category: poetry

Ekphrasis in American Poetry, MMLA Convention, Milwaukee, WI, Nov 7-10, 2013

Thu, 16 May 2013 04:26:35 -0400

Ekphrasis in American Poetry
American poets have always been fascinated with art, and sometimes artists have been inspired by poems as the germ for their works. In this session we invite papers examining the mutual influence between poetry and other art forms and we encourage panelists to adopt a broad interpretation of the term "ekphrasis."

Please send 200-word abstracts for 15-20 minute talks by June 14th to Sandra Lee Kleppe, sandra.kleppe AT hihm.no

For more details on the Midwest Modern Language Association Convention, see their website:
http://www.luc.edu/mmla/annualconvention.html

Popular and Current Art Submissions and Criticism Wanted: Open Deadline

Thu, 16 May 2013 01:37:42 -0400

While great works of literature were written in the 19th century and prior, we live today in an age with major problems and solutions in the realm of art and communication that should be addressed by current artists and critics. The tri-annual Pennsylvania Literary Journal is in its 5th volume and 5th year in operation. It is available on EBSCO, ProQuest and in print from various distribution channels. It has published interviews with best-selling young adult authors like Cinda Williams Chima and Carrie Ryan, as well as with winners of the Brooklyn Film Festival, and top academic editors across the country. PLJ’s special issues have focused on film, fiction, British literature, formalism, new historicism, and various other fields. In the future years, PLJ would like to see primarily criticism of current research, fiction, poetry, film, and works of art. For example, the most recent issue of PLJ “Reviews of Popular Fiction” includes reviews of Twilight, A Kurt Wallander Novel, and The Last Boyfriend. Most of these reviews are very negative, as the editor-in-chief, Anna Faktorovich, Ph.D., is pretty pessimistic about the current state of literature. Thus, negative, sarcastic, and highly critical and detailed book reviews and essays are especially wanted. Reviews of films, TV series, as well as of photography and art are also of interest. Please remember to support your negative criticism with facts and details from the works, but don’t include quotes over 5 lines in length. In addition, if you can access a celebrity (living) author at a convention, a reading, or through their agent and they agree to do an interview with you – PLJ would be delighted to publish interviews with any recognizable or award-winning author. Interviews with filmmakers, poets, editors, and even businessmen are also of interest. Please review prior issues of PLJ for the interview style that PLJ prefers. Scholarly essays on popular, award-winning, or merited literature published since 1980 is also of special interest. Essays on methods for teaching literature, composition and other fields are also a good fit. Also send fiction, poetry, art, photography and other forms of art you’ve created. If you’ve published with a major academic publisher or with one of the best popular presses, and would like to be interviewed or reviewed, send a query. There is no payment for publication, but also no reading fees or publication fees for you. Only famous authors receive a free contributor copy. PLJ is a for-profit venture and subscriptions are what feeds its future success; so feel free to ask your school’s library to subscribe. If you have an idea for an essay, work of fiction, review, interview, work of art, or anything else that was not mentioned above (including criticism of 19th century and prior works), send a query to determine if it’s a good fit for PLJ. While PLJ is moving into popular art, it’s not yet fully there and a wide variety of other projects is still very welcomed. When submitting a project email a Word document with the full text of the work (with an abstract for scholarly articles), and a biography paragraph in the third-person for the author to director@anaphoraliterary.com, to the attention of Dr. Anna Faktorovich, Editor-in-Chief. PLJ is a part of the Anaphora Literary Press (www.anaphoraliterary.com), which has published over 50 book titles and is actively soliciting academic and creative book manuscripts. We are especially interested in books that will be taught as part of the writer’s class(es). To submit a book-length project email the full manuscript, bio, book summary paragraph, and a marketing paragraph (with specifics) to director@anaphoraliterary.com.

[UPDATE] SAMLA 2013: (Con)Textual Networks and the Globalized Caribbean (due June 10)

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:39:01 -0400

2013 SAMLA CONFERENCE, NOV 8-10, ATLANTA

SPECIAL SESSION: "(Con)Textual Networks and the Globalized Caribbean"

We often think of globalization as a contemporary phenomenon, characterized by the way high-speed technologies have changed everything from market dynamics to social relations. Many scholars, however, see the current phase of globalization as part of an historical process beginning as early as the sixteenth century. The Caribbean has, indeed, been a transnational site from the time of its original European colonization, soon followed by the importation of coerced labor from Africa, South Asia, and China. Today, the region remains populated by a wide variety of ethnic groups, highly trafficked by tourists from around the world, and economically tied to foreign currencies and markets. Additionally, high rates of migration from the Caribbean to North America and Europe have created an immense Caribbean diaspora that retains cultural and economic ties to the region, facilitated in part by new technologies and alliances.

Images of the Caribbean have thus been documented, constructed, and circulated globally from the rise of print culture to the dawn of the digital age. This panel seeks proposals engaging any aspect of the conference theme, “Cultures, Contexts, Images, Texts: Making Meaning in Print, Digital, and Networked Worlds,” in relation to literature and/or other media from any part of the Anglophone Caribbean.

Some possible topics include:

The “digital humanities” and Caribbean studies
Visual images of the Caribbean
Cartographic representations of the Caribbean
Caribbean service economies—tourism, textiles and “free trade” zones, data mining, banking, etc.
Regionalism, Nationalism, Transnationalism
Marketing the Caribbean/the Caribbean market
Intra-Caribbean exchange and migration
Local and regional grassroots activist networks in the Caribbean
Caribbean diasporas—cultural, economic, and/or social networks

Please submit an abstract of 200-300 words and a brief bio (not CV) of <100 words, in Word or PDF, to Kristine A. Wilson (wilson67@purdue.edu). DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JUNE 10, 2013.

“Embodiments of Horror: William Blake’s Gothic Sensibility.”

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:47:42 -0400

CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of Gothic Studies: “Embodiments of Horror: William Blake’s Gothic Sensibility.”

Guest Editors: Dr. Christopher Bundock (Huron College) and Elizabeth Effinger (Western).

