category: religion

Book Prize Call for Submissions (17 March 2012)

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:58:25 -0500

Robert K. Martin Book Prize
Canadian Association for American Studies

The Canadian Association for American Studies (CAAS) would like to announce the call for submissions for the annual Robert K. Martin Prize for the best monograph in American Studies written by a current member of CAAS. This year's prize will be for books published with a copyright date of 2011. The postmark deadline for submission is 17 March 2012.

All current members and those who join in advance of the deadline are eligible. Membership information can be found at our website: http://american-studies.ca/

The award will be announced at the 2012 conference, “Geographies of Promise and Betrayal–Land and Place in US Studies” (Toronto, Ontario, 25-28 October 2012), sponsored by CAAS, York University, and the Centre for the Study of the United States, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. See the conference CFP: http://american-studies.ca/CAASblog/?p=621 . The recipient will also be congratulated in a future issue of the Canadian Review of American Studies, and their book cited on the CAAS webpage (for a list of recent winners of our prizes, see http://american-studies.ca/prizes.html ).

Members who wish to be considered for the award should forward three copies of their book by 17 March 2012 to:

Dr. Jason Haslam
President, Canadian Association for American Studies
Dept. of English
Dalhousie University
6135 University Ave.
Halifax NS
Canada
B3H 4P9

Please also email Jason.Haslam@dal.ca with your intent to apply. We regret that books cannot be returned, but they will be made available to the review editor of the Canadian Review of American Studies for consideration for review.

Temptation and Redemption - 12 May 2012

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:06:26 -0500

The motif of temptation and redemption can be found in almost every area of the humanities and has played a central role in a significant number of works, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to season three of Glee.

For the first annual Carolina Emerging Scholars Conference, we invite papers exploring the complex relationship between temptation and redemption in literature and culture. Abstracts of 250 words or less are due by February 24, 2012. Abstracts should include name, the title of paper, institution, and contact information. For panel proposals, please list topics and titles of papers and an explanation of how these papers fit together. Also, please provide an abstract from each proposed panel member. We welcome submissions from undergraduate and graduate students, as well as independent scholars.

Decisions will be made by March 9, 2012. Conference guidelines will be emailed to participants upon acceptance. Visit our website at usclancaster.sc.edu/cesc.

Submit abstracts electronically via email to cescon@mailbox.sc.edu.

Tragedy/The Tragic in Asian American Literature

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:05:07 -0500

This panel will explore Asian American literary participation in the tragic mode. Reasons for this exploration include:
- the desire to explore some of the aesthetic dimensions of Asian American fiction that have long been neglected by critics.
- the desire to recuperate tragedy/the tragic for the 20th Century, where it has often been dismissed as no longer applicable
- the desire to break down longstanding binaries between existential and political approaches to the tragic.
- the desire to better understand possible political ramifications of tragedy/the tragic in the 20th Century
- the desire to examine the role of genre in knowledge production and ethics

Possible paper topics include, but not are limited to:
- any approaches/treatments of/responses to suffering in Asian American literature, by authors, readers, critics, narrators, or fictional characters
- a questioning of traditional Western claims to tragedy, through investigations of tragedy in Asian and/or Asian American literature
- Examinations of heroism in Asian American literature
- Explorations of the ways in which the tragic appears in Asian American literature
-The tragic as it manifests in Asian cultural values/belief systems.
- Ethics and suffering/grief/tragedy in Asian American literature
- Genre shaping in Asian American literature
- Attention to lyricism and imagism in Asian American fiction
- Negotiating hope in Asian American fiction
- The role of genre in knowledge production and ethics
- The tragic as it manifests in the 20th Century
- The tragic as it manifests in American literature
- The relationship of any of the above to transnationalism

Please send a 400 word abstract by email to sgardam@gmail.com by February 18, 2012.

Other Islands: Shaw, Beckett, and World Literature (MLA 2013)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:49:55 -0500

.
Despite their considerable differences, Bernard Shaw and Samuel
Beckett were born into an Anglo-Irish axis but envisioned worlds
beyond it that incorporated and transfigured their national heritage. This panel seeks papers that address how Shaw and Beckett might be read together, particularly through new definitions of world literature. How do Shaw and Beckett envision modern drama as a series of parables or demonstrations of world creation and destruction; as a negotiation between the local and the global; or as the erasure of historical geographies in favor of flexible places (landscapes, theatres) and spaces (the past, the future, the state)? Papers might also address Shaw and Beckett’s shared Protestantism and Neo-Protestantism, their universalism or rejection of universals, their insistence on science fiction and fantasy as ramifications of realism, and their dramatization of engagements with and retreats from inner and outer worlds, among other related topics.

Please send a 300 word-abstract and CV to Lawrence Switzky at
lawrence.switzky@utoronto.ca by March 10, 2012. Proposals and queries are welcome before the deadline.

Call for Application - UCSIA Summer School "Culture, Religion and Society" (26 August - 2 September 2012, Antwerp, Belgium)

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:02:28 -0500

Call for applications
2012 UCSIA summer school on “Religion, Culture and Society”
Sunday 26 August - Sunday 2 September (dates of arrival and departure)
Antwerp, Belgium

This year the programme will focus on the topic of Secularism(s) and Religion in Society.

It is evident that religion, culture and society are strongly interwoven and are crucial for understanding the contemporary world. With globalization touching all aspects of our lives, religion(s) and culture(s) have to understand their position in this complex globalizing process. It is the aim of the interdisciplinary UCSIA summer school to better understand the dynamic interplay between the macro- and micro-social developments concerning religion that take place in much of the contemporary world.

Guest lecturers:

Rajeev Bhargava (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi), Peggy Levitt (Wellesley College), Robert W. Hefner (Boston University) and John Hutchinson (London School of Economics).

Practical details:

Participation and stay for young scholars and researchers are free of charge. Participants should pay for their own travel expenses to Antwerp.
You can submit your application via the electronic submission on the our website: http://www.ucsia.org/summerschool
Deadline for application is Sunday 15 April 2012.

For further information regarding the programme and application procedure, please have a look at our website:.

Contact:

Sara Mels
Project coordinator

UCSIA vzw
Prinsstraat 14
B-2000 Antwerp
Belgium
Tel. +32 (0)3 265 45 99
Fax +32 (0)3 707 09 31
e-mail: sara.mels@ua.ac.be

Call for proposals: Collection on Paranormal cultures

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:31:18 -0500

Further chapters on specific areas sought for the Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures.

Following the University of Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies conference of 2010 'Paranormal Cultures', (UK) we are editing a large reference work of new research on the paranormal: the Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures. The book will have around 30 chapters written by scholars from the UK, USA and Europe, with many illustrations. It focuses specifically on contemporary and popular manifestations of the paranormal and cultural engagements with the paranormal, rather than the Spiritualism of the Victorian era, or Theosophy, for example, which has been covered elsewhere.
The main objective is to investigate the processes of every day life practices and discourses as well as textual engagements
that have a relation to the discourse of the paranormal. This includes forays into how people relate to the paranormal and why people seek meaning in the realm of the paranormal and how the notion of the paranormal is used to make meaning of
emotional, ideological and epistemological realities.
This book will be a valuable resource for cultural studies, humanities and sociological approaches to the recent
upsurge in cultural engagements with paranormal discourse that has been a growing research focus since the 1990s.

