years, the revitalized interest in phenomenology, materiality, and object-oriented ontologies have drawn attention back to the aesthetic and material underpinnings of the arts. These trends evidence a burgeoning return to the notion of the medium and its various ontological and phenomenological specificities. However, these methods have become predominant in moments outside of modernity, such as the Ancient world, the Middle Ages, and the Early Modern period. Likewise, the same questions have been brought to bear on investigations concerning the recent past in spaces normally excised from a certain history of art, such as popular culture, technology, and videogame studies. Therefore, the medium and its specificity, while a necessary investigation, can no longer be addressed in terms of flatness or opticality alone, but must rather be developed from both its historiographic tradition in modernity along with its own specificities within each area of study. Thus, this panel engages the fundamental questions that emerge in such a global project: How does one articulate a notion of the/a medium in periods outside of a Euro-American modernism, or where the term itself is wholly inexistent? Is the medium a technical, material support for art, or is it an epistemological field for artistic production? This session seizes such questions as a shared discursive space for art historians of various fields to engage with what constituted a medium for their respective areas of study and how these orienting concepts construct notions of disciplines and subfields.

For submission details:
http://www.collegeart.org/proposals/2014callforparticipation

trans* : Tufts Graduate Humanities Conference, Keynote José Muñoz, October 18, 2013

Tue, 07 May 2013 16:08:23 -0400

Call for Papers

3rd Annual Tufts Graduate Humanities Conference
Tufts University
October 18, 2013
Keynote: José Muñoz

trans*

In the Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway famously suggests, "By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras." Chimeras are amalgams, hybrid beings that stand both in and between disparate identities. They are bodies in transit; they are transforming and potentially transformative bodies. At a contemporary moment in which identity politics have material, potentially violent, effects on bodies and subjects, the mobile and undecided limits of what Judith Butler terms the "recognizably human" pose an especially pressing set of questions. This year's conference theme takes up the questions of the transnational, the transsexual, the transhistorical, and other states of being in trans*.

We solicit papers from all areas of the humanities on being suspended between or moving across two states of being. Some questions of interest include: What are historical moments of fissure at which trans* figures emerge? How might the trans* figure transfigure structures of identity and power? In what ways are identities and bodies transfixed? What constitutes an act of transgression? How do new technologies translate and transform identities?

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
- Citizenship and transnationalism
- Translation and transposition
- Technology and the mechanical
- Queer bodies and identity politics
- Temporality and historiography
- Intersectionality and interdisciplinarity

Please send abstracts of 250 words or less to tuftsgradhumanitiesconference@gmail.com by June 15, 2013.

UPDATE: Deadline extended. CFP: The Funerary Culture of Late Medieval Europe’s New Elite. CAA Chicago, February 2014

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:36:38 -0400

CFP: Memorials for Merchants: The Funerary Culture of Late Medieval Europe’s New Elite. CAA Chicago, February 2014
During the late Middle Ages, the rise of urban centers and long-distance trade brought the emergence of wealthy mercantile elites who spent lavishly on funerary monuments. In contrast to royal and aristocratic tombs, these monuments have received comparatively little attention from scholars outside the Italian context. In order to reach a more thorough understanding of this increasingly influential strata of late medieval society, this session seeks papers exploring the role mercantile mentalities and practices played in shaping artistic patronage and reception of tombs. How did merchants construct memory and identity through the medium of the tomb? What role did fraternities and trade networks play in shaping iconographic choices? In what ways did their access to foreign art markets position merchants as conduits for new artistic forms and media? How were existing aristocratic and royal traditions of funerary art appropriated and adapted to meet the needs of the merchant class?

Please submit a 1-2 page (double-spaced) abstract with paper title by May 13, 2013. Abstracts should be emailed to Vanessa Crosby and Emily Kelley. Email: vanessacrosby2013@u.northwestern.edu and edkelley@svsu.edu

Abstracts should be accompanied by a CV (indicate summer contact information if applicable) and a letter indicating speaker's interest in and expertise in the topic. Please also include CAA membership status and member number if applicable.

Writing Ireland: Identity, Memory, and Place

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:52:44 -0400

"Writing Ireland: Identity, Memory, and Place"

In keeping with the special focus of SAMLA 85, we welcome papers that focus on the ways Irish identity, space, and memory are shaped through conventionally understood literary genres (poetry, fiction, drama, memoir) as well as work from related fields, including but not limited to art, critical theory, folklore, and film studies. This panel seeks to address recent trends in scholarship and the ways Irish identity (systemic or individual) and space are constructed and defined. By June 1, 2013, please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Sarah Dyne, Georgia State University, at sdyne1@gsu.edu.

The Phenomenology of Reading: Experiencing Literature Today, Keynote: Charles Altieri, Oct. 11-12, Philadelphia, PA

Mon, 06 May 2013 21:48:30 -0400

The Phenomenology of Reading: Experiencing Literature Today
October 11th-12th, 2013
Temple University: Philadelphia, PA
Keynote: Charles Altieri (Berkeley)

As a result of the ongoing rhetoric of “crisis” in the humanities, literary and cultural studies scholars seem to be perpetually reassessing their vocation. While the introduction of new theoretical models or critical approaches promise to carry the torch for scholarship into the era of the globalized university, other scholars seek to exhume past methodologies that were possibly lost in the scramble for innovation. Within this intellectual climate one topic has repeatedly come under critical scrutiny: reading. Whether it is the concern over the fate of close-reading, the return to aesthetics, surface reading, distant reading, new formalism, the digital humanities, ethics, affect theory, “world” literature, medical humanities, network/systems theory, newer historicisms, or new materialisms, all of these topics are not only attempts to rethink how we read, but also efforts to buttress what seems to be a perilous state for certain disciplines and practices.

This conference seeks to assess these recent scholarly trends and, to this end, we invite papers from different fields and disciplines that interrogate the relationship between theories of reading and past, present, and future directions for literary and critical theory. Because the goal of this conference will be to foster a dialogue concerning these debates, we will attempt to limit the conference’s size to prevent overlapping panels and allow for ample feedback from respondents, other speakers, and guests.