Within the frame of the late eighteenth-century Gothic revival, this special issue of Gothic Studies explores the relationship between English poet and engraver William Blake and particularly disruptive affective intensities expressed at the level of image, text, and critical reception as well as their extension into contemporary adaptations. While a critical body of work exists on the relationship between Blake and the Gothic broadly—and in spite of an obvious fascination with a nexus of aesthetic categories such as the grotesque, perverse, and macabre—Blake's focus on affects like physical disgust and horror, specifically, have garnered little sustained critical attention. This special issue seeks to redress this gap by opening up a dialogue between Blake and his gothic sensibility that centers on the affective, aesthetic, and philosophical implications of a physical body and sensorium that turns against itself.

Registering the contestation between introjection and expulsion, the abject – Kristeva’s term for a “massive and sudden emergence of uncanniness, which […] now harries me as radically separate, loathsome” (2) – is frequently figured in Blake as a monstrous Polypus, organic life in its merely vegetative, abhorrent state. Other examples of Blake’s “body horror” appear in the body turned inside out, revealing organs “Dim & glutinous as the white Polypus,” an uncanny “Fibrous Vegetation” that seems less like animating flesh than the binding vines that tie spirit with “living fibres down into the Sea of Time & Space growing / A self-devouring monstrous Human Death” (Los 4.66; Milton 24.37, 34.25-6). Rending apart the coherence of representation to expose “what I permanently thrust aside in order to live” (Kristeva 3), Blake's revulsion stems –perversely enough—from a willingness to peer into the abyss of origination and expose art's always fragile constitution as an invitation for revision, transformation, and rebirth. But how precisely does this affirmative attitude toward subjective and artistic regeneration square with Blake's tortured affect, especially when this follows from a desire to transcend the physical body, the very matrix of sensibility? If Blake embodies horror, he is also horrified by the body's limitations. How, then, does art—particularly Blake's own art—respond to this problem? How does he make new kinds of bodies to embody desires differently?
We are particularly interested in papers that consider the impact this “thrust[ing] aside” by and of the body has for Blake’s thought and art. What is the work of horror in Blake? What, if any, generative potential is there in the restlessness of Blake’s tortured, gothic bodies? What is the cost of Blake’s investment in horror as a privileged affect? Does Blake’s appeal to horror and the Gothic challenge or render counterfeit his humanism? How does Blake’s revisioning of the body as an intensive site of horror invite new modes of thinking about the human? How do the horrors of Blake’s material bodies (dis)figure or embody the horrors of larger discursive bodies?

While this collection follows in the spirit of recent critical projects such as Blake 2.0 (Palgrave 2012) and Blake, Modernity and Popular Culture (Palgrave 2007) – important studies that foreground the continuing relevance of Blake in contemporary culture – it also distinguishes itself by interrogating the particular affinities between Blake and the embodied experiences of revulsion, abjection, and horror. Given this topic especially, Blake's illustrations may well play a central role in some contributions. And we do hope to be able to reproduce a certain number of his visual artworks. Nevertheless, we ask that contributors use their best judgement and include images only if they come in for substantial, sustained analysis and are necessary for advancing the paper's argument.

This collection is interested in papers that explore any aspects Blake's embodied affects and affects of embodiment, and especially those dimensions wherein the body and affect clash.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Deleuze and the Affect of Terror or Horror
Execrable Topi: Vacuum, Or-Ulro, Satan's Mills
Horrors of abstraction
Embodiment, disembodiment, reembodiment
Birth, re-birth, and the labour of creation
Printing in the Infernal Method
The Pleasures of Pain: masochism, perversion
Transgression and anti-economy
Horror and Function
The Instruments of Terror
Revulsion's limits, borders, or ends
Blake's images as “dark visions of torment”
The image and Evil
Specters, ghosts, and darkness visible
Empiricism and the Body
Subject, Object, Abject

We invite contributions from academics, professionals, artists, and those with a scholarly interest in Blake. All relevant material will be considered. We welcome papers from multidisciplinary perspectives.

Including notes, articles should be between 4000 and 9000 words in length. Potential contributors should send *abstracts (500-750 words)* to both Dr. Christopher Bundock (cbundock@gmail.com) and Elizabeth Effinger (eeffinge@uwo.ca) by *1 October, 2013*. All submissions should be in English and adhere to the “Guidelines on Preparing and Submitting an Article for Gothic Studies”

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

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English (deadline September 2013)

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:39:20 -0400

International Journal for Welsh Writing in English

Call for Papers

The International Journal of Welsh Writing in English invites submissions for a special issue on the theme ‘Literary Topographies: Place, spatiality, cartography and Welsh Writing in English.

Guest Editors: Kirsti Bohata & Matthew Jarvis.

Welsh writing in English has a long tradition of writing ‘place’. The recent spatial turn in literary criticism has led to a productive exchange of ideas with new geography, cultural history and digital technologies. The complex ways in which literature engages with place have begun to challenge and expand methodologies in other fields at the same time as they have presented literary scholars with dynamic new avenues of critical enquiry. Innovative approaches exploring the intersections between literary texts and cartographic representations of place are being enabled by digital Geographical Information Systems (GIS). Alongside such scholarly developments, there has been a clearly identifiable resurgence in new writing from Wales that addresses the topographical, geo-political, personal and historical dimensions of our ongoing relationship with place and space.

The editors would welcome essays based on papers delivered at the recent conference on the theme of literary topographies, but new submissions on this topic are encouraged.

We also invite contributions on the other main areas of interest of the journal, particularly Dylan Thomas’s centenary (2014).

International Journal of Welsh Writing in English

The remit of the journal is to publish new research within the field of Welsh writing in English. We explicitly encourage comparative approaches, drawing not only on cognate disciplines (such as cultural studies, history, drama/performance, creative writing, film/media studies) but also making entirely new connections with disciplines such as medicine (medical humanities), computer science (digital humanities), (applied) mathematics (statistical methodologies within the humanities), and environmental science (environment, culture, place). The journal seeks to promote work, which brings English-language material into the richest of dialogues with Welsh-language literary culture. It also seeks to make connections between Welsh writing in English and applied/non-academic areas of literary life, such as the creative industries, heritage, publishing and policy-making.

The next issue of the journal is going to be published in September/October 2014.
The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2013.
For submission guidelines please see http://ijwwe.wordpress.com.
Please send any queries to the editor Dr Alyce von Rothkirch at ijwwe.editor@gmail.com.