The project is already well established, with many chapters completed or at the editing stage. However, we are looking for contributions of 6,000 words on further material that we would like to include.
Chapters would require a short introduction to the field you are writing in/of the research context, followed by your case study and 2-3 suggested readings to follow up.
The date for submission for these later chapters would be June 1st. However, we would need an abstract sent to us by February 14th please, for us to consider and then to go forward with your idea.
The specific topics or areas that we require further content on are as follows:
1. Hollywood representations of the paranormal (eg. Sixth Sense, The Others, Paranormal Activity etc)

2. The Internet and digital paranormal cultures (paranormal sites and their users)

3. Paranormal tourism (ghost walks, supernatural tours etc)

4. Commodification/commercial paranormal services (the economic dimensions of paranormal 'industries')

5. Therapeutic usage of the paranormal

6. Issues in law and the paranormal (legal cases in which 'possession' was cited as defence, for example)

Please would you kindly forward this call to any other relevant lists.
Send your abstract/proposal to:
s.r.munt@sussex.ac.uk and o.jenzen@brighton.ac.uk

We look forward to hearing from you,
kind regards
Olu Jenzen and Sally R Munt

[UPDATE] Principles of Uncertainty: A Conference on Critical Theory

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:34:14 -0500

“Principles of Uncertainty”

A Conference on Critical Theory

Keynote Speaker: Martin Hägglund

The students of the Department of Comparative Literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center present the first annual interdisciplinary conference on literary theory to be held Friday, May 4, 2012. This conference is being given in support of the CUNY Graduate Center’s proposed certificate for Critical Theory, which is dedicated to the study of literary and critical theory.

We invite papers from all disciplines focusing on works from any period that explore the theme of uncertainty as it pertains to literary and critical theory.

This conference welcomes papers centering upon any individual theorist, period, or school of critical theory, as well as comparisons of various theoretical approaches, including, but not limited to literary theory, psychoanalysis, philosophy, gender studies, and political theory. Some of the questions this conference seeks to answer include, but are not limited to:

· How is the meaning of a text uncertain?

· Is this uncertainty purposefully placed within a text or a by-product of the act of reading?

· How is this uncertainty demonstrated in the relationship between author and reader?

· How can uncertainty be understood not only with respect to literature but in ethical, gendered, political, and/or social terms?

· How is identity shown to be uncertain?

· How does an “undecidable” future impact present ethical and political actions?

· How is history (whether of language, narrative, and/or society) destabilized and called into question?

· How does language contribute to the uncertainty of meaning and interpretation?

· How does the theorist’s own writing present the reader with an example of uncertainty?

· How does uncertainty function in the methodologies of interpretation and the making of meaning?

· Can a text have a stable meaning or is it always uncertain?

Please submit a 300 word abstract for a 15-20 minute paper by March 1, 2012 to uncertaintyconference2012@gmail.com. Proposals should include the title of the paper, presenter’s name, institutional and departmental affiliation, and any technology requests. We also welcome panel proposals of three to four papers.

This conference is co-sponsored by:

The Writer’s Institute at the City University of New York Graduate Center: an un-MFA program devoted to bringing together the country’s most talented writers and today’s most celebrated editors.

The Doctoral Students’ Council: the sole policymaking body representing students in doctoral and master’s programs at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Medical Economics in American Literature - [UPDATE]

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:18:23 -0500

Signaled in colonial portrayals of a New World rife with lush resources and intense mortal dangers to contemporary discourses surrounding public healthcare and its monetary costs/benefits---the country’s physical and economic “well being” have long been connected in the public psyche. Recognizing the symbolic possibilities behind this connection, American authors frequently used it to explore public and social issues affecting their nation and its citizenry. This panel seeks projects which explore such connections. Essays may pertain to any American literary period or genre. In addition, all cross-disciplinary and/or hemispheric approaches will be considered. Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

-The value or cost of wellness/disease
-Healthcare accessibility
-Economic influences on medical treatment
-Impact of diseases on economies
-Disability
-Medical Breakthroughs/Experimentation
-Doctor/Patient relations & medicine as a profession
-Lay-healers and non-traditional medical practices

Abstracts of 300-400 words should be submitted on or before Feb. 29th 2012 to heather.chacon@uky.edu. Please note that this is a provisional panel whose acceptance to MLA is contingent on approval of the MLA Special Sessions committee. Participants must be MLA members by April 7, 2012 to participate.

(MLA 2013 BOSTON) QUEER SEXUALITIES IN AFRICAN LITERATURES AND FILM.

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:37:47 -0500

MLA 2013 BOSTON
AFRICAN LITERATURES DIVISION NONGUARANTEED SESSION

QUEER SEXUALITIES IN AFRICAN LITERATURES AND FILM.

This panel seeks papers that examine/theorize LGBTIQ issues in African literatures and film. Africa, here, includes North and Sub-Saharan Africa. Especially welcome are papers that explore how recent political events and controversies—in Cameroon, Malawi, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana—produce new sites of reading or demand new agendas for deciphering the complexities of African “queer” sexualities. Since the appropriateness of the word “queer” for African sexualities is often questioned, papers may examine/propose alternative conceptualizations of the spaces of same-sex eroticisms in African everyday lives.

Possible topics include:
Theorizations and representations of LGBTIQ activism in Africa
Democracy, human rights and African sexualities
Theorizing African sexualities beyond/outside Western paradigms
Africa and the globalization of sexuality studies
African homosexualities and religion
Homosexualities and Nollywood
Colonialism, coloniality and African LGBTIQ intimacies
Anti-LGBTIQ violence
Pedagogies of/for African sexualities
Queering canonical texts
Constitutionalism and Anti-Homosexuality Bills
Crime and the representation of same-sex sexual practices
Same-sex marriage in African film/literatures
International relations and African LGBTIQ politics
African Diaspora and African LGBTIQ
The spaces of African homosocialities and their functions
African queer liberalisms?
African homonationalisms?
African heteronormativities?
Queerness and spatialities of the libidinal
Queerness and South African Exceptionalism

Please send 300-word abstracts and CV to Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi at: taiwo.adetunji.osinubi(at)umontreal.ca by March 10.

Buenos Aires Comics Conf 26 - 29 September, 2012

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:33:34 -0500

II International Comics Conference: Viñetas Serias 2012

Biblioteca Nacional – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, Argentina , 26 to 29 de September, 2012.

The Second International Comics Conference: Viñetas Serias 2012 will feature workshops, panels, round tables and plenary talks which explore different thematic areas of academic work. Thematic areas include: Graphic Humor (polítics, culture and society; comparative perspectives), Visual Arts, Sequential Narratives, Aesthetics, Experimentation / Innovation, and Language, The Comics Before the Comics, Politics, Ideology and Resistance, Transpositions and Dialogs between Visual Languages, Documents, The Graphic Novel and Biography, Collections, Archives and Sources, Subjectivity, Gender and Identity Construction, New Technologies and Editing, Comics and Pedagogy and the Publishing Industry and the Publishing Market.

Submissions:
Papers will be evaluated by the Conference Committee. The full papers should be sent to the Viñetas Serias email. The deadline for submission of applications is Monday, April 9, 2012. Notification of acceptance or rejection of papers will be made via email to the authors during the month of June. Proposals should be sent to: vinetas-serias@vinetas-sueltas.com.ar following the presentation guidelines that follow.

The papers may be submitted in Spanish, Portuguese or English.

Send the complete paper to the conference email using a WORD or RTF format.

Papers should not exceed 15 pages including images, footnotes and bibliography.

The presentations will be accompanied by a summary in English and Spanish of no more than 300 words.
Include up to 5 keywords and suggest up to two thematic areas for categorizing the paper.

Send two separate files simultaneously: one containing the abstract and the paper (title and notes) without indicating the author, pseudonym or institutional references, and the second containing paper title, author, institutional affiliation, country, email address and suggesting the two thematic areas of the conference where you think the paper could be presented.

The file containing the paper should be stored under a pseudonym and the number 1. Example: Caminante1.doc and second file with the paper title and author data as outlined above with the number 2. Example: Caminante2.doc. The two files must be sent in the same email.

Papers will be evaluated by a reading committee composed of specialists. Acceptance will be announced in June.