The conference will take place at Temple University in Philadelphia on October 11th and 12th, 2013. Feel free to ask any questions and send abstracts of 250-500 words by June 30th, 2013 to: templegeaconf@gmail.com

‘Bibliography in the Digital Age’ conference: Sydney, Australia, 20–22 November 2013 [CFP deadline 26 July]

Mon, 06 May 2013 18:25:07 -0400

The annual conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand will be held at the State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 20–22 November 2013 on the theme of ‘Bibliography in the Digital Age’.

The Society invites abstracts for presentations relevant to the theme of the conference, ranging from digital scholarship, digital scholarly editions, digitising and promoting collections online through to antiquarian dealers and the material book in the digital age.

Abstracts should be of approximately 250 words for 20 minute presentations and should be received by the conference convenor, Maggie Patton, Manager, Original Materials, State Library of New South Wales, Macquarie Street, Sydney, 2000 (mpatton@sl.nsw.gov.au) by Friday 26 July.

See www.bsanz.org for further information and updates.

[UPDATE] Medieval and Early Modern Witchcraft Panel, PAMLA,Deadline extended to May 12, 2013

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:46:24 -0400

The deadline for this PAMLA session has been extended to May 12, 2013. Please submit your idea for a presentation, including title, 50-word abstract, and 500-word proposal, at the PAMLA website, www.pamla.org/2013. You will be asked to create an account in order to submit your material. In addition, please send a brief CV to the panel organizer, Dr. Logan Greene, at lgreene@ewu.edu. PAMLA will meet November 1-3, 2013, in San Diego, California.

This panel is an approved special session of PAMLA, following the success of a special session on this topic last year.

Witchcraft was a powerful cultural phenomenon that has continued to grip our imaginations throughout the centuries. The religious, folk, and divinatory practices contained in this label are varied and ancient and have continued in changing forms to the present day. This panel invites speakers in the fields of historical, cultural, literary, and religious studies to contribute to our understanding of medieval and early modern witchcraft. Topics might include the following:

*famous (or obscure) witch trials
*witch-hunters' manuals
*representations of witches in literature and culture
*religious proclamations against or about witches
*psychological or psychoanalytical interpretations of witchcraft
*gender issues in representations of witches
*later writing about medieval and early modern witchcraft

Please write to Dr. Greene, lgreene@ewu.edu, if you have any questions.

UVA-Wise Medieval/Renaissance, Sept. 19-21, 2013 (Undergrad) (proposals by July 17, 2013)

Sun, 05 May 2013 20:27:58 -0400

Medieval-Renaissance Conference XXVII
Undergraduate Sessions
The University of Virginia’s College at Wise
September 19-21, 2013

Keynote Address: “Charlatans and Wonders in the Medieval Mediterranean”—Michael Ryan, University of New Mexico

The University of Virginia's Medieval-Renaissance Conference is pleased to accept abstracts for our twenty-seventh conference. The conference is an open event that promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines of Medieval and Renaissance studies. Papers by undergraduates covering any area of medieval and renaissance studies—including literature, language, history, philosophy, science, pedagogy, and the arts—are welcome. Abstracts for papers should be around 300 words in length and should be accompanied by a brief letter of recommendation from a faculty sponsor (the latter can be mailed or emailed separately). A branch campus of the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise is a public four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia.

Abstracts (and letters) should be submitted electronically or by regular mail by July 17, 2013 to:

John Adrian
University of Virginia’s College at Wise
One College Ave
Wise, VA 24293
(276) 376-4588
jma6x@uvawise.edu

UPDATE: CFP: Memorials for Merchants: The Funerary Culture of Late Medieval Europe’s New Elite. CAA Chicago, February 2014

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:38:38 -0400

CFP: Memorials for Merchants: The Funerary Culture of Late Medieval Europe’s New Elite. CAA Chicago, February 2014

During the late Middle Ages, the rise of urban centers and long-distance trade brought the emergence of wealthy mercantile elites who spent lavishly on funerary monuments. In contrast to royal and aristocratic tombs, these monuments have received comparatively little attention from scholars outside the Italian context. In order to reach a more thorough understanding of this increasingly influential strata of late medieval society, this session seeks papers exploring the role mercantile mentalities and practices played in shaping artistic patronage and reception of tombs. How did merchants construct memory and identity through the medium of the tomb? What role did fraternities and trade networks play in shaping iconographic choices? In what ways did their access to foreign art markets position merchants as conduits for new artistic forms and media? How were existing aristocratic and royal traditions of funerary art appropriated and adapted to meet the needs of the merchant class?

Please submit a 1-2 page (double-spaced) abstract with paper title by May 6, 2013. Abstracts should be emailed to Vanessa Crosby and Emily Kelley. Email: vanessacrosby2013@u.northwestern.edu and edkelley@svsu.edu

CREATING MYTHS AS NARRATIVES OF EMPOWERMENT AND DISEMPOWERMENT

Fri, 03 May 2013 08:52:45 -0400

Call for Papers: CREATING MYTHS AS NARRATIVES OF EMPOWERMENT AND DISEMPOWERMENT from 10 to 12 March 2014.
LDC of the High Institute of Human Sciences of Jendouba, University of Jendouba, Tunisia and the Institut de Recherche en Langues et Littératures Européennes, ILLE of the University of Haute Alsace, Mulhouse, France are pleased to announce the organisation of an international conference on ʻCreating Myths as Narratives of Empowerment and Disempowermentʼ to be held at the High Institute of Human Sciences of Jendouba from 10 to 12 March 2014.