Science and Fiction: Literary Darwinism

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:24:51 -0400

The 55th Annual Convention will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Hilton Milwaukee City Center from November 7-10, 2013.

Topic: Literary Darwinism

I am still seeking papers that explore Darwin and Literature. What are the links between evolutionary psychology/biology and fiction? In what ways might evolutionary theory assist in the understanding and analysis of fiction? This panel will focus on fiction through biology and evolutionary theory.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Kevin Swafford, swafford@bradley.edu

Chair: Kevin Swafford, Bradley University

Call for Creative Writing Articles

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:34:04 -0400

Award-winning Writing Commons (http://writingcommons.org/), a global, peer-reviewed, open-education resource for college students invites the submission of creative writing articles intending to help college students to understand the concepts of creative writing and to improve their writing practice.

Audience
The readership for your article/submission includes undergraduate students in creative writing courses. To address such an audience, avoid difficult theories or complex discussions of research and issues or detailed discussions of pedagogy; rather, consider the interests and perspectives of students, with various levels of expertise, working through college-level creative writing projects.

Length
The typical Writing Commons submission will be approximately 750 to 1,000 words long, although longer webtexts may be submitted. For longer pieces, the use of headings within the piece is highly encouraged.

Submissions
Please email submissions to Dianne Donnelly at dianne@writingcommons.org as a doc or docx by September 15, 2013. Authors should include a brief byline and email. Any included citations should follow the current edition of The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. The incorporation of multimedia components is also encouraged (e.g., images, hyperlinks). For more details, see our guide for authors at http://writingcommons.org/writers-wanted/guide-for-authors.

Review
Because webtexts are more concise than traditional academic essays, we intend to have a quick turn-around time; from initial submission to notification of the submission’s status, please allow approximately four weeks.

Submission Topics

Fiction
• Writing Fiction – an overview
• Point of view
• Concrete vivid details/images
• A story’s arc
• Voice
• Conflict
• Setting
• Tone and style
• Characterization
• What your character wants
• Dialogue
• Tension
• Scenes and summary
• Flashbacks (and flashforwards)
• Metaphor and analogy
• Beginning and endings
• Flash fiction
• The long story

Nonfiction
• Writing creative nonfiction – an overview – by Ira
Sukrungruang
• Creative nonfiction forms
o Memoir
o Personal essay
o Travel narrative
o Nature essay
o Scientific writing
o Literary journalism

• The tenets of narrative
o Voice
o Setting
o What your character wants
o What your narrator wants
o Dialogue
o Writing exposition and the retrospective voice
o Considering the double “I”

Poetry
• Writing poetry – an overview
• Where do poems originate?
• The major forms of poetry
o Acrostic
o Ballad
o Cinquain
o Clerihue
o Diamante
o Didactic
o Free verse
o Ghazal
o Haiku
o Limerick
o Sestina
o Sonnet
o Villanelle
• Creating images
• Lines and stanzas
• Meter and rhythm
• Sounds of language
• Metaphor

Playwriting
• Writing Plays – an overview – by Mark E. Leib
• Action and plot
• Characterization
• Dialogue
• Concept
• Stage directions

Screenwriting
• Writing films – an overview – by Mark E. Leib
• Action and plot
• Characterizations
• Dialogue
• Format
• Description

Digital Creative Writing
• Considering Digital Writing – an overview
• Other topics are open for consideration

"The Senses of Humour," submissions due 1 July 2013

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:08:52 -0400

This special issue of Eighteenth-Century Fiction journal will explore the relationships among various meanings of the term "humour" in the long eighteenth century, from humoral theories of the body to the cultivation and regulation of "senses of humour" in literature, culture, and social interaction. We invite submissions on eighteenth-century legacies of classical humoral theory; the philosophy of laughter; the emergence of modern forms of wit, satire, and other humorous genres in literature and illustration; cultural negotiations of body and mind as sites of "humour"; and the role of humour(s) in discourses of feeling, sentiment, sensibility, and sociality. *We welcome articles that treat the topic in areas inside or outside of imaginative prose fiction.* Please note that this issue is NOT limited to work on traditionally defined prose humour -- we are very interested in interdisciplinary and cultural studies work on laughter, feeling, and affect in a variety of 18th-century contexts. Manuscripts (5,000-8,000 words) should reach ECF by 1 July 2013. Further details about submitting articles can be found at http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~ecf/guidelines.html
To submit an article for a special issue, or a call for articles, or a regular issue of the journal, which publishes 4 issues per year, choose "Submit Article" at http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/ecf/
We encourage electronic submissions at Digital Commons (see above), but if you have any concerns about this online submissions system, you may contact the ECF editors at ecf@mcmaster.ca

UPDATE: Reinterpreting Carson McCullers (The 85th Annual SAMLA Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, November 8-10, 2013)

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:32:36 -0400

DEADLINE EXTENDED: JUNE 1, 2013

To inspire more work on Georgia writer Carson McCullers and her legacy, this panel invites papers discussing innovative ways of analyzing texts related to McCullers, whether biographies, literary works, or adaptations of either. These reinterpretations might include discussions of McCullers’ works in the context of her contemporaries (Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, William Faulkner, James Baldwin, et al), film or dramatic adaptations of her work, or her contributions to today’s southern gothic, Grit Lit, and/or Queer Studies. We welcome essays that address the conference’s theme “Cultures, Contexts, Images, and Texts: Making Meaning in Print, Digital, and Networked Worlds” as related to studies of McCullers (however, the scope of the panel is not limited by this theme).
Please e-mail abstracts (250 to 500 words) to Courtney George, george_courtney2@columbusstate.edu, by 1 June 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.