Organization of Panels and Workshops:
The accepted papers will be sent to the members of each panel before the Conference, to facilitate joint discussion. The panels and workshops will have a moderator who will present the issues and questions briefly introduced in the submissions received, and moderate the ensuing discussion.
With the exception of round tables, plenary lectures and panels, reading time available for each presentation is 15 minutes. Please observe this instruction strictly to ensure dialogue with the public and avoid delays in developing the program.
All papers will be published in digital form on a CD and on the conference website. Selected papers will be published in book form. Graphics and illustrations may not be included due to financial restraints.

Registration:
Registration fees will be announced in the next call for papers. Presenters and attendees will be able to pay for registration when checking in for the conference at the conference site / premises.

For more information, visit the site:
http://www.vinetas-sueltas.com.ar/congreso/circular2-2012.html

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 19:12:46 -0500

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality (JMMS) is an online, scholarly, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal. JMMS is published twice a year with provision for other special editions. JMMS seeks to be as inclusive as possible in its area of inquiry. Papers address the full spectrum of masculinities and sexualities, particularly those which are seldom heard. Similarly, JMMS addresses not only monotheistic religions and spiritualities but also Eastern, indigenous, new religious movements and other spiritualities which resist categorization. JMMS papers address historical and contemporary phenomena as well as speculative essays about future spiritualities. JMMS welcomes the submission of research articles, and will also consider republishing book chapters that are not available elsewhere on the internet (subject to copyright).

Dr Joseph Gelfer
Editor, Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality
.:: www.jmmsweb.org ::.

Author, The Masculinity Conspiracy
.:: http://masculinityconspiracy.com ::.

Author, Numen, Old Men: Contemporary Masculine Spiritualities and the Problem of Patriarchy
.:: http://tinyurl.com/desl9s ::.

[UPDATE] MLA 2013 Boston “Race, Sex, Class, and Bawdy-House Life in 19th Century America” (Abstracts Due 15 March 2012)

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:45:11 -0500

This panel examines bawdy-house life and customs during an era of increased anxiety over race, sex, class, immigration, expansion, urbanization, and industrialization.

Topics and/or critical paradigms can include, but are certainly not limited to: miscegenation, class, disease, immigration, urbanization, industrialization, expansion, politics, temperance, manners, conduct, prostitution, gambling, race, gender, abolitionism, feminism, religion, sporting life, critical race/queer theory and reader-response.

Send 1-page abstract and brief bio as Word attachment to Rebecca L. Williams, rebelwill7@gmail.com, with ‘MLA 2013’ in subject line.

[REMINDER] Post-Graduate Student Conference on English Literature and Translation Studies 17-18 May 2012

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:26:36 -0500

English Literature and Translation Studies:
An interdisciplinary/international postgraduate conference
17th-18th May 2012 Cankaya University Ankara
Translation and Interpreting Studies and English Language and Literature Departments at Cankaya University in Ankara warmly invite our colleagues/students to send proposals for a 20-minute paper on English Literature and Translation Studies. This conference welcomes papers centering upon English Language, Translation and Interpreting Studies, Literary Translation, English Literature and Culture, American Literature and Culture, Comparative Literature and Literary and Cultural Theories.
This two-day English Literature and Translation Studies conference seeks to bring colleagues, post-graduate students and academicians together in the friendly atmosphere of Cankaya University.
Submission Guidelines:
• Papers/Posters
A 250 word abstract should be submitted as an email attachment to eltsconferences@gmail.com or elts@cankaya.edu.tr by March 5th, 2012. In your email, please include your name, affiliation, email address, phone number, title of paper, and a brief biographical statement.
For further details please visit: www.elts.cankaya.edu.tr
For all enquiries please do not hesitate to write us an email: eltsconferences@gmail.com

[UPDATE] Crowd control in the Renaissance

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:56:23 -0500

This seminar will discuss the notion of "crowd control" from various viewpoints, distinguishing "crowd controllers" and the "crowds controlled" in different loci : on the stage, in the Church, the royal entourage, urban/rural milieus, in the British Isles or elsewhere.

The seminar, which will take place during the September 2012 ESSE conference in Istanbul, seeks to build on ideological and Foucauldian-based approaches to notions and instances of rebellion and social control, favored by critics in the 80s and 90s, by taking into account recent interdisciplinary research on manuscripts, law, iconography, film and performance studies, among others.

Papers will discuss instances of crowd control, based on historical accounts, pamphlets, legal precedents, moral recommendations, or take fictional accounts from the stage or print culture.

Theoretical approaches to the topic will also be welcome.

Send your proposal (1/2 page) by February 15 to:

Pascale Drouet (Université de Poitiers, FR) : pascale.drouet@neuf.fr
Yan Brailowsky (Université Paris, FR) : yan.brailowsky@u-paris10.fr
Zenon Luis Marinez (Universidad de Huelva, ES) : luis@dfing.uhu.es

The convenors will let the proponents know whether their proposals have been accepted by no later than 29 February 2012.

Selected papers will be published by a UK university press.

For more on the ESSE conference : http://www.esse2012.org/en/scientific-programme-seminars.html

2012 PAMLA Conference: The Beatles as Literature

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:58:08 -0500

Have you long pondered Ringo’s existential torpor in “A Hard Day’s Night”? Hotly debated the gender politics of “Girl”? Are The Beatles your “myth to live by”?

Turn your Beatle musings into a creative academic treatise and submit an essay for The Beatles as Literature section at the PAMLA Conference this October at Seattle University.

The Beatles' wildly diverse catalogue and career offer infinite opportunities for studies in mythology, folklore, gender politics, Marxism, poetry, childrens literature, and comparative religion, to name just a few.

Abstracts and paper proposals are due March 31

Please write to Jocelyn Heaney for details:

jheaney@glendale.edu

LGBTQI Graduate Students and Academia

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:15:31 -0500

The Graduate Student Caucus, an affiliate organization of the MLA, invites proposals for papers to be presented at the 2013 MLA annual meeting (Boston, Jan. 3-6, 2013). Please send abstracts (ca. 250 words) to Ervin Malakaj (emalakaj@wustl.edu) by March 10.

LGBTQI graduate students encounter a variety of barriers – structural, institutional, covert, implicit – as they prepare to enter the profession, which remains an unchanged challenge for many young scholars. We invite scholars from all stages of their academic career to submit proposals for papers that call attention to areas where higher education is falling short of its commitment to equality, diversity, accessibility, visibility, and integration. We welcome papers that would contribute to a larger discussion about how these barriers can be identified and suggestions for how they can be overcome.

Change and Continuity in the Middle East . 11 April 2012, London School of Economics and Political Science

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 07:50:00 -0500

Visit: https://sites.google.com/site/brismesgs2012/

The fact that 2011 has been a year of momentous importance for West Asia, North Africa and the Gulf can hardly be disputed. For this reason, the Graduate Section of BRISMES hereby extends an invitation to all young researchers and PhD candidates to present research that addresses the political, economic, social and cultural transitions taking place across the region. We welcome submissions of papers and panel proposals from any disciplinary field which reflects on these events and the resilience displayed despite the pressure of mass uprisings, regime changes, and the emergence of new conflicts. Will the Middle East become more democratic? What is the role of political Islam? How do the events of 2011 influence the conflicts in the region? Is the Middle East finding a new civil conscience? How is the political economy of the region changing? To what extent were the arts, social networking, civil society or collective memory relevant factors of change in the region? What was the impact of foreign policies towards Middle Eastern states? Is the discourse of "resistance" outdated or is it a factor of change? Are human rights the new political vocabulary of the Middle East? Is women's emancipation really happening in the region?