Literacy, the advance of philosophical inquiry and Plato’s separation of ‘mythos’ from ‘logos’ signaled the birth of an intellectual hierarchy that caused the association of myth with implausibility, something that was later corroborated by the growth of scientific inquiry and rationalism. Yet, while myths seem to become distinctively associated with fantasy, their impact can still be contemplated with respect to every aspect of human history that implicates narration and (dis)empowerment. The discourses that have accompanied rising and waning orders and monarchies have shaped national feeling and identity as ‘myths’, whereby private and public narratives intersect. Whether we try to think of narratives related to the Arthurian tradition, the birth of Rome or the founding of Carthage out of an oxen skin, national identity is shaped as a space where myths of beginnings overlap with history and power. Political narratives turn into mythical accounts in the sense that they interfere between leaders and social groups to shape, explain and justify ideologies. In politics, mythologizing the narrative produces narratives that are repeatedly replicated to spawn an illusion of truth. Thus, terms such as the ‘Cold War’ or the ‘Arab Spring’ may lead us to think of uniform patterns that guided a complex set of events, disregarding their complexities and discounting alternative narratives. Moreover, as nationalism consolidated the mythologization of narratives, alternative histories started to acquire mythological significance, borrowing mythical names and imports, a trend postmodern thinking has supported.
Branches of the social sciences like anthropology and sociology have equally lent attention to myth as a space through which unrepresented groups can tell their stories in non-linear patterns, hence, for instance, the growing interest in myth in relation with gender studies and folk studies. With the works of De Saussure and Levi Strauss, linguistics and structuralism acquired a novel interest in myth. Believed to be a big vessel for collective consciousness in the Jungian sense, structuralism contends that myths of the ancient times are still present with little variations in their essential structures. While it is believed that the fading of religion and spirituality in contemporary times led to the obliteration of myth, it is not difficult to find traces of myth within the recurrence of symbols and paradigms in media and popular culture. This recurrence is akin to the telling and retelling of narratives, serving, as Hanno Hardt argues, ‘the new gods of mass culture.’

Starting from these assumptions, the organizers invite proposals for papers (of 20 minutes duration) addressing ‘Creating Myths as Narratives of Empowerment and Disempowerment.’ They particularly welcome interdisciplinary contributions, especially ones that bridge the domains of literature, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalysis and linguistics, but they equally encourage submissions on all aspects of myths that involve the ideas of narrativity, empowerment and disempowerment. To encourage innovative dialogues, we warmly welcome papers from diverse disciplines, falling within the scope of one of the following themes, among others:
Redefining myths
The Arab world, change and myth
Myth and narratives in the postcolonial context
Postmodernism and myth
Myth and folk studies
Myth and the politics of race and ethnicity
Myth as resistance and/or perpetuation
Myth in popular culture
Responses to myths
Myths, rewriting history, and power
Creating new myths
Myths of political reform and/or political repression
Myth and national identity
Feminist approaches to myths
Revisionism and myths
Science vs. myths
Myth and rhetoric
Myths and oral traditions of the Americas
(Dis)empowering myths and visual arts

PROPOSALS should be about 400 words, including the abstract and a brief biography and sent to myth.creation2014@gmail.com NO LATER THAN 30th November 2013.

CONFERENCE FEES: -Either 70 Euros for international participants and 100 Tunisian dinars for local participants (including publication, accommodation, food, refreshments, printing services, and cultural programme).
-Or 35 Euros for international participants and 50 Tunisian dinars for local participants (including presentation, lunch, coffee break, and publication).

CONFERENCE LANGUAGE is English, but proposals in French can also be accepted.

NOTIFICATION: Acceptance of proposals will be notified by December 2013.

CONTACT: For questions, please write to myth.creation2014@gmail.com

“CASCA” – Journal of Social Science, Culture and Arts (Deadline September 1st 2013.)

Fri, 03 May 2013 07:55:28 -0400

Interdisciplinary journal CASCA enables authors to publish papers in various areas of social sciences, culture and art. The journal publishes scientific papers and book reviews thematically related to literary theory, history of art, philosophy, anthropology, history, archeology, sociology, culturology, politicology, communicology, etc.
We are interested in publishing scientific and expert papers, book reviews, exhibition reviews, web portals, etc.
All the submitted papers are to undergo an adequate double blind peer review.
It is required of all the potential authors to prepare their papers in accordance with our Instructions to Authors and send them to the following email address of the journal: journal@casca.org.rs.
For detailed information visit our website http://www.journal.casca.org.rs/eng/about-journal/

[UPDATE] PERSPECTIVES, 2013 - 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS (Deadline 31st May)

Thu, 02 May 2013 23:36:07 -0400

PERSPECTIVES ON PROGRESS 2013
An interdisciplinary postgraduate and early career researcher conference.
The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. November 27-29, 2013.

In 1968, historian Sidney Pollard defined the Victorian ideal of ‘progress’ as, “the assumption that a pattern of change exists in the history of mankind... that it consists of irreversible changes in one direction only, and that this direction is towards improvement.” Despite the increasingly problematic nature of this ideal, the ‘progress myth’ still remains pervasive in the Western cultural tradition.

This postgraduate and early career researcher conference seeks to promote innovative interdisciplinary dialogues interrogating the concept of progress by bringing together scholars from across the humanities and social sciences.

The conference committee invites proposals for papers in the form of an abstract of between 250 and 300 words to perspectivesonprogress2013@gmail.com by 31 May 2013.

Paper format is a 20 minute paper with a 10 minute period for questions and answers.

[UPDATE]
The organising committee is pleased announce that Dr. Alastair Blanshard, Dr. Sarah Pinto, and Dr. Catherine Mills have each agreed to deliver Key Note Addresses at Perspectives on Progress, 2013.

More information about the keynotes and the conference is available on our website - http://perspectives2013.org/

For periodic updates please subscribe to our facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/perspectives2013

Link to full CFP: http://perspectives2013.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Perspectives2013-...

Apollon eJournal - Undergraduate Submissions deadline 6/15/2012

Thu, 02 May 2013 14:37:24 -0400

Check the website, apollonejournal.org, for submission details on publication, or for an application to work with us

ABOUT THE PROJECT
Apollon, an undergraduate humanities eJournal, is a new peer-reviewed publication for undergraduate humanities majors. Apollon features undergraduate research developed in humanities courses, and thus emphasizes faculty-student collaborations beyond the classroom. We invite interested students to join us by contributing leadership or original work to Apollon. Our student team participates at all levels of this ongoing project (design, review, and publication) to offer their peers a real outlet for intellectual work in the humanities. For more information you can go to the program website, www.apollonejournal.org, talk to your professors, or contact the Faculty Director, Jason Cohen, at (859) 985-3765 or cohenj@berea.edu.