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

Andrew Marvell Society at the South-Central Renaissance Conference, 3-5 April 2014

Sat, 11 May 2013 13:40:02 -0400

Call for Papers

Andrew Marvell Society at the South-Central Renaissance Conference
3-5 April 2014, Tucson, Arizona

Deadline: 15 December 2013

The University of Arizona will host Exploring the Renaissance 2014: An International Conference on March 21-23, 2013. The conference will be held at the Westward Look Wyndham Grand Resort and Spa; information about the hotel can be accessed at http://www.westwardlook.com. The Andrew Marvell Society will be hosting sessions on a variety of topics concerning Marvell’s poetry and prose. Proposals for papers or for sessions are now invited.
Proposals are especially welcomed on the following topics:
• Marvell and Modern Poetry
• Marvell and Translation
• Explorations of “Eyes and Tears”
Full details about the conference will be posted at the SCRC website: http://www.scrc.us.com/discoveries/abstract-submission-form/

Abstracts only (400-500 words; a shorter 100-word abstract for inclusion in the program), for papers of no more than 20 minutes reading time, should be submitted online no later than December 15, 2013 via the SCRC website's submission abstract form:

http://scrc.us.com/abstractform.shtml

Sessions should be proposed no later than Dec. 15, 2013.

We also encourage participants to apply for the John M. Wallace award for the best paper on Andrew Marvell by an early career scholar presented at the conference. The award recognizes the signal contribution to Marvell studies of John M. Wallace (1928-93), Professor of English at the University of Chicago and author of the ground-breaking interdisciplinary work, Destiny his Choice: The Loyalism of Andrew Marvell (1968). The award is open to graduate students, independent scholars, and faculty below the rank of associate professor (US, Canada), or equivalent (i.e. within the first five years of a permanent teaching appointment). Applicants should submit full papers to the Executive Secretary of the Andrew Marvell Society by 1 March 2014. Applicants should be ready to read their papers at SCRC, Exploring the Renaissance, 2014, where the award will be presented by the President of SCRC at the closing luncheon.

For further details, please contact Emma Annette Wilson and Joan Faust, Executive Secretary, at andrewmarvellsociety@gmail.com.

Program participants are required to join SCRC and are encouraged to submit publication-length versions of their papers to the SCRC journal, Explorations in Renaissance Culture:

http://scrc.us.com/explorations.shtml

For more information, please consult Executive Secretary Joan Faust and Emma Annette Wilson (andrewmarvellsociety@gmail.com).

Andrew Marvell Society:

Timothy Raylor, President
Martin Dzelzainis,Vice President
Nigel Smith, Past President
Matthew Augustine, Publications Officer/Webmaster
Joan Faust/ Emma Annette Wilson, Executive Secretary

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Ryan Netzley (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale) 2013-2016
Nicholas van Maltzahn (University of Ottawa) 2013-2016
Laurent Curelly (Université de Haute-Alsace [Mulhouse, France]) 2011-14
Christopher Orchard (Indiana University of Penn) 2011-14
Emma Annette Wilson (University of Western Ontario) 2012-15
Greg Miller (Millsaps College) 2012-15
Debra Barrett-Graves, California State University, East Bay, ex officio, President SCRC

[NeMLA 2014] Critical Feelings: Redefining Cultural Agency in Affect Theory

Sat, 11 May 2013 13:14:15 -0400

Conference: Northeast Modern Language Association Convention (2014)
Date: April 3-6, 2014
Location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Panel Title: "Critical Feelings: Redefining Cultural Agency in Affect Theory"

Panel Description:

While affect theory has expanded the analysis of affect and emotion within the humanities, a surprisingly small set of feelings has taken prominence within the field. Indeed, critics such as Heather Love, Sianne Ngai, and Sara Ahmed evince a strong bias toward negative affects. Within a consumer culture that praises positive feeling at every turn, these scholars argue, "ugly feelings" appear to afford critical agency for cultural resistance. One consequence of this thesis, however, is that positive affects such as pleasure, happiness, and peace appear suspiciously complicit with dominant ideologies. Recently, critics within queer studies have begun to challenge this logic. For example, Elizabeth Freeman, Jose Munoz, and Michael Snediker each identify the critical agency of pleasure, hope, and optimism for marginalized communities. Yet much work remains to be done within affect theory to challenge the binary between positive and negative feelings and to complicate their respective relationships to cultural power. To that end, this panel seeks papers that expand the palette of affects traditionally analyzed within affect studies. How might these understudied affects operate as "critical" in contemporary literature and culture? Why do certain affects signify as "critical" whereas others fall to the margins? How can affect theory redefine our conceptions of cultural critique and critical agency more broadly?

Papers are welcome to focus on a single affect, a genera of feelings, or the theoretical problem of affect as a whole. However, panelists are encouraged to ground their arguments within a specific a cultural and historical context.

Submit 250-500 word abstracts to tyler.bradway@gmail.com by September 30th, 2013.

NeMLA 2014: Irish and Indian-Anglophone Writing in a Transnational Feminism Context

Fri, 10 May 2013 20:03:01 -0400

NeMLA 2014 cfp

Title: Irish and Indian-Anglophone Writing in a Transnational Feminism Context

This panel will explore Irish literature in conversation with various postcolonial and world/global literatures. More specifically, this panel is interested in developing connections between Irish texts and Indian-Anglophone texts, but welcome papers that consider Irish writing in a more global context or beyond the borders of the nation. With increased debates around globalization and claims that we are “beyond the nation,” this panel welcomes papers that examine representations of the family, the community, and the nation-state. Please send your abstract with a brief C.V. to tara.harney@uconn.edu by 09/30/13.

Session ID: 14118

[Update] Call for Contributors: Encyclopedia of Asian American Culture

Thu, 09 May 2013 08:57:53 -0400

Call for Contributors: Encyclopedia of Asian American Culture

This two-volume encyclopedia, to be published by ABC-CLIO, covers the broad roots of Asian American culture including living traditions, rites of passage, folk culture, popular culture, subcultures, and other forms of shared expression. The essays explore the commonalities and variation of cultural expressions and provide readers with rich detail about the historical, regional, and ethnic/racial diversity within specific traditions.

The essays range from 1,000 to 2,000 words, depending on the amount of material. Generally speaking, the essays cover: history and origins; regional practices, traditions, and artifacts; expressive forms in contemporary culture; and further reading. In addition, essays also include sidebars (100-300 words) that highlight interesting facts, including but not limited to: biographies of key participants, scholars, or other important individuals; artifacts (lyrics, sayings, advertisements, invitations, material culture, etc.); and events (descriptions of particular aspects of the tradition, costumes, rituals, participant roles, etc.). The deadline is December 31, 2013.