The BRISMES Graduate Section and its co-host, the LSE Middle East Centre, look forward to welcoming you in London in June 2012 to address these and many other questions in its annual conference: "Change and Continuity in the Middle East: Rethinking West Asia, North Africa and the Gulf after 2011".

Deadline for submissions: 13th of April 2012

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment, Volume 4 (annual)

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:45:42 -0500

Religion in the Age of Enlightenment (RAE), an annual published by AMS Press, is accepting articles for volume 5, due out the spring of 2014. Articles received by Nov. 15, 2012 will be considered for this volume; articles received after this date will likely be considered for a later volume. Please visit the following link for a description of RAE's scope and focus, and for detailed submission guidelines:

http://www.amspressinc.com/rae.html

Volumes 1 and 2 of RAE are now available at www.amspressinc.com.

Send quiries and questions to Brett McInelly (brett_mcinelly@byu.edu).

[UPDATE] Rated-X: Perversion and Exclusion (Deadline Extension), Feb 15

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:53:25 -0500

Conference Date: Friday, March 30, 2012
Abstracts (250-500 words) Due: February 15, 2012

Submit abstracts via email: brandeis.grad.conference@gmail.com

Conference website:
https://sites.google.com/site/brandeisgradconference/

Plenary Speaker: Lee Edelman, Chair, Department of English, Tufts University

In celebration of the 36th anniversary of the initial publication of Foucault’s first volume of The History of Sexuality, the 6th Annual Brandeis Graduate student conference will explore the ins and outs of various forms of an X-Rating. Being Rated-X implies being marked as other/as outside/as unacceptable as well as being marked as desirable/as visible/as exceptional. Rated-X implies the nakedness of porn and the openness that comes with that. For some there is liberation in this openness. For others there is only exposure. This necessitates the question of whether certain populations are made disposable through exile or instead through visibility; through the erasure or marking of bodies as other. We would like to use this conference to explore some slippage—between these two (and more) types of identification with otherness: the transgression that empowers and enables pleasure versus the polarizing otherness that disenfranchises and dehumanizes. Relevant questions include: Who is doing the marking? Who draws the boundary lines? Does an “X” marking/rating make the bodies of those so-rated untouchable or excessively available for use; or does an “X” rating elevate a body to exceptional status or release it from the strictures of its prescribed social identities? Thus, we will be accepting papers about the exiled body, porn, and anything in between.

Round Table
This round table discussion will consider a study of what is rated-x in academia. What is not worthy of study? What is shameful? What are the margins of acceptability in the academy? We are accepting abstracts for participation in a round table discussion that explores these boundaries and the means by which they are established.

This past year, the question of what is acceptable in the academy was brought to a head when a psychology professor at Northwestern University’s job was threatened after he allowed a live sex act on his stage after class. This is one of many instances that highlights the urgency of a self-reflexive study of censorship.

Participants will submit 5 minute papers on this topic for circulation, addressing any of the following concerns or other related questions: What are the limits of what is an acceptable object of study? What is the expected object of study? What is exposed to observation in academia? What words can or cannot be used? What images can or cannot be shown in professional scholarship or in the classroom? What methodologies are supported or excluded by institutional practices? Please feel free to submit to the Round Table discussion panel in addition to submitting a paper to present.

Abstracts for round table: February 15, 2012
Papers submitted for pre-circulation: March 1, 2012

Creative Arts Panel
We will be accepting submissions for a creative arts panel in order to allow critical discussions to engage with artistic practice. This panel will allow us to further explore disciplinary boundaries and the possibility of interdisciplinary and cross-media discussion. We will accept paintings, poetry, stories, videos/DVDs, and any other media. Please submit a 250 word abstract via email/mail and relevant slides/images on CD or DVD via mail.

Suggested List of Topics
-Citizenship/Exile
-Immigration
-Fantasy/Desire/Pleasure
-Porn/Anti-Porn
-Erotica
-Kinks
-Censorship
-Genres of Smut
-Porn and Race
-Histories of Sexuality
-Sex and Madness/Pathology
-Punishment/Violence/Gore
-Unwritten/Unspeakable
-X as a variable
-Slippage
-Feminist approaches
-Queer approaches
-The problem of academic “sexiness”
-Eco-porn
-Pornographic gaze in science
-GPS tracking of bodies for surveillance, for pleasure, etc.
cfp categories:
african-american
american
bibliography_and_history_of_the_book
cultural_studies_and_historical_approaches
eighteenth_century
film_and_television
gender_studies_and_sexuality
graduate_conferences
humanities_computing_and_the_internet
interdisciplinary
medieval
modernist studies
popular_culture
postcolonial
professional_topics
religion
renaissance
romantic
theatre
theory
twentieth_century_and_beyond
victorian

CFP: First Annual Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture, March 31-April 1 2012 [DEADLINE EXTENDED]

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 12:07:54 -0500

We've extended the deadline for submissions for the first annual Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture (3/31-4/1). The deadline is now February 10, 2012. Please consider submitting!.

The Department of Popular Culture of Bowling Green State University, one of the nation’s preeminent academic departments focusing on popular culture studies, is closing in on some impressive landmarks. 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the first Master’s Degrees given in Popular Culture and in 2013 the Department of Popular Culture will celebrate 40 years in existence. With these milestones on the horizon, it is appropriate that the Department of Popular Culture has recently founded the Popular Culture Scholars Association, a student organization for undergraduate and graduate students dedicated to examining the prominent subjects, concerns and ideas of 21st century popular culture.

To celebrate the Department of Popular Culture’s anniversaries and the formation of the PCSA, we would like to invite any and all students (undergraduate and graduate), scholars, critics, former members of the POPC program and friends of the department to join us for the first ever Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture on March 31st through April 1st 2012. The conference will be held on the Bowling Green State University campus. We are pleased to announce that Dr. Gary Hoppenstand will be the keynote speaker. Dr. Hoppenstand received his Ph.D. in American Culture Studies and his M.A. in Popular Culture from Bowling Green State University. Currently he is the Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Popular Culture and University Distinguished Faculty at Michigan State University.

Dr. Ray Browne founded the Department of Popular Culture to give students an opportunity to intelligently consider the cultural forms of their everyday lives. Nearly 40 years later, our everyday lives are much different. New mediums, genres and industries have been introduced into the complex world of popular culture and innovative perspectives, methods and models have presented new ways in which to investigate popular culture.

In light of these changes, potential topics for paper, panel and roundtable proposals include, but are not limited to:

· How have these additions and shifts altered popular culture, and how do we explore them?
· What are the most pressing issues for popular culture scholars in the 21st century?
· What are the texts, genres, individuals and theoretical approaches that will define popular culture in the years to come?
· Which new media, texts, genres, etc. deserve attention from academics and scholars?
· Are there individual popular culture texts, genres or individuals that embody the important shifts and changes in popular culture as a whole?
· Explorations of specific 21st century popular culture texts, genres, trends and approaches

In short, the Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture hopes to address this question: what is popular culture in the 21st century and how must we study it?

Again, we welcome proposals and participation from any interested undergraduate and graduate students, as well as any scholars, critics, former members of the POPC program and friends of the department.

The deadline for proposals is Friday, February 10, 2012. Individual paper proposals should be between 300-400 words. Full roundtable and panel theme proposals can be longer, but should include as much prospective information about the topic and number of possible participants as possible. Please email your abstract and a short biography to bgpsca@gmail.com. The subject line should contain the writer’s surname followed by “BCPC12” Abstract. Notifications for decisions will be sent by Friday, February 17, 2012. Please contact the PCSA if you have any questions or concerns atbgpcsa@gmail.com or via our website at http://bgsu.orgsync.com/org/pcsa.