CALL FOR PAPERS Vol 4, No 2: ECOLOGY

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:50:06 -0400

The Dandelion editors seek submissions on the theme of ecology for our next issue.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Ecocriticism
• Political ecology
• Eco-poetics and nature writing
• The pastoral
• Urban/rural space and/or wildness and civilization
• Ecology and interdisciplinarity
• Romantic ecology and its legacy
• Biotechnologies
• Cybernetics and ecology
• Art and eco-activism
• Ecology and the military-industrial complex
• Nuclear criticism
• Ecofeminism
• Ecology and modernity/postmodernity

This issue is inspired by Silent Spring: Chemical, Biological and Technological Visions of the Post-1945 Environment, a collaborative workshop series taking place at Birkbeck School of Arts and the Centre for Modern Studies at York University.* Rachel Carson’s classic polemic Silent Spring celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2012: it still stands as one of the most influential texts on the damage caused to the natural environment by chemicals and nuclear fallout in the twentieth century. In line with the workshop series, this issue takes the anniversary of Carson’s text as a starting point for exploring how biological, chemical and technological changes to the environment have shaped cultural explorations of nature and landscape across the humanities.

We welcome both long (5000-8000 words) and short (under 5000 words) articles. We also encourage conference and event reports, blog posts, book, film and exhibition reviews, podcasts and artwork. We welcome submissions from doctoral students, early career researchers, established academics and independent practioners, working in all disciplines.

Send submissions by 31 July 2013 to the editors via mail@dandelionjournal.org or through the Dandelion website. Complete instructions for submissions can be found at http://dandelionjournal.org/

All referencing and style is required in full MHRA format as a condition of publication. Submitted articles should be academically rigorous and ready for publication.

*To register for the next workshop, set to take place on 7 June at Birkbeck, email silentspring2013@gmail.com or visit www.silentspringboard.or

Dandelion is an online postgraduate journal and research network, supported by Roberts Funding and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It aims to bring together a diversity of works from researchers in the arts, to offer collaborative research and training possibilities, and to promote an independent, cross-institutional space for professional development.

[UPDATE] Extended deadline for Fashion panels at 2013 MPCA/ACA conference

Wed, 01 May 2013 10:39:13 -0400

FASHION
2013 Midwest Popular Culture Association Conference
Friday-Sunday, October 11-13, 2013
St. Louis, MO
St. Louis Union Station Hotel, A Doubletree by Hilton

Deadline: May 15, 2013
Submissions.mpcaaca.org

Topics can include, but are not limited to fashion as it is represented in literature, film, television, or music, fashion as it pertains to current popular culture or popular culture of any time period of the past, the fashions of celebrities, or sociological implications of fashion in our culture.

Please upload 250 word abstract proposals on any aspect of Fashion to the Fashion area, http://submissions.mpcaaca.org/.

Any questions? Please email Kelli Purcell O’Brien at kobrien1@memphis.edu.

More information about the conference can be found at http://www.mpcaaca.org/

Please note the availability of graduate student travel grants: http://mpcaaca.org/conference/travel-grants/.

Please include name, affiliation, and e-mail address with the 250 word abstract. Also, please indicate in your submission whether your presentation will require an LCD Projector.

Call For Papers - Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:51:38 -0400

JELLiC: Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture is currently accepting manuscripts for publication in its next issue – July 2013. JELLiC is an international peer-reviewed journal that publishes research articles from and across different academic disciplines that examine issues related to Language, Literature, Culture and Critical Theory, as well as dynamic cross-disciplinary discussions that engage the links between these and other domains.

All papers published in JELLiC are peer-reviewed. The first round of review is done by internal editors to ensure that the paper conforms to the style and specialty of the journal. Papers selected from this initial review are submitted for a second round of review, which is done by external Reviewers. Contributors whose papers are accepted will be notified by email. All submitted papers are considered subject to the understanding that they have not been published and are not being considered for publication elsewhere.

Manuscripts should not exceed 6,000 words and should be double-spaced on A4 paper with a 1 inch margin all round. Pages should be numbered consecutively throughout. A cover sheet should include author(s) name(s), affiliation, full postal address and email address, telephone and fax numbers where possible. The name and address of the principal author responsible for correspondence concerning the manuscript should appear first. A brief (max. 250 words) abstract should be provided plus up to 5 keywords.

For more details visit www.cella-cameroon.org/publications

ACIS Midwest Regional Conference (Deadline: August 1, 2013)

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:59:52 -0400

The 37th annual ACIS Midwest Regional Conference in Iowa City (October 10-12, 2013) welcomes proposals for papers on any and all topics related to Irish studies – from new and existing ACIS members, alike. The conference theme of “Other Irelands” considers all disciplines and approaches as warranted in our continued explication of Irish studies. Some of the many, many topics papers might address include:

-Immigration, emigration and the changing face of racism

-Architectural developments beyond the thatched cottage or Georgian house

-The social and economic impacts of the Celtic Tiger’s rise and fall

-Literary evolutions in 21st century Ireland

-Digital landscapes and historical Ireland

To propose an individual paper (twenty minutes in length), please submit the following information in a PDF:

Name, academic affiliation, title of paper, a 250 word abstract

Proposals should be submitted by no later than 1 August 2013 to conference director Tom Keegan at: acismidwest@gmail.com

The conference organizers are pleased to announce that Dr. Stephanie Rains of NUI Maynooth will deliver the 2013 Lawrence MacBride Memorial Lecture at 6PM on the Thursday, October 10th. Dr. Rains is the programme coordinator for NUI Maynooth's BA in in Media Studies. Her most recent work, Commodity Culture and Social Class in Dublin 1850-1916 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2010), addresses the transformation of Irish society and commerce in the nineteenth century as well as the "changing conceptions of shopping as a social or political practice." Her talk, "'Get On, or Get Out!': Publishing, Class and Social Aspiration in Edwardian Ireland" will explore the "other Ireland" of the lower-middle class.