Please send inquiries to the editor:

Lan Dong, PhD
Associate Professor
English Department, UHB 3050
University of Illinois Springfield
One University Plaza
Springfield, IL 62703
Email: ldong4@uis.edu

Below is a list of available headwords.

Headword Target Word Count

Chinese American Visual Arts and Artists 1000
Chinese Calligraphy 1000

Asian Americans and Education 1000
Asian American Science and Scientists 1000
Chinese Americans and Education 1000

Cambodian American Children and Family 1000
Chinese American Community Organizations 1000
Chinese Language Schools 1000
Filipino American Children and Family 1000
Filipino American Community Organizations 1000
Japanese American Community Organizations 1000
Korean American Children and Family 1000
Korean American Community Organizations 1000
Vietnamese American Children and Family 1000

Cambodian American Immigration 2000
Korean American Immigration 2000

Asian American Folklore 2000
Asian American Food 2000
Cambodian American Folklore 1000
Chinese American Folklore 1500
Filipino American Folklore 1000
Fortune Cookie 1000
Fusion Cuisine 1000
Japanese American Folklore 1500
Japanese Tea Ceremony 1000
Kim-chee 1000
Lunar New Year 1000

Asian American (Auto)Biographies 2000
Bangladeshi American Culture 1000
Burmese (Myanmar) American Culture 1000
Laotian American Culture 1000
Malaysian American Culture 1000
Nepalese American Culture 1000
Pakistani American Culture 1000
Sri Lankan American Culture 1000
Thai American Culture 1000
Tibetan American Culture 1000

Cambodian American Religion and Beliefs 1000
Chinese American Religion and Beliefs 1000
Filipino American Religion and Beliefs 1000
Japanese American Religion and Beliefs 1000
Korean American Religion and Beliefs 1000
Pakistani American Religion and Beliefs 1000

Italian-American Identity Politics, New Orleans, Oct. 3-5, 2013

Wed, 08 May 2013 06:39:07 -0400

Italian American Studies Association
2013 Conference
Call for Papers

Italian-American Identity Politics

New Orleans Marriott
October 3-5, 2013

This year’s conference examines the politics of the identifying term “Italian American” from multiple perspectives and in different time periods. The evocation of “Italian American” for political purposes and agendas has a varied history, e.g., to combat anti-Italian American discrimination, to rally allegiance to Mussolini’s Fascist regime, or to support feminism. In addition to various ideological positions, the structures for conjuring and maintaining ethnic identity have also been myriad, including newspapers, the Catholic Church, commercial marketing, voluntary associations, and social media sites What are the social conditions in which the ever-changing narratives of collective identity are formulated and perpetuated? How are ethnic symbols and practices mustered and re-invented at the service of “Italian American?” And ultimately, how do competing politics reveal and engender intragroup tensions but possibly also productive dialogue, both of which might re-configure understandings and enactments of the very term “Italian American?”

Suggested paper topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

•Who gets to speak for Italian Americans, both within and outside of academia, political venues, cultural venues, etc.?;
•The use of identity politics by community leaders, the press, scholars, and others;
•The limitations and/or role of public policy in shaping and/or supporting Italian American identities/communities, e.g., public housing during the 1930s-1940s, suburban development during the 1950s and 1960s, the celebration of Columbus Day;
•The self-conscious development and use of cultural and expressive forms of ethnic identity;
•The co-opting of identity politics by consumerist culture, from reality television to Olive Garden commercials;
•Resistance to elite notions of Italian-American identity;
•The role of voluntary organizations in the formation of a politicized and political Italian-American collective identity; and
•Italian Americans as a political entity in electoral politics, in Italy’s voting abroad, in relation to political activism or electoral politics in other countries with an Italian diaspora.

The conference is interdisciplinary and inter-genre in its perspective and thus is open to scholars in different disciplines, creative writers (novelists, poets, and memoirists), and visual and media artists. The conference committee is open to papers not addressing this year’s conference theme.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT www.italianamericanstudies.net.
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: JUNE 15, 2013.
Abstracts for scholarly papers (up to 500 words, plus a note on technical requirements) and a brief, narrative biography should be emailed as attached documents, by June 15, 2013, to iasa2013conf@italianamericanstudies.net to whom other inquiries may also be addressed.

We encourage the submission of organized panels (of no more than three presenters and a chairperson). Submission for a panel must be made by a single individual on behalf of the group, with all the paper titles, abstract narratives, and individual biographies. The conference committee encourages organized panels that are interdisciplinary and inter-genre.

All presentations are to last no longer than twenty minutes, including audio and visual illustrations that accompany presentations.

An individual can be a paper presenter, a panel chair, a panel discussant, and a roundtable participant but cannot be any one of these more than once, eg., being a presenter and a discussant but not chairing two different panels.

Individual paper and panel proposals should include requests for audiovisual equipment (eg., computer projector).

Prospective presenters may expect to be advised of their acceptance or otherwise by August 1, 2013.

All presenters, respondents, and discussants must be members in good standing of the Italian American Studies Association by September 15, 2013.

Conference Committee:
Bénédicte Deschamps
Michael Eula
Laura E. Ruberto
Joseph Sciorra, chair

[UPDATE] MMLA 2013 Special Session: Irony and Authenticity in Contemporary Artistic Production

Wed, 08 May 2013 02:19:59 -0400

Is there room for earnestness and authenticity in contemporary media? In accordance with the 2013 Midwest Modern Language Association conference theme of "Art & Artifice", This panel explores the intersection of authenticity and irony in literature, film, music, and other media. While stable irony depends upon fixed meanings intended to elicit specific interpretations from an audience, contemporary theories of language, identity, and community emphasize the ultimate contingency and instability of meaning. Thus, the possibility for irony is thrown into question; is irony impossible, or is irony all-pervasive? Likewise, is any form of authenticity or earnestness possible in artistic production? What happens when an earnest art form is treated ironically? How can we interpret irony or authenticity as such?

Papers from a variety of fields that explore at least two different media will be particularly useful for this discussion, though single-media topics are also welcome. This panel would greatly benefit from a respondent, as well.

NEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE: JUNE 1. Please send a 250-300 word abstract and brief vitae to panel organizer Janessa Toro
(jltz85@mail.missouri.edu). Conference Program Deadline has been extended: June 28; Conference Registration: July 12.