1st Global Conference Making Sense of: Play

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:53:28 -0500

1st Global Conference
Making Sense of: Play
Wednesday 11th July 2012 – Friday 13th July 2012
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

“Unlike children in other countries, the Eskimos played no game of war. They played with imaginary rifles and harpoons, but these were never directed against people but against the formidable beasts that haunted the vast wastes of their land.”
(Marie Herbert)

The Call For Papers:
The interdisciplinary project Making Sense Of: Play seeks to examine the various meanings of “play”, elucidate their inter-relationships and trace the origins of the patterns of play and their place in the human condition. Variations in cultural conditions naturally impact on play, its meanings and its forms, as do, often in a different way, economic inequalities both within and between different cultures. Our deliberations will necessarily takes this into account. In many languages, as in English, throughout its etymological history “play” has been closely connected to the world of children and make believe. Academic study of play, too, deals predominantly with various aspects of children’s play and its importance in development. There is, in fact, a lack of balance between the study of play in relation to children and childhood on one hand, and “play” more generally, as outlined above, on the other. For this reason our project explicitly emphasizes the comparatively under-explored aspects of play in linguistic, literary, philosophical, historical, psychological and evolutionary frames of reference.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
(Plato)

Possible Themes:

- in politics
- in literature
- throughout history
- in philosophy
- as a psychological issue
- its evolutionary significance
- in language
- as humour
- in metaphor
- play of perception
- play and the life-course
- relating to existential crisis (illness, death)
- and love
- and hatred
- and power
- animal play

When:
The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 13th January 2012. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday11th May 2012.

How:
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:
a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: PLAY Abstract Submission.
Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). Please note that a Book of Abstracts is planned for the end of the year. All accepted abstracts will be included in this publication. We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Who to:

Joint Organising Chairs:
Wendy Turgeon: turgeon@optonline.net
Rob Fisher: play@inter-disciplinary.net

More Details:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of...

Flannery O'Connor and ... ?, RMMLA, Boulder, CO, Oct 2012

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:27:44 -0500

Panel will examine O'Connor in conjunction with other writers and artists she influenced, who influenced her, who help us better illuminate some aspect of her work. Deadline March 1, 2012.

[UPDATE] Call for Book Reviews: Bondage and Power, 15 February 2012 (journal issue)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:07:09 -0500

Deadline: February 15, 2012

Book Reviews for Schuylkill graduate journal: Bondage and Power -- Special Issue

Schuylkill graduate journal is seeking submissions from all disciplines for our 10th volume of critical essays and book reviews to be published in Spring of 2012 (online and print). We are seeking book reviews on works addressing the question of bondage and power (broadly defined), 5 pages in length; double spaced; MLA format; no footnotes. Current graduate students should direct their work to Colleen Hammelman and Beth Seltzer at skook@temple.edu by February 15, 2012; no simultaneous submissions please. All reviews will be anonymously reviewed by at least two staff members. Please e-mail submissions with author name and contact info on first page only. In an effort to minimize our environmental impact, copies of submissions not accepted for publication will be recycled.

In his renowned 1992 book City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1992), Mike Davis describes the social warfare in Los Angeles that pits the interests of the urban poor and the middle classes. He argues:

The obsession with physical security systems, and, collaterally, with the architectural policing of social boundaries, has become a zeitgeist of urban restructuring, a master narrative in the emerging built environment of the 1990s. Yet contemporary urban theory, whether debating the role of electronic technologies in precipitating ‘postmodern space’, or discussing the dispersion of urban functions across poly-centered metropolitan ‘galaxies’, has been strangely silent about the militarization of city life so grimly visible at the street level.

Davis further describes the ways in which “redevelopment massively reproduced spatial apartheid” and how the new architecture and security apparatus in LA has served to bound the poor and homeless to a life as fugitives and always in motion, “pressed between the official policy of containment and the increasing sadism of Downtown streets.” This is but one demonstration of the complexity of bondage and power in society. This is a multifaceted issue in the humanities: the definition and re-definition of these terms and the nature of their interaction has been debated by philosophers, literary theorists, sociologists, novelists, poets, journalists, political theorists, geographers and other scholars of the humanistic sciences across various time periods.

Because we want to provide an original and important angle to the discussion of new works, we will publish reviews by graduate students exclusively. Additionally, the reviews will explicitly address the reviewer's impressions of the importance of the work to future research as well as emerging fields, disciplines, approaches, etc.

To compliment the articles centered on this issue’s special topic of bondage and power, The Schuylkill seeks book reviews of recent scholarship that in some way deal with this topic. Below is a list of suggestions, but the editors are open to other works provided they were published in the past two years.

A few suggestions (though the possibilities are by no means limited to this list):

Gene Sharp’s Sharp's Dictionary of Power and Struggle: Language of Civil Resistance in Conflicts. (2011)
Isa Blumi’s Foundations of Modernity: Human Agency and the Imperial State. (2011)
Cindy Hing-Yuk Wong’s Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen.(2011)
John Hench’s Books as Weapons: Propaganda, Publishing, and the Battle for Global Markets in the Era of World War II. (2010)
Stephanie Li’s Something Akin to Freedom: The Choice of Bondage in Narratives by African American Women. (2010)

We welcome reviews focusing on any of the multi-dimensional aspects of power and bondage, ranging from the bondage of labor to power and the environment to institutional bondage and power, and topics in between. Please feel free to write with questions or proposals.

The Schuylkill is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal founded, edited, and run by graduate students at Temple University in Philadelphia. We are looking to publish the scholarly work of graduate students in the humanities from around the globe. We are especially interested in work that, in presenting a rich and nuanced perspective on the topic of bondage and power, blurs the boundaries of the disciplines (literary theory; philosophy; history; political theory; religious studies; cinema studies; women’s studies; art history; etc.)

[UPDATE] Bondage and Power: 15 February 2012 (journal issue)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:51:09 -0500

We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero

All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Bondage is the life of personality, and for bondage the personal self will fight with tireless resourcefulness and the most stubborn cunning. -- Aldous Huxley

The representation and experience of bondage and power is a complex, multifaceted issue in the humanities: the definition and re-definition of these terms and the nature of their interaction has been debated by philosophers, literary theorists, sociologists, novelists, poets, journalists, political theorists, and other scholars of the humanistic sciences across various time periods. Schuylkill graduate journal is seeking submissions from all disciplines for our 10th volume of critical essays and book reviews to be published in Spring of 2012 (online and in print) which seek to push against, transform, or invigorate traditional and standardized notions of bondage and power, exploring how these variables act upon each other to produce layered and complex combinations. We are seeking papers on the relationship between bondage and power, 10-15 pages in length; double spaced; MLA format; no footnotes. Current graduate students should send their work to Jennifer McKim at skook@temple.edu by 15 February 2012. No simultaneous submissions please.

The Schuylkill invites submissions from across the humanities and social sciences that reflect on the relationship between bondage and power, in the broadest interpretation of these terms. We invite submissions from a diverse range of disciplines, critical perspectives, and time periods.

Topics could include, but are not limited to, the following:

The bondage of labor: wage labor, domestic labor, sweatshops, sex work, debt bondage, social justice

Slavery: narratives of captivity in literature, film, video games and other media; psychological enslavement; Hegelian master-slave dialectics; imperialism and colonial appropriation; fiscal or agricultural enslavement; modern-day slavery; human rights

Visual/auditory representations of power and/or art as resistance to power

Power and the environment: electricity, wind power, steam power, solar energy, nuclear power, sustainability

Bondage to hegemonic structures or systems that foster racism, sexism, ageism, heterosexism, jingoism, ableism, xenophobia, religious persecution, genetic discrimination, linguicism, reverse discrimination, or any other form of intolerance

Power of the digital humanities and/or its limits

Cultural representations of sexual bondage, erotica, and sadomasochism

Institutional bondage and power: incarceration; social mobility; marital and family bonds; religion and power; intellectual bondage; spatial bondage and hyperghettoization; pedagogical power

The relationship between bondage and power on warfare and torture; for example, Abu Graib, its media coverage/ the impact of its iconography

Performances of power

Acts of resistance, subversion, and protest to various forms of bondage and power-based relationships

Power over control/dissemination of information via journalism, blogs, government agencies, television news media, censorship, and propaganda

The Schuylkill is a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal founded, edited, and run by graduate students at Temple University in Philadelphia. We are looking to publish the scholarly work of graduate students in the humanities and humanistic social sciences from around the globe. We are especially interested in work that, in presenting a rich and nuanced perspective on the topic of the relationships between bondage and power, blurs the boundaries of the disciplines (literary theory; philosophy; linguistics; sociology; history; political theory; religious studies; cinema studies; women’s studies; classics; art history; geography and urban studies, etc.)