Additional information can be found at www.acismidwest.com

UPDATE: Extended CFP Deadline PAMLA Conference (11/1-3, 2013, Bahia Resort, San Diego): Now May 12

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:55:40 -0400

Forty approved sessions for the November 1-3, 2013 PAMLA Conference (at the Bahia Resort Hotel, San Diego, California) have extended their paper proposal deadline until May 12. Go to http://www.pamla.org/2013/ to see the complete list of open sessions and to propose a paper. Sessions still looking for papers include:

Autobiography & Fiction in American Women’s Writing
Beowulf and Related Topics
Biopolitical Time: Biomedicine, Science Fiction, Lifespan
Chaucer and Related Topics
Childhood & Hybridity in the Lit. & Film of Indian Diaspora
Classics (Greek)
Constructing a “New” America: The United States in the 1930s
Continental Romanticism
Crime Narratives
Discovering Feminine Identity Through Their Literary Work
East-West Literary Relations
English as a Second Language Studies
Environment and Ecology in Italian Literature and Culture
Fiction Featuring Older Protagonists
Film in the French Language Classroom
Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Literature
Gender, Mind Science, & Literature in Early Modern Spain
Graphic Novels
Indigenous Literatures and Cultures
Limits of Humor: Provocation & Political Correctness in French Media
Linguistics
Linguistics: Time, Language Variation, and Language Change
Lyric Theory in the 21st Century
Memoir as a Scholarly Pursuit
Mid-Twentieth-Century Poetry & Culture (Robert Lowell Soc.)
Modern Austrian Literature
Native North American Literatures
Oceanic Literatures and Cultures
Satire and Humor
Scandinavian Literature
Teaching the Writing of Age/Aging in the Creative Writing Classroom
Technology and Communication
The Unreal in Literature for Children and Young Adults
Translating/Interpreting: Issues and Questions
Visible Difference and the Travel Seminar Experience
Webcomics: Coming of Age?
Woody Allen
World Language Programs in the 21st Century
World Literature in Theory and in Practice
Young Adult Literature

UPDATE: The Female Hero in Modern Fantasy Edited Collection -- Call for Chapters

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:55:05 -0400

UPDATE: I have received many innovative proposals so far, but several key authors I would like to see included remain unclaimed, such as J.R.R. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, J.K. Rowling, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, and Suzanne Collins, among a few others. Also please note that depending on the submissions, I may expand the “Pathfinders” section to include Victorian fantasy (i.e., George MacDonald, William Morris, etc.) as an additional precursor to modern fantasy. There is also a strong possibility I will add a new section for “Fantasy on Film.” If you have an interest in any of these categories, or those below (see full CFP), please contact me at the email address provided.

Call for Chapters
I invite proposals for a collection of essays exploring the female hero as a distinct character type in modern fantasy, covering works published from the 1950s through the present, starting with J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Although this study will focus on literature and film adaptations, interdisciplinary approaches are welcome and encouraged.

This collection, tentatively titled, A Quest of Her Own: The Female Hero in Modern Fantasy, is under contract with McFarland and Company with publication scheduled for summer 2014.

This study aims to provide a multifaceted look at an important character type in fantasy that only begins to demonstrate real empowerment in the latter twentieth century. Authors will explore the nuances and implications of female heroism with a goal to contribute to the further evolution of the character type as well as to the critical study of fantasy. A major concern of this work will be the notion of power itself, as it is claimed or used by the female hero, as well as in how it is represented by and around her, and the ways in which her stories reflect contemporary notions of power/powerlessness for women, men, and society in general both within and outside the text.

This collection defines “modern fantasy” to include a variety of subcategories, including fairy tale, dark fantasy, science fantasy, children’s literature, high and low fantasy, and magical realism. Likewise, “hero” has myriad meanings; we will work from a broad understanding of one who is not simply a protagonist but who risks her own well-being to benefit the greater good.

The book will be divided into sections each focusing on a type of female hero. These topics may be adjusted depending upon the essays that are accepted for publication.

I. Pathfinders: Empowered Women of Medieval Romance and
Fairy Tale

[This section may be expanded to include Victorian Fantasy depending on the submissions received, so if you have an idea in that direction, feel free to submit or query.]

This first grouping of essays creates a foundation for the rest of the book by focusing on characters who demonstrate degrees of heroism in their efforts to defy certain female stereotypes in medieval romance and fairy tale, the predecessors to modern fantasy. The concluding chapter of this section will focus on J.R.R. Tolkien, who in addition to being a scholar and fan of these earlier genres, is commonly viewed as the primary architect of modern fantasy in his publication of The Lord of the Rings in 1954.

II. Underestimated Overachievers: Unlikely Female Heroes

This section of essays will discuss the unlikely female hero, her efforts toward overcoming her un-likeliness; and the relation between these efforts and those of real-world women and girls to turn oppression into power.

III. Show Stealers: Female Sidekicks

This section focuses on those female helper characters who become heroes in their own right, often overshadowing her male counterparts in the process.

IV. Unwilling Do-gooders: Female Villains and Villain-Heroes

Villainy connotes a form of power and provides an important site of exploration for fully positioning the female hero in modern fantasy. The essays in this section might explore various power imbalances in society that turn good to evil, thus exposing a heroic underside to the female villain. Such characters often end up acting heroically despite their evil intentions.

Possible topics could cover texts by authors including but not limited to:
Suzanne Collins
Susan Cooper
Roald Dahl
Diane Duane
Neil Gaiman
Robin Hobb
Diana Wynne Jones
Tanith Lee
Ursula Le Guin
Madeleine L’Engle
George R.R. Martin
Anne McCaffrey
Robin McKinley
Stephanie Meyer
Tamora Pierce
Terry Pratchett
Philip Pullman
J.K. Rowling
Jonathan Stroud
Laini Taylor
Jane Yolen

Submit a 2-page proposal (or a full-length essay if available) and a short biography to Dr. Lori Campbell via email: camenglish@verizon.net Queries are welcome at the same address.

The deadline for submissions is May 10, 2013.

All submissions must be original and previously unpublished. Please note that being invited to submit a full essay on the basis of the proposal does not guarantee inclusion in the final publication. Based on the proposals, selected contributor candidates will be requested to submit their full-length essays of 6,000-12,000 words in MLA format. All final decisions regarding publication will be made on the merit of the full-length essays.