Secular Shakespeares - 21-27 April 2014, Paris

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:32:10 -0400

The last decade has seen a return to religion in early modern studies. A previous generation of scholarship had sublimated questions of theology and religious identification in favor of the cultural studies "holy trinity" of race, class, and gender. However New Historicist criticism began to embrace and understand Renaissance texts through the lens of Reformation theological disputation and the religious environment in which individual texts were created. Shakespeare, the most towering figure of English Renaissance writing is no exception. As a case in point Stephen Greenblatt’s popular biography of the author Will in the World spends ample time investigating the evidence for possible recusant sensibilities in that most English of writers. This panel invites papers that return to a more secular understanding of Shakespeare. How much of Shakespeare’s continued popularity is precisely because he largely avoids antiquated doctrinal concerns that occupied other playwrights? In what ways does Shakespeare both negotiate and negate the perilous dichotomy between Catholic and Protestant? How is the metaphysic engaged in his drama and verse materialistic, Epicurean, or even atheistic? Does Shakespeare mock religion, exult it, or largely ignore it? What can critics make of his avoidance of writing a biblical play while still mining English translations of scripture for rhetorical and thematic tropes? Is there any way in which it is fair to say that Shakespeare is the first of the moderns, the primogeniture of the secular human? The panel would also be considered in proposals that consider the opposite possibility, that even with a seeming lack of interest in theological disputation, how does Shakespeare inevitably seem to embrace particular theological positions? And perhaps more widely, how do we conceptualize secularism as a construct, category, and discourse in the early modern period? Is it possible to speak of any text as "secular," or do even the most profane of works reflect and suggest some sort of theological commitment? Is secularism even possible in representation, literature, or culture? And how does Shakespeare enter into these particular questions? Special attention will be paid to abstracts which look at productions or interpretations of Shakespeare in the modern world, and the ways in which religion is side-stepped or embraced.

Please send 300-400 word abstracts by August 1st 2013 to Ed Simon of Lehigh University at ens310@lehigh.edu. This panel is planned for Shakespeare 450 commemorating the 450th anniversary of the author’s birth by the Société française Shakespeare and to be held in Paris 21-27 April 2014.

Translation and Transcendence conference: 25-26 October, 2013, Toronto

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:22:23 -0400

Modern Horizons CFP – Translation and Transcendence

For the third annual Modern Horizons conference—to be held October 25th and 26th, 2013 in Toronto, Ontario—we invite proposals for 20 minutes presentations, in English or French, on ‘Translation and Transcendence.’
Translation is prevalent in many aspects of life, whether one works between languages or across cultural divides. If translation happens each time something different, new, or unexpected is confronted or experienced, then it is basic to almost any register of human life. While recognizing that translation is often thought of as communication between languages, we wish to expand on this concept with the aim of addressing issues of identity, tradition, relationships, responsibility, and forms of culture. This conference will re-examine these ideas by considering translation alongside transcendence.

Considering translation and transcendence together is significant; since translation is literally a carrying across of meaning, transcendence is what makes this possible as it allows translation to be distinguished from mere imitation, formal repetition, or reproduction in other media. Thought of in this way, translation involves both continuity and change, because transcendence allows for the rejuvenation of ideas and experiences across change of context. Change and continuity are essentially related: we can only recognize either one through the presence of its counterpart. Contextually present, translation denies an overemphasis of one’s own time (and place), for it necessarily conjugates past with present, and in doing so prepares for a translated future.

Along with its fundamental connection with transcendence, one may think of translation in terms of appropriation and completion. Translation as appropriation occurs when the Other (text or person) is drawn into and becomes a part of our own ethos (our being, sensibility, or ethical disposition) and yet does not lose its own proper essence, its 'transcendent' difference. Translation as completion occurs when we recognize that the Other (text or person) must be read or heard in order for its meaning to be complete. This is not to say that meaning is finalized, but rather that nothing stands in a vacuum, and encounter and affirmation are essential to meaning.

With these ideas in mind, we invite abstracts of 500 words or full papers (taking not more than 20 minutes). Possible topics may include but are not limited to:
- translation and justice
- translation within tradition
- translation and scripture/the sacred
- translation as appropriation
- translation as completion
- translation and threats to integrity
- translation and fragments/the fragmentary
- translation, immanence, and transcendence
- translation and hermeneutics
- translation as response
- translation as mimesis
- translation and the question of origin
- translation and authenticity
- translation as dialogue
- translation and the question of form
- translation and fundamentalism
- the question of untranslatability
- the role of the translator today
- the limits of literal translation
- translation, metaphor, symbolism

Please submit abstracts or full papers to editors@modernhorizonsjournal.ca by 15 June 2013.
Modern Horizons
modernhorizonsjournal.ca
editors@modernhorizonsjournal.ca

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

Digital Humanities and Poetry November 2013

Mon, 06 May 2013 21:18:19 -0400

We "dwell in Possibility": Digital Humanities and Poetry
South Atlantic Modern Language Association convention
November 8-10th, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia
http://samla.memberclicks.net/conference

The Emily Dickinson International Society invites proposals for SAMLA 2013 that explore the productive union between digital humanities and poetry. While we are, of course, interested in panelists who focus on Dickinson's work, we are open to theories and examples regarding poetry in general. We hope to produce a less formal setting that will allow for thoughtful and insightful discussion about how cultures, contexts, images, and texts have influenced writers and readers from the nineteenth century to the present. We welcome traditional papers that explore the role of digital humanities in academic and creative work (i.e., the use of digital archives and resources in teaching and scholarship; the use of new media in the study and composition of poetry). We also welcome non-traditional projects and alternative presentation modes, such as pecha kucha or hypertext. Please submit a CV and a brief description of your project (200-300 words) to Trisha Kannan (trisha.kannan@sfcollege.edu) by June 25, 2013.

‘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.

Fairy Tales: articles for Topic: The W&J Review (deadline: 1 September 2013)

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:59:11 -0400

For the next issue of TOPIC, we are soliciting critical essays on fairy tales, either studies of classic tales or modern retellings, transformations, and refashionings (for adults or children, in poetry or prose, for film/television/web or print).
Essays should be well researched and argued, accessible to an educated reader, and written in a clear, engaging style.