[UPDATE] Miami Vice:The Role of Immorality and Depravity in Constructions of the Self and Community

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:05:32 -0500

What's vice today may be virtue, tomorrow. -- Henry Fielding

In order to know virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with vice.--Marquis de Sade

Greed, avarice, and lust; bribery, prostitution, and blackmail; sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll—vice is a sign and cause of social ills as well as an outlet of rebellion against structure and stagnation. How we (dis)associate ourselves with vice helps constitute our individual and group identities and affiliations.

Vice can be conceptualized as a cause of literal and figurative decay but also as a catalyst for a re-imagining of the body politic and the individual body. As de Sade notes, virtue and vice are both counterpoints and dependents--one cannot exist without the other. As we revise our interpretations of what these categories signify, we re-position ourselves and therefore develop our personalities and the cultures we exist in.

We encourage submissions from all academic disciplines and perspectives.

Questions of Inquiry and Threads of Discussion

Possible topics for presentations include, but are not limited to:

• Attempts of eradication of vice and the institution
• Defining and regulating vice
• How do vices shape/define individuals and societies?
• Relationships between government and vice
• Vice as trope. What roles does vice play in literature? In political rhetoric?
• How does vice figure into binaries of self and Other? Into notions of public and private?
• How does vice influence boundaries of scientific inquiry? Of medical inquiry?
• Vice and Power
• Exploitations of vice/virtue
• Technology, mass media and/as vice/virtue
• Media depictions of vice; media depictions of vice as vice
• Epistemological or ontological explorations of vice
• Explorations of virtue ethics
• Economics, vice taxes, and other monetary implications
• Depictions of vice and virtue in film, television, advertising, and performance

We are also looking to host several readings of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction, throughout the conference and welcome submissions of original work. If submitting creative work, please indicate you are doing so on the proposal submission form.

Both single paper and full panel submissions are encouraged. Along with proposals for traditional academic paper presentations, we encourage proposals for non-traditional presentations including performances, multimedia displays, discussion formats, interactive sessions, poster presentations, artwork, and video or photography installations.

Featured Speakers

A list of featured speakers will be announced on the conference website at a later date.

Submitting Proposals

Download the proposal form here: http://www.units.muohio.edu/english/MEGAA_Symposium.htm Please provide all speaker information and presentation titles on the proposal form. Remove all personal identifiers from the proposal itself. Please limit both individual and panel proposals to 500 words.

Proposal deadline EXTENDED: FEBRUARY 9, 2012: 11:59 p.m. EST

Email completed forms: Symposium Committee, MEGAAblog@gmail.com

Hard copy submissions are also accepted and can be mailed to:

MEGAA

English Department
356 Bachelor Hall
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056

Official acceptances will be emailed to participants by February 14, 2012.

[UPDATE: DEADLINE EXTENDED TO FEB 15] UCLA Southland Graduate Conference: Art and Accident: June 1, 2012

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:04:04 -0500

2012 UCLA Southland Graduate Conference: Art and Accident
June 1, 2012

“Step accidently on your untied shoelace, fall down and you’ll understand a thing or two about the theory of literature.” --Viktor Shklovsky

We might think of the history of modern criticism as a history of denials of the importance of accident in the experience of art, from the central role of “purposiveness” in the Kantian conception of beauty to twentieth-century literary critical debates about authorial intention and organic integrity. The apprehension of accident as such is parried in New Historicist explorations of the complex causal mechanics of “the political unconscious,” and dodged as thoroughly (if much differently) in newer inquiries into the structural roles that affects play in our aesthetic categories. Critics of all stripes know there’s something a little funny when we say “it’s no accident…”—Eve Sedgwick, even, has shown us the joke (we are the kid who’s peed himself on purpose)—but collectively seeing through this gesture does not keep us from making it. It’s difficult for the literary critic to embrace accident, to find a rubric for its appreciation. What’s at stake in learning how? At a critical moment poised for an “aesthetic turn,” that is to say for the reactivation of big questions of art and its systematic study, it is possible to frame anew and ask afresh questions like this; we wager that answering them is a vital task.

This spring, we invite you to untie your shoes and join us in this important work at the annual Southland Graduate Student Conference at UCLA, sponsored by the Friends of English. Possible topics may include, but are in no way limited to, the following:

• changing historical conceptions of the accidental, and how literary art makes its meaning
with, against, or alongside them
• “bad copies” and deviant reprints
• science and the accident of human existence; social history and the accidents of social
forms; accidental institutions and accidents of specialization and discipline
• a “divinity in odd numbers”: theologies of accident; providential interpretation and its discontents
• semiotics and accident; the role of chance in etymology and metaphor
• identity categories: essence and/or accident; accidental sex (and gender)
• the material text as something more than an accident of “the text itself”
• modernism and contingency, modern art and “the arts of contingency”
• realism and “the world of chance”; coincidence and historical causality
• contingency before modernity
• conventional accidents and accidental innovations; genre as literary historical accident
• rhyme and accident; the poetics of mishap; puns and verbal play
• performance and contingency; staged accidents and accidents on stage
• the unpredictability of political crisis and revolution; the logic of mob versus organized protest; terrorism and disaster
• genres of the accidental: essay, picaresque, jazz, found art, flarf poetry, and others; literary evolution and its vicissitudes

This conference is open to all fields and specializations, and we actively encourage speculative and interdisciplinary work. Panels will be organized according to theme. To promote discussion and debate, each panel will feature a brief response from a UCLA graduate student. Keynote speakers: Michael Cohen and Louise Hornby.

Please send 250-word abstracts to art.and.accident@gmail.com by February 15th, 2012. Please paste the abstract the body of the email. Include your name, contact information, department, and institution. Prospective participants will be notified by February 20th. The conference will be held on June 1st, 2012, on the UCLA campus. Send any inquires to the same email address.