If your proposal is selected, your complete essay will be due by August 1, 2013.

About the Editor:

Dr. Lori M. Campbell is a lecturer in the Department of English and Film Studies Program at University of Pittsburgh, specializing in fantasy, myth and folktale, children's literature, and the gothic. Her book, Portals of Power: Magical Agency and Transformation in Literary Fantasy, was published by McFarland in 2010. Her other publications include articles on J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Frances Hodgson Burnett, J.M. Barrie, Thomas Hardy, and William Morris, as well as introductions to new Barnes and Noble editions of classic works by J.M. Barrie, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and the Brothers Grimm.

Expression of Interest Marie Curie Action Fellowships – CIDEHUS (Portugal)

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:26:14 -0400

Expression of Interest
Marie Curie Action Fellowships – CIDEHUS (Portugal)

The Call for Marie Curie Action Fellowships was launched a few weeks ago (http://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/apply-now/open-calls/inde...). It is a great, international, and competitive contest, which gives an unique opportunity for researchers to move in a new country and develop their own project in cooperation with a local host centre.

The Centro Interdisciplinar de História, Culturas, Sociedades of the University of Evora (CIDEHUS.UE) – www.cidehus.uevora.pt - in Portugal will be very glad to receive applicants from aboard for this European Call. Acting in a multidisciplinary research centre, the members of the CIDEHUS.UE focus their work on past and current human activities in the “South”, in a large geographical acceptation (Southern Europe, Mediterranean, Latin America and Africa) as well as in a large thematic sense (peripheral societies, marginalization, North-South relations, South-South relations, southern studies). The disciplinary domains include History, Culture Heritage, Demography, Linguistic, Philosophy, Sociology and History of Education, Anthropology, Library and Information Sciences, structured in three research groups on Southern history, Culture Heritage and Information and Literacy.

The CIDEHUS.UE team is ready to support and work with applicants from social sciences and humanities to build an innovative and high-ranking project on the problem of the “South” as a fruitful and thought-provoking fieldwork for interdisciplinary dialogue and comparative studies. Specially, CIDEHUS would be glad to host projects on:
- Culture Heritage;
- History of Technology and Engineering;
- Fertility and Population Aging;
- Nobilities in Early Modern Times;
- Iberian Inquisitions;
- Medieval Clergy and Social Mobility;
- Minorities in Medieval and Early Modern Times;
- Philology and Digital Humanities;
- Urban History.

Please, consider this Call for you or colleagues you may know, make it circulate within your networks and see the site of the CIDEHUS.UE for further information. Do not hesitate to contact us as well.

The CIDEHUS.UE team is waiting for the proposals up to 20th of July 2013.

On behalf of the Executive Board of the CIDEHUS.UE
Fernanda Olival
mfo@uevora.pt or cidehus@uevora.pt

Call for Submissions: Renascence: Essays on Values in Literature

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:35:01 -0400

Renascence is a scholarly journal published by Marquette University. We publish articles that explore how literature is informed by and contributes to our understanding of fundamental questions concerning values – be it moral philosophy, theology, or spirituality. Articles can discuss literature of any literary period, though we do focus on literature of the English language. To submit, please send a 3,000 to 7,500 word article to Renascence@marquette.edu.

Being Non/Human - abstract deadline: Friday 2nd August

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:01:26 -0400

This is a call for papers from postgraduate students and early career researchers for a new interdisciplinary discussion group (starting in the upcoming academic year at King’s College London) which focuses on the interactions between the human and nonhuman, discussing relevant articles and providing a forum for graduate students and staff to present papers.

The past few decades have seen an increasing interest in various forms of the nonhuman, including different considerations of the posthuman, a renewed interest in material studies, the rise of animal studies and the development of ecomaterialism. These different fields challenge past and current anthropocentric world views, but in turn have also led to a re-evaluation of what it means to be ‘human’ or indeed ‘nonhuman’. To what extent is the division between the ‘human’ and the ‘nonhuman’ stable? How do interactions between the ‘human’ and the ‘nonhuman’ redefine our concepts of these terms? What terms should be used to describe these entities? Can the ‘nonhuman’ be given a certain degree of subjectivity?

We are looking for papers that examine what it means to be human and/or nonhuman. This could be considered from a variety of perspectives, e.g. the interpretation of the human/nonhuman in literature, sociology, the sciences, philosophy, the arts, etc. Both contemporary and historical perspectives are welcomed. As we aim for these seminars to be interdisciplinary, please bear in mind that your audience may not be from your own field of research.

Possible topics could include, but are not limited to:

• The human as a distinct entity
• The posthuman
• The animal / ‘animot’
• Nature and Ecomaterialism
• ‘Thing Theory’, ‘Object Oriented Ontology’ – what does it mean
to be an ‘object’ or ‘thing’?
• Metamorphoses, hybrids, monsters
• The nonhuman as an incorporeal being
• Automata, simulations, technology

Please send abstracts (250 – 300 words) or any queries to: being.non.human@gmail.com
Papers should be 15 - 20 minutes.

The group will be run by Sophia Wilson (King’s College London) and Lydia Zeldenrust (Queen Mary), and will take place one evening a month.

The deadline for abstracts is: Friday 2nd August 2013

Chaucer and Related Topics (Extended Deadline, May 12th)

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:06:06 -0400

This panel is a standing session at PAMLA and invites critical papers on Chaucer and related topics.

Proposals of 500 words or less can be submitted via PAMLA's online submission process found here: http://www.pamla.org/2013/topics/chaucer-and-related-topics

All proposals must be processed through the online submission system.

Proposals are due May 12th.

This year's conference takes place Nov. 1-3, 2013 at the Bahia Resort Hotel in sunny San Diego, CA. Our theme is "Stages of Life: Age, Identity, and Culture." For more information, please visit: http://www.pamla.org/2013/. Accepted presenters need to be current on their PAMLA membership dues to present at the conference.