Length: 4000-6000 words, including endnotes.
Style: Chicago, 15th edition (MLA or other styles are fine for submission)
Send completed essays as attachments by 1 September 2013; Word files preferred.

For more information, see http://www2.washjeff.edu/topic/

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

Call For Ecologically-minded Creative and Scholarly Work

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:00:10 -0400

Kudzu Review is seeking work for its Winter Solstice Issue 3.1 as well as for its very first themed issue, "Apocalypse & Renewal." We define ecologically-minded very broadly, and our interest is in a wide range of approaches to literature, theory, creative writing, and visual art. We are interested in everything from epic poems to recipes for kudzu cake!

Check us out today at kudzureview.com.
Deadline for Winter Solstice: September 1st; after that all work is considered for Summer Solstice.

UPDATE: 10 Years After Katrina: Critical Perspectives of the Storm’s Effect on American Culture and Identity

Fri, 03 May 2013 11:08:23 -0400

Seeking critical essays (20-30 pages in length) on texts that examine the storm's effect on American culture and identity.
Almost a decade later, distinct and meaningful body of literature has emerged following the disaster of Hurricane Katrina. The best of these works give voice to the experiences of those wounded and displaced by the storm, elucidating how we might better comprehend how and why our nation failed to provide for its citizens in their time of need, how we might better prepare for future disasters, how we might rectify the multitude of wrongs committed against the Americans in the eye of the storm.
The book will be organized in the following sections:
--Identity (Race and Gender)
--New Media
--Lit Studies (narrative, genre, history)
--Katrina in the classroom
--Disaster/Testimony
--Sociopolitical and Economic Impact
--Environmental Impact

Possible works to consider, but not limited to:
• Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
• What Remained of Katrina: A Novel of New Orleans by Kelly Jameson
• Storm Surge: A Novel of Hurricane Katrina by Ramsey Coutta
• City of Refuge by Tom Piazza
• The Tin Roof Blowdown: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke
• Hurricane Katrina--what Really Happened by Nathaniel Jones
• Hurricane Song by Paul Volponi
• Rooftop Diva: A Novel of Triumph After Katrina by D. T. Pollard
• Jesus Out to Sea by James Lee Burke
• First The Dead: A Bug Man Novel by Tim Downs
• A Little Bit Ruined by Patty Friedmann
• Blink of an Eye by Rexanne Becnel
• Last Known Victim by Erica Spindler
• Murder in the Rue Chartres by Greg Herren
• Revacuation by Brad Benischek
• Tubby Meets Katrina by Tony Dunbar
• Babylon Rolling by Amanda Boyden
• One D.O.A., One on the Way by Mary Robison
• Down in the Flood by Kenneth Abel
• Map Of Moments by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
• New Orleans Noir edited by Julie Smith
• Life in the Wake: Fiction from Post-Katrina New Orleans by the writers of NOLAFugees.com
• Lost and Betrayed (An American Tale): A Fictional Tale of Hurricane Katrina by Sly Fleming
• Dogs Gone Wild: After Hurricane Katrina by Theresa D. Thompson
• Katrina Nights: Love in the Time of Flooding by Fouad Khan
• Voodoo Storm: Hurricane Katrina, Death and Mystery in New Orleans by Davis Temple
• "The Passage" by Justin Cronin
• Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
• Darker Angels by MLN Hanover
• Taken Away by Patty Friedmann
Deadline for submissions: July 15, 2013
Please include a brief bio with your submission. Abstracts and/or full-length submissions will be reviewed.

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

[UPDATE - deadline extended] The African American Experience in the Post Civil Rights Era

Fri, 03 May 2013 07:51:14 -0400

Call for Conference Papers: “The African American Experience Since 1992”, to be held 20th September 2013.

This conference, hosted jointly by the American Studies programme and the Wilberforce Institute for Slavery and Emancipation Studies (WISE) at the University of Hull, aims to examine, explore and critically engage with issues relating to African American life and cultural representation in the post civil rights era.

We are seeking proposals for 20 minute presentations that explore the African American experience from a variety of approaches including politics, history, film, religion, photography, literature, music and economics. Proposals should be a maximum of 250 words and include a provisional title. Panel proposals involving a common theme are welcomed. We very much encourage PhD students to consider submitting a proposal and / or attend the conference. All proposals should be submitted with a one-page CV to j.metcalf@hull.ac.uk by 31 May 2013.

http://www2.hull.ac.uk/fass/american-studies/events.aspx

T. S. Eliot Society (9/27 - 9/29/13), St. Louis

Fri, 03 May 2013 00:45:17 -0400

Keynote speaker: Jahan Ramazani, University of Virginia

1. CALL FOR PAPERS. The Society invites proposals for papers to be presented at its annual meeting in St. Louis. Clearly organized proposals of about 300 words, on any topic reasonably related to Eliot, along with biographical sketches, should be forwarded by June 15, 2013, to the President, Michael Coyle (mcoyle@colgate.edu).

Papers given by graduate students and scholars receiving their doctoral degrees no more than two years before the date of the meeting will be considered for the Fathman Young Scholar Award. Those eligible for this award should mention the fact in their submission.

For further information, please visit our website (http://www.luc.edu/eliot).

2. CALL FOR PEER SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS. Led by Anita Patterson (Boston U), this seminar will focus on the topic of "ELIOT AND ASIA." Recent debates about globalization and transnationalism in literary studies have raised interest in how the Asian "Orient" inspired modernist innovations in "Occidental" societies. This seminar invites papers that explore how transpacific intercultural dialogue figures in Eliot's poetry or may have shaped the guiding principles of his modernism. Which texts, individuals, or life experiences fostered Eliot's interest in Asia, and how did his study of these traditions, in turn, catalyze his development as a poet and critic? How does he regard the role of translation in this context? Where is there clearest evidence of Eliot's response to the literatures, religions, and arts of Asia, and how does this response compare with that of Pound, Williams, Moore, Stein, Stevens, or other authors? Does Eliot's collocation of Asian and non-Asian perspectives in his poetry mark a significant departure from hegemonic "Orientalism," in Said's sense? These questions are meant only to be suggestive, and participants are more than welcome to adopt other approaches to the general topic.