UPDATED CFP

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:34:01 -0500

G. B. SHAW: BACK IN TOWN
Dublin: May 29th-- June 1st, 2012
University College Dublin
Co-sponsored by UCD Humanities Institute
&
The International Shaw Society
CALL FOR PAPERS EXTENDED DEADLINE
This conference is focused on Shaw’s return to Dublin, so to speak, to revist his Irish identity, and papers discussing his Irish qualities, interrelationships with other Irish, and contributions to Ireland would be welcomed, along with testimony to his stature in and influence on world drama, and other topics as well. If you choose to write on Irish themes, the following summary may be useful. Dubliner Bernard Shaw was a personal friend of a long list of Irish writers, the most important of whom were Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Augusta Gregory, George Russell ("AE"), and Sean O'Casey. With his Irish wife, Charlotte Payne-Townshend, they sought to encourage younger Irish writers, particularly playwrights, including Norreys Connell ("Conal O'Riordan"), James Hannay ("George Birmingham"), Lennox Robinson, St. John Ervine, and Dennis Johnston. Shaw was closely involved with the Abbey Theatre through Yeats and Gregory right from 1904 through the late 1920s; he was president of the Irish Academy of Letters during the 1930s. Through his friendship with Horace Plunkett, the founder of the Irish Co-Operative movement, Shaw worked hard behind the scenes during the 1917 Irish Convention to produce a constitutional basis for an independent Ireland. Also through Plunkett and A.E. he was a major supporter (both in terms of writing and finance) of the major cultural journal in the new Irish Free State during the 1920s, the Irish Statesman. He supported James Connolly and the Dublin workers during the 1913 Dublin Lock-Out; he worked for the defense of Roger Caement in 1916; he met Michael Collins; he corresponded with Eamon de Valera (about establishing an Irish film industry in the 1940s among other matters). And he left one third of his fortune to National Gallery of Ireland. Featured speakers are Professor Anthony Roche UCD, Professor Nicholas Grene TCD, Peter Gahan (Independent Scholar) and Nelson O’Ceallaigh Ritschel Massachusetts Maritime Acadamy.
Papers (maximum of twenty minutes) may be written from any critcal perspective
Abstracts of approximately 300 words should be submitted to bernardshawindublin@gmail.com for consideration, along with a c.v and brief letter of introduction. EXTENDED DEADLINE to submit abstracts is February 24th 2012. Further information can be found on the conference website http://bernardshawindublin.yolasite.com

2012 International Conference on Future Communication and Computer Technology (ICFCCT 2012)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:30:01 -0500

2012 International Conference on Future Communication and Computer Technology (ICFCCT 2012)
ISTP indexed
2012年未来通信与计算机技术国际学术会议
http://www.icfcct.org/

2012 International Conference on Future Communication and Computer Technology (ICFCCT 2012) will be held in Beijing, China during May 19-20, 2012.
The aim objective of ICFCCT 2012 is to provide a platform for researchers, engineers, academicians as well as industrial professionals from all over the world to present their research results and development activities in Computer, Network and Communication Technology. This conference provides opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas and application experiences face to face, to establish business or research relations and to find global partners for future collaboration.
Submitted conference papers will be reviewed by technical committees of the Conference.
ICCNCE 2012 will be published in the conference proceeding, and will be indexed by Thomson ISI Proceedings.
ICFCCT 2012由国际信息与计算机科学研究学会主办,会议将在北京召开。全部论文将送交学术委员会严格审阅后录用，会议论文集将由科学技术出版社出版，将被ISTP检索。
ISBN: 978-988-15121-4-7

Important Date
Paper Submission (Full Paper) Before February 29, 2012
Notification of Acceptance On March 15, 2012
Authors' Registration Before March 25, 2012
Final Paper Submission Before March 25, 2012
ICFCCT 2012 Conference Dates May 19-20, 2012
本次会议投稿中文、英文都可以，中文稿件须有英文题目、英文摘要、英文关键词。参考文献需为英文。中文论文中的图片注释需要中英文对照，中文论文中的表格的标题需要中英文对照。标准注册费用论文版面按照模版排版后不超过5页，超过5页后按照350元/页收取超页费。
SUBMISSION METHODS:
Email: icfcct@163.com ( .pdf and .doc)

Topics:

Information Engineering
Artificial Intelligence 
Bioinformatics 
Software Engineering 
VLSI Design and Fabrication 
Photonic Technologies 
Parallel and Distributed Computing 
Data Mining 
Cryptography 
Algorithms and Data Structures 
Graphs and Combinatorics 
E-commerce and E-learning 
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) 
Networking 
Signal Processing 
Embedded System 
Communication and Wireless Systems 
Multimedia Systems and Applications 
Emerging Technologies 
INetwork Technologies
Wireless & Mobile Networking
Wireless Sensor Networks 
Cognitive Radio Networks 
Ad Hoc, Sensor and Mesh Networking 
Next-Generation Networking and Internet 
Wireless Network Security and Privacy 
Networking and Information Security 
Network Protocol and Congestion Control 
QoS, Reliability & Performance Modeling
Mobility, Location and Handoff Management 
Capacity, Throughput, Outage and Coverage 
Multimedia in Wireless Networks 
Optical Networks and Systems  Computer
Algorithm and Applications 
Artificial Intelligence 
Cloud Computin 
Communication Networks and Protocols 
Database Technologies 
Distributed and Parallel Computing 
Hardware Design and Implementation 
Information Security 
Multimedia and Graphics Technologies 
Operating Systems 
Simulation and Modeling 
Communication
Signal Detection and Parameter Estimation 
Signal, Image and Video Processing 
Speech and Audio Processing 
Wireless Communications 
Communications Transmission 
Network Communication 
Mobile and Ubiquitous Computing 
Ad hoc and Sensor Networks 
Network and System Security 

For more information about this conference, please contact:
Dr. Zheng
E-mail: icfcct@163.com
Tel: +86-10-6625-0765

2011 International Conference on Financial, Management and Education Science (ICFMES 2012)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:27:30 -0500

CALL FOR PAPERS

2011 International Conference on Financial, Management and Education Science (ICFMES 2012)
ISTP indexed
2011年金融、管理与教育科学国际学术会议
http://www.icfmes.org/

2011 International Conference on Financial, Management and Education Science (ICFMES 2012) will be held in Beijing, China during May 19-20, 2012.
The aim objective of ICCNCE 2012 is to provide a platform for researchers, engineers, academicians as well as industrial professionals from all over the world to present their research results and development activities in Computer, Network and Communication Technology. This conference provides opportunities for the delegates to exchange new ideas and application experiences face to face, to establish business or research relations and to find global partners for future collaboration.
Submitted conference papers will be reviewed by technical committees of the Conference.
ICFMES 2012 will be published in the conference proceeding, and will be indexed by Thomson ISI Proceedings.
ICFMES 2012由国际信息与计算机科学研究学会主办,会议将在北京召开。全部论文将送交学术委员会严格审阅后录用，会议论文集将由科学技术出版社出版，将被ISTP检索。
ISBN: 978-988-15121-5-4

Topics:
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Accounting
Business
Financial Economics
Law and Economics
Information Management
Information Systems and Technology
Financial and Banking
e-Business Engineering and Management
Theory and Practice of Modern Management
Modern Quality Management
Knowledge Management
Education Innovation
Educational Theory
Teaching practice
Education Policy
Educational Psychology
Educational reform
Curriculum Reform
Ideological and Political Education
Educational party construction
Vocational Education
Adult Education
Audio-visual education
School Management
Education Economy
Social Development
Technology Development Knowledge innovation project
School and society
Personnel training
Sports Education

For more information about this conference, please contact:
Dr. Zheng
E-mail: icfmes@163.com
Tel: +86-10-6625-0765

Fiction Writing Contest: The Catskills and the Holocaust

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:35:35 -0500

The Catskills represent a central facet of the American Jewish experience, most often associated with comedy, food, a unique vacation style, and upward mobility for the young Jews who worked there. Though often subtly present in fiction and memoir about the Catskills, Holocaust survivors occupy a space central to, and yet at the same time apart from, this community. Refugees of a war that decimated their European population, these survivors sought a place to live in peace, and to be with other Jews. However, when they came to America they found a culture on the rise and a nation hopeful. The Jews in America were eager to be part of the post-war boom, and survivors found themselves on the margins even in Jewish Catskills communities. While recent scholarship and fiction has addressed this Catskills legacy, there has been no focused work on the experience of the Holocaust and its immediate aftermath in the Catskills.

This contest, along with a parallel non-fiction contest, is part of a book project, Summer Haven: How the Catskills Experienced the Holocaust, edited by Dr. Holli Levitsky, Professor of English and Director of Jewish Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and Dr. Phil Brown, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, which will provide a locus for literature exploring the experience of the Holocaust in the Catskills.