[UPDATE] Call for Papers for Collection: Captivity / Writing / Unbound

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 14:33:50 -0400

Proposals for papers are invited for a collection entitled Captivity / Writing / Unbound. We are particularly interested in papers that explore and extend the traditional boundaries of the study of captivity writing—such writing conceived generically, geographically, historically, or in disciplinary terms—and that do so through a triangulation of the three operant terms: Captivity, Writing, Unbound.

We might take the _Prometheia_ of Aeschylus as the Ur-story of captivity, for there we learn how Prometheus unbound humans and was then bound, in turn, by Zeus. As Prometheus tells the story of human suffering to the Chorus, he says, “In the beginning, seeing they saw amiss, / And hearing heard not, but, like phantoms huddled / In dreams, the perplexed story of their days / Confounded [. . .] .” With the reference to dreams and the perplexed story of human days, we find opportunity to hook Freud's notions of bound and unbound energy into the story of captivity. According to Prometheus, humans toiled “utterly without knowledge” until he devised “number, the most excellent / Of all invention [. . .] / And gave them writing that retaineth all, / The serviceable mother of the Muse.” Of interest to us is that, directly on the heels of his having freed humans from their abject state (i.e., by having given them the language of numbers and words), Prometheus notes that he “was the first that yoked unmanaged beasts, / To serve as slaves with collar and with pack, / And take upon themselves, to man's relief, / The heaviest labour of his hands [. . .].”

Is it the case that, from the very start, captivity and writing have been bound together—that the freeing from a primary captivity requires for its security the imposition or invention of a secondary, displaced captivity; or that the symbolic constructions of freedom and of captivity alike proceed dialectically? Considering crucial junctures of captivity, freedom, and writing in other paradigmatic cases—Mary Rowlandson’s ambivalent submission to providential narrativity in 1682; Frederick Douglass’s awakening to the grim powers of literacy in 1832; Sigmund Freud’s frustrated capture and release of “Dora” into print in 1901, to cite just a few—we believe the answer to these questions is yes, and we welcome papers that find interesting and fruitful ways to explore the connections among our key terms.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
• Literary and Filmic Representations of Captivity (Prometheus Bound, Exodus, The Odyssey, etc.)
• Captivity and Nationality
• Defining and/or Theorizing Captivity
• Animals and Captivity
• Fashion and Captivity (the corset, footbinding, etc.)
• Nature and Captivity
• Captivity and the Unearthly (alien abduction, etc.)
• The Erotics of Captivity
• Psychology and Captivity (phobias, eating disorders, addiction, body identity disorder)
• Captivity and Theory (Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage, Georges Poulet's phenomenology of reading, etc.)
• Paradoxes of Captivity (illusory notions of escape and freedom, willing captives, S & M practices)
• Antidotes to Captivity (Existentialism, death, meditation, transcendentalism)
• Captivity as Metaphor, Analogy, Symbol
• Gender, Race, and Class as Forms of Captivity
• Genre as Captivity
• Pedagogy and Captivity
• The Captive Audience
• Narrative as Captivity
• History as Captivity
• Captivity and the Body (especially the obese, the diagnosed, and/or medicated body)
• Captivity and the Carceral
• Captivity and Technology
• Transhistorical Captivities
• Captivity Narrative’s Others (narratives of assimilation, captor narratives)

Please submit proposals of 350-500 words either by email to pcesarini@usouthal.edu and bmclaugh@southalabama.edu or by regular post to Pat Cesarini or Becky McLaughlin, Department of English, University of South Alabama, 5991 USA Drive, N., Room 240, Mobile, AL 36688.

Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2013.

The Eighteenth-Century Gothick Symposium

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 03:58:04 -0400

Call for Papers
The Gothick Revival in eighteenth-century Britain is a multi-faceted phenomenon, simultaneously liminal and mainstream, historical and modern, whimsical and serious.

This one-day symposium (7 August 2013) seeks to explore the revival’s many dimensions. Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers that address any aspect of the revival, and may include:

art
architecture
interiors
furniture
antiquarianism
history
literature
medievalism
patronage
politics
restoration
sexuality

Please email 250-word proposals to the symposium organisers, Oliver Cox and Peter Lindfield by 31 May 2013 at 18thCenturyGothick@gmail.com
http://18thcenturygothick.wordpress.com

CFP: "Publishing the Archive" for Archive Journal (Due: 6/3/2013)

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 15:46:32 -0400

Archive Journal is now accepting project and essay proposals for the “Archives, Remixed” section of its upcoming fourth issue, “Publishing the Archive.” This issue will examine how technological developments—from discrete digitization projects and databases to linked data and APIs for extensible machine-readability—are changing how we produce and publish archives and archival research.

The overarching question of this issue is: how do new forms of structured data and new modes for exhibiting archival materials constitute something more than straightforward repositories—becoming instead publications in their own right? And, a related question: What theoretical and operational changes occur when we think of archives and collections as data aggregations in need of publishing? In this sense the term “publishing” means “making public,” but it also means providing high-quality forms of access (as well as human- and machine-friendly metadata) for using, reusing, and remixing archival data.

We invite proposals that investigate the possibilities and limits of “publishing the archive.” Projects might include, but are not limited to:

Development of a specific archive-oriented API along with a narrative account of what the application seeks to achieve.

Textual and/or multimedia explorations of the challenges and promises of linked data with regard to specific archives, collections, or databases.

Examinations of the history of archival interoperability (for instance, thinking critically about how the evolution of metadata schemas has led to new archival structures and new ways of linking across archives).

Analysis, modeling, or development of new modes of presenting archives on the web, including new kinds of searchability, visualizations of data, and capacity for user-driven contributions.

Analysis, modeling, or development of new tools and platforms for working in archives and collections (e.g., an application that allows scholars to produce research--annotations, essays, or experimentations--in the same space as the cultural artifact).

Specific discussions not only about what can be published, but about what should be published. That is, in an environment where wholesale digital access is possible, do we need specific parameters for authoritative “editions” of the archive?

Discussions of how to effectively address copyright restrictions preventing archival material from being published.

Discussions about what happens to analog archives that do not have a digital presence. Or, related to this: what are the effects of the digital surrogate becoming increasingly de rigueur?