The seminar is open to the first 15 registrants; registration will close July 1st. Seminarians will submit 4-5 page position papers by email, no later than September 1st. To sign up, or for answers to questions, please write Frances Dickey (dickeyf@missouri.edu) or visit our website (http://www.luc.edu/eliot).

[UPDATE] Twentieth Century Studies Midwest PCA ACA St. Louis 11-13 October 2013

Thu, 02 May 2013 20:46:20 -0400

Call for Papers
Twentieth-Century Studies
Midwest Popular Culture/American Culture Association Conference
2013

Friday – Sunday, October 11-13, 2013, St. Louis, MO

St. Louis Union Station Hotel, A Doubletree Hotel by Hilton

Proposal Deadline: April 30, 2013

Topics for this area can include, but are not limited to the following:

• 20th century British and American writers and writing innovations
• Harlem Renaissance artists and writers
• Silent film; sound film; silent to sound film
• Jazz, ragtime, rock—20th century musical innovations
• Great War/WW1 impacts on modern life
• Cubism, modernism, postmodernist movements
• Dadaism, surrealism, German expressionism
• Music hall and/or vaudeville’s demise
• The flapper, Rosie the Riveter
• The rise and fall of the American automobile
• Fred Harvey’s contributions to 20th century tourism/travel
• Between-the-wars culture
• Cold war culture
• The Beats and other countercultural movements
• Expatriation in 20s and 30s Paris and/or the French Riviera
• The Bloomsbury Group
• 20th century innovations in architecture

Please upload 250-word abstract proposals to the Twentieth Century Studies area: http://submissions.mpcaaca.org/

Any questions or concerns please email Lisa Haven at havenl@ohio.edu

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

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

Please include your name, affiliation, email address and AV needs (we can provide only LCD projectors to use with your own computer) in your abstract. Looking forward to your proposals!

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.

Making a Scene - Networks of Intimacy 19th July 2013

Thu, 02 May 2013 04:55:35 -0400

A half-day afternoon symposium to meet, discuss your own research and make connections with others interested in intimacy, its practices, representation and theorisation. This event aims to be cross-disciplinary, informal, and centred around the potential to foster collaborations and knowledge-sharing across different fields, disciplines and institutions.

This may include those who are researching: sex; intimate relationalities; the couple; non-normative living; genres of intimacy; literary intimacy; conceptualisations of kinship and community; the politics of intimacy; emotions and affect; intimate professions; intimacy and film; censorship; pornography; violence and intimacy; illness and death; the intimate and the impersonal; psychoanalysis; philosophies of intimacy.

Participants are invited to address the symposium with a ten minute description of their research and/or field.

At the end of the day, 6-7 pm, there will be a book launch for the recent collection of essays, Scenes of Intimacy: Reading, Writing and Theorizing Contemporary Literature.
Friday 19th July, 2013, 1.30 pm – 7 pm
The Institute for Psychoanalysis,
Maida Vale, London, UK.
Advance registration is essential.
Price: £7.50, payable on the day.

Includes afternoon tea/coffee & biscuits & wine at the launch.
To register or for more information, please contact:
Dr Jennifer Cooke, Lecturer in English,
Department of English and Drama,
Loughborough University.

If you wish to give a paper/talk then please provide a 150 word max. description of your field and research/work and a 50 word max. biography.

CFP: After Glissant: Caribbean Aesthetics and the Politics of Relation (Deadline: 1/15/14)

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:22:41 -0400

Discourse – Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture
Call for Papers

After Glissant: Caribbean Aesthetics and the Politics of Relation

Two recent events have left an undeniable imprint on the critical analysis of Caribbean literary and cultural studies: the February 2011 passing of Martinican writer Édouard Glissant, perhaps the most influential Caribbean intellectual in the last fifty years, and the June 2012 opening of Caribbean: Crossroads of the World, an unprecedented, three-museum art exhibit in New York City that sought to showcase the cultural genealogies of the Antillean region and its diasporic offshoots. Throughout five theme-based segments that examined aesthetic creation through the frameworks of race, ethnicity, nationality, geography, and popular culture, Crossroads of the World follows a deliberately fragmentary structure that echoes Glissant’s ideas on the Caribbean. Instead of experiencing the exhibit as what he calls in Caribbean Discourse “the linear, hierarchical vision of a single History,” spectators were confronted with an accumulation of “subterranean convergences” that traced cultural continuities not only between the archipelago and the continental territories that constitute the basin, but also with the metropolis. Unsurprisingly, the exhibit catalogue’s main chapters conclude with an excerpt from Caribbean Discourse. This textual fragment, which can be read as a memorial site in honor of Glissant, marks the significance of his vision not only for the curation of the show, but for Caribbean aesthetics as a “whole.”

The spirit of Glissant continues to stimulate creative and scholarly work on the historical fragments and possible futures that constitute the Caribbean’s heterogeneous cultural singularity: from the violent shocks of colonialism and the slave-based plantation system to the also violent dislocations experienced and represented by its peoples under neoliberal capitalism. Yet while scholars and artists carry on creatively appropriating Glissant’s theories, a new generation of cultural producers seeks to interrogate and transform the ways the region has been imagined and represented. Critical voices have also emerged from diverse fields to problematize the historical, cultural, political valence of Glissant’s work, especially his late writings, accusing him of abandoning the politics of decolonization he championed in his younger days and replacing it with an exclusively cultural and poetic vision.

Inspired by this debate and by how it performs ongoing tensions between aesthetics and politics within the field, we invite critical interventions that seek to analyze and explore Caribbean cultural production from the vantage point of this post-Glissantian moment. What is the relationship of the Caribbean to colonial and post-colonial studies? In what new directions is Caribbean cultural production headed, directions that Glissant could not or did not anticipate? What new understandings can we bring to the Glissantian understanding of History, or to such terms as “relation,” “filiation” and “diversion” (détour)?

Articles should be no longer than 7,500 words, should be formatted according to the Chicago Style (Humanities) Format, and should be sent to both editors.

Deadline: January 15, 2014

Editors:

Kahlil Chaar-Pérez (Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard University)
kahlilchaar@fas.harvard.edu

Emily A. Maguire (Department of Spanish & Portuguese, Northwestern University)
e-maguire@northwestern.edu