There is wide latitude in the style of the story. It might be a traditional short story on a facet of the Holocaust in the Catskills. It could be a part factual-part fictional literary memoir of the writer’s own personal or familial experiences. Another possibility is that the author may put him/herself into conversation with an historic figure, possibly in the Catskills, who would be dealing with the subject. Maximum length is 30 double-spaced pages.

The contest is sponsored by the Catskills Institute, Jewish Book Council, the “1939” Club, the Sigi Ziering Institute at American Jewish University, Brown University Judaic Studies Program, the Jewish Studies Program at Loyola Marymount University, the Jewish American and Holocaust Literature Symposium, and AskAbigail.com.

Submissions are due July 1, 2012. The contest will be judged by a panel of eminent writers in the field of Jewish literature and scholarship. On Sept.1, the judges’ decision will be announced. The winner will receive $500 and up to $500 in travel costs to present the winning entry at the Jewish American and Holocaust Literature Symposium in Miami, Florida November 11-13, 2012. The story will also be published in the Levitsky and Brown book. If no submission meets the judges’ or editors’ standards, the award will not be made. Authors retain all rights to their work.

Submissions should be mailed (one hard copy) to Holli Levitsky, Jewish Studies Program, Loyola Marymount, One LMU Drive, University Hall 3863, Los Angeles, CA 90045 and emailed to Holli.Levitsky@lmu.edu.

Non-Fiction Writing Contest: The Catskills and the Holocaust

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:27:49 -0500

This contest, along with a parallel fiction contest, is part of a book project, Summer Haven: How the Catskills Experienced the Holocaust, edited by Dr. Holli Levitsky, Professor of English and Director of Jewish Studies at Loyola Marymount University, and Dr. Phil Brown, Professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at Brown University, which will provide a locus for literature exploring the experience of the Holocaust in the Catskills.

There is wide latitude in the style of the essay. It might be an historical research piece on a facet of the Holocaust in the Catskills. It could be a memoir or biographical essay. Another possibility is that the author may put him/herself into conversation with an historic figure, possibly in the Catskills, who would be dealing with the subject. Maximum length is 30 double-spaced pages.

Submissions are due July 1, 2012. The contest will be judged by a panel of eminent writers in the field of Jewish literature and scholarship. On Sept.1, the judges’ decision will be announced. The winner will receive $500 and up to $500 in travel costs to present the essay at the November 11-13, 2012 Annual Jewish American and Holocaust Literature Symposium in Miami, Florida. The essay will also be published in the Levitsky and Brown book. If no submission meets the judges’ or editors’ standards, the award will not be made. Authors retain all rights to their work.

Essays should be mailed (one hard copy) to Phil Brown, Department of Sociology, Brown University, Box 1916, Providence RI 02912 and emailed to phil_brown@brown.edu.

Graham Greene in the 21st Century [MLA 2013, Boston]; deadline March 1, 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:52:01 -0500

This panel situates Graham Greene (an increasingly extracanonical figure) in the current literary landscape.

Topics are open. Some possibilities include coloniality, gender, travel, religion, genre, adaptations, or pop culture vs. literary fiction. Submissions on his fiction, film screenplays, travel writing, autobiography, or other works are welcome. Send 1-page abstract and CV to Heather McHale at mchalehm@gmail.com by March 1, 2012.

[UPDATE] - York University Graduate Symposium - Activist Performance in/and Canada

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:26:07 -0500

Please note the submission deadline has been extended to 15 February 2012.

Call for Papers:
Activist Performance in/and Canada
A Graduate Symposium at York University, 12 April 2012.

The First Annual York University Department of Theatre Graduate Symposium on Theatre and Performance in/and Canada:

Activist Performance in/and Canada

Activist actions, while largely studied within the contexts of the social sciences, have remained a relatively untilled field of fertile ground for analysis within theatre and performance studies, particularly within the Canadian context. Analysis of the overlapping aims, contexts, and histories of political theatre, performance art, and activism is particularly relevant now, as groups in theatrical and public domains are increasingly using performative tactics to engender economic, political, social, and environmental change. Examples of such “activist performances” and “performative activisms” include the Occupy Movement, street theatre, political graffiti, culture jamming, post-colonial performance, and craftivism.

Through these activist interventions, both overt and intrinsic, we can begin to see that what constitutes activist actions, activist performance, and activism(s) are themselves ripe for reexploration and renegotiation in our increasingly globalized and nationalistic communities.

This one day symposium features a keynote address by Dr. Catherine Graham, Associate Professor of Theatre & Film Studies at McMaster University, and an evening of curated performances that take at their core and impulse, expression, or interrogation of activism in/and Canada.

The symposium will be held on 12 April 2012 in Toronto, ON.

We invite papers, curated panels, workshops, and performances that consider the relationship between performance and activism within the Canadian context. Topics to be considered might include but are not limited to:

How might the term “activism” be reimagined or redefined in relationship to the act of performance?
What is the role of performance in effecting/affecting political, social, and environmental change?
How might we imagine performers and activists forging relationships to work collaboratively in effecting/affecting change?
What are some of the ways in which Canadian performances respond to and address activist issues?
How does Canada’s colonial legacy affect national activist performances?
How does Canadian activism differ from activism in other geopolitical contexts?
How are activists employing theatrical techniques in the staging of their protests?
What are “activist” audience members? How do activist audiences promote change at particular performances?
In what ways can particular traditions/movements of performance (e.g. theatre of the oppressed, post-colonial theatre, Aboriginal theatre, sustainable theatre, ecocritical theatre, queer theatre etc.) be taken up in relation of ideas of activism?

Please send proposals of 250-words or less by 15 February, 2012 to: activist.performance.york@gmail.com. Please include your full name, email address, and affiliation along with a short (100 word) bio.

For more information visit us at activistperformanceyork@wordpress.com

Dr. Graham’s research centres on the role of activist theatre in building public discourse and encouraging the participation of marginalized social groups in the development of public life. She is currently working on a book project with the working title Performance as Public Thought.

Reciprocal Accessibility between MLA and East Asian divisions, 15 March 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:21:00 -0500

MLA, 3-6 January 2013 in Boston

Session sponsored by the Division for East Asian Literatures after 1900

Roundtable: Reciprocal Accessibility: What can the MLA and East Asian divisions achieve together?

Anglo-European and East Asian literary studies stand to gain from mutual, reciprocal accessibility to the historical knowledge and theoretical models produced in each other's field. However, the avenue of access is usually blocked. On the rare occasions when it is not, there is little reciprocity between the two, because Eurocentric theories and literary examples are often perceived to be more effective in their explanatory power. East Asian theories and materials often serve as the exceptional particular. What can the more dominant fields at the MLA and East Asian divisions achieve together? What structural and intellectual reform would be needed to create an avenue of reciprocal access between these fields? Speakers are invited to present their views and debate on relevant issues.

300-word abstract and brief CV to Alex Huang (acyhuang05@gmail.com) or Douglas Slaymaker (dslaym@gmail.com)

Note: This is a *guaranteed* session sponsored by the Division for East Asian Literatures after 1900 as part of its effort to diversify the MLA.

Literary Criticism and East Asia - 1 March 2012

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:19:29 -0500

MLA, 3-6 January 2013 in Boston

Literary Criticism and East Asia

Papers of broad interest to MLA members concerning critical movements, individual critics, or distinctive functions of literary criticism in modern and contemporary East Asia. Please send proposals of 500-2500 words by 1 March 2012 to Marshall J. Brown (mbrown@u.washington.edu) and Melek Ortabasi (mso1@sfu.ca).

Note: This is a *guaranteed* session sponsored by the Division of Literary Criticism as part of a cross-divisional and cross-disciplinary effort to bring the richness of East Asian literary studies to a wider audience.