SUBMITTING PROPOSALS
An open access, peer-reviewed journal, Archive Journal seeks content that speaks to its diverse audience of librarians, scholars, archivists, and technologists. We encourage proposals from humanities and social science researchers, archive developers and directors, and special collections librarians and library technologists. In your 500-1000 word proposal, please include:

a description of the project’s argument and scholarly significance

the archives, collections, or databases to be addressed in the project

a description of the project components and format (e.g., traditional text or multimedia essay; a streaming media work; an archival tool, code or API, etc.; interactive visualization, etc.)

This issue is being guest edited by Anvil Academic. If you have any questions about your proposal, please feel free to contact Korey Jackson at kjackson@anvilacademic.org. Submit proposals to Fred Moody (fmoody@anvilacademic.org) by June 3, 2013. Proposals should include a brief (200-word) professional biography and current CV.

Reading English-language Arts and Literature with the Later Lacan

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 04:40:16 -0400

***

E-rea (Revue électronique d’études sur le monde anglophone) is seeking papers for a special volume to appear in the autumn of 2014.

Lacanian analysis of literature and the arts has not been in vogue in France for some time now. Following the publication of Écrits in 1966, there was a period of analytic fascination with the imaginary capture of the mirror phase and its intersection with the structures of the symbolic in both literary and film studies. Since the 1980s, academic engagement with Lacanian theory in the cultural field has been in a slump, and this for several reasons: the reputed difficulty of Lacan’s style as apprehended through Ecrits, the opposition of numerous feminist critics, and the general decline of theory in the field of literary studies.

Today, in light of the growing force of scientistic conceptions of the human subject (at the level of intelligence, behaviour, reproduction, the limits of the body, mortality), Lacanian theory finds renewed relevance in its unwavering postulate of the subject as singular, unique and incalculable, insusceptible to scientific conclusiveness. It is the Lacanian real, generally underexamined amongst first wave Lacanians, which gives weight to this proposition insofar as the real is the point at which all systems fail, where the signifier encounters its impasse, and also, the beyond of this point; both what has not encountered signifying discourse and the structural impossibility of the signifier to produce an 'all' of meaning. Something always escapes the signifier. This missing 'something', the objet a in the Lacanian myth of the origins of subjectivity, takes us beyond the split of structuralism, beyond the subject of the signifier; the Lacanian 'speakingbeing' is foundationally dislocated by a mode of jouissance (civilised by lalangue, the pre-signifying letter of language) that entails "a disruption of self-identity" (Copjec, Imagine There's No Woman: Ethics and Sublimation, 2002). It is in this sense, according to Colette Soler (Lacan, l’inconscient réinventé, 2009), that Lacan affirms "The Real is the mystery of the speaking body".

It is primarily due to the influence of Slavoj Zizek (Enjoy Your Symptom: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out, 1992) and his analyses of film and literature, that Lacanian theory within Anglophone studies has been brought back into the domain of the speakable, the thinkable, and perhaps even the desirable, revalorizing its potential for clarification of the ways in which subjectivity can be understood structurally (through language) but also as the site where the absolute singularity of the human subject meets its historical context: "The contribution of Lacan for our present time is therefore doubly important: on the one hand, it allows us to acquire a clear structural understanding of the [economic] crisis as a crisis of the symbolic; on the other hand, it reaffirms the irreducibility of the desiring subject as such" (Alain Badiou, Jacques Lacan: Passé Présent - Dialogue, 2012). It is this insistence on the radical singularity of each human subject, intrinsic to Lacanian theory that makes of it a means of thinking against the determinist discourses of our times.

This is true not only for the subject of capitalist discourse but also for the question of sexual difference. The debate on the implications of sexual difference has become, in the contemporary period, enmired in a binary struggle between sex and gender (one might say 'Huston vs. Butler'). Lacan's theory of sexuation, by contrast, consists in an attempt to rethink sexual difference from a non-binary perspective. Other concepts also move critical issues beyond their current point of articulation: lalangue, the pre-symbolic letter that marks the subject in its earliest being undercuts the autonomy of the imaginary-symbolic axis of the subject. If the symptom marks the subject's "point of exception to the established form of social bond and is connected to the jouissance of the body" (Lissy Canellopoulos, "The Bodily Event, Jouissance and the (Post)Modern Subject," 2010), the sinthome designates the subject's singular way of knotting together the registers of the real, the symbolic and the imaginary, and on occasion, making up for the absence of the Name-of-the-Father (rejoining the second of Badiou's concerns). Such are some of the relatively unexplored dimensions of Lacanian theory which might illuminate our readings of classic and contemporary culture and its objects.

In addition to the work of Slavoj Zizek, notable interventions in the field of cultural analysis include Ellie Ragland's "Eyes Wide Shut, The Woman Not Seen" (European Journal of Psychoanalysis, 2005); Juliet Flower MacCannell's reading of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale in "Things to Come: a Hysteric’s Guide to the Future Female Subject" (Supposing the Subject, 1994), or the work of Joan Copjec.

As the expression of a desire to give renewed attention to this critical orientation and to revitalize its debates and uses for contemporary analysis of culture, E-rea is seeking articles which analyze literary, filmic, or other artistic productions from the English-speaking world from a Lacanian perspective. If Encore, as the inaugural text of the period of the 'later Lacan' may serve as a point of reference, analyses which mobilize such key concepts as sexuation, lalangue, other jouissance, ethics, the sinthome, or, that elusive concept - love - will be welcome. Addressing a wide audience of Anglophone scholars and students, concepts should be clarified to illuminate their use in the analyses.

Papers may be written in English or in French.

Proposals should be sent to Jennifer Murray jmurray@univ-fcomte.fr

Deadlines:
September 30, 2013: deadline for proposals (title, abstract, 5 bibliographical references)

October 15, 2013: notification of acceptance for peer-reviewing process

January 31, 2014: deadline for submission of the final articles (6000-8000 words)

April 30, 2014: papers will have been peer-reviewed

June 30, 2014: deadline for final version of articles.

E-rea's contributor guidelines may be consulted at: http://erea.revues.org/2153

Building the Degree: The Potential and Pitfalls of Establishing a B.A. Program in English During Uncertain Times

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:02:10 -0400