category: theatre

Victorian Saints and Sinners NeMLA Apr. 3-6th, 2014 submission deadline Sept. 30, 2013

Thu, 23 May 2013 13:17:19 -0400

The figure of the prostitute is more than an emblem for mid Victorian religious, social, and sanitary reform; she is emblematic of challenges to the domestic narrative of a morally centered middle class that was at the heart of the British Empire’s self-identity. The prostitute is representative of increased anxieties about miscegenation, sexuality, suffragist movements, and the visibility of women in roles outside the private sphere.
This roundtable seeks participants who interrogate the keen interest of the Victorians in missionary work, philanthropy, and other reform efforts designed to save women from lives of prostitution at home in the heart of the British Empire during the years 1837-1901.Topics of inquiry include but are not limited to:
The role or portrayal of the fallen woman in literature or art (Possible authors include D.G. Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Gissing, Amy Levy)
Portrayals of the Salvation Army or similar movements in novels, short stories, poems, drama, or periodicals
Reform texts (In Darkest England and the Way Out, etc.) and social exposés (the 1861 edition of London Labour and the London Poor, Havelock Ellis, etc.)
The artistic representation of specific reformers and their efforts to end prostitution (such as William Gladstone, the Salvation Army, etc.)
Women writing and campaigning for change around The Woman Question (Frances Power Cobbe, Sarah Stickney Ellis, Annie Besant, Dinah Mullock Craik etc.,)
The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869 and medical reformers like William Acton and their literary impact
Please submit 250-300 word abstracts, along with a brief biographical statement, in .doc or .docx format to Anna Brecke (annabrecke@my.uri.edu) and Rebekah Greene (rebekah_greene@my.uri.edu).

[EXTENDED DEADLINE] The Marginalised Mainstream: Fading and Emerging NEW DEADLINE

Thu, 23 May 2013 05:06:55 -0400

Second Annual Marginalised Mainstream Conference: Fading and Emerging, 12-13 September 2013 NEW DEADLINE: 17 June 2013

‘Fading and Emerging: Tracing the Mainstream in Literature and Popular Culture’, the second annual Marginalised Mainstream conference, seeks to explore the issue of fading and emerging in popular literature, films, and other media that have been subject to critical marginalisation. How does the mainstream itself foster the process of fading and emerging? How are vanishing and appearance dealt with in popular narratives?

In literature, characters fade into the background or erupt onto the page with sudden violence to affect the plot. The deus ex machina is a staple of thrillers, but where else (and how) is it incorporated? Cinema and photography have offered a unique space to experiment with the concept of fading and vanishing, both literally and figuratively, but also traces and mirages - pressing half images against the psyche invites shadows in and encourages us to see what was never there (think Hitchcock's Psycho). Metaphors, such as dawn and twilight, shadows and pools of light, abound. Such devices have been used in storytelling since the popular myths of the ancient world. This conference seeks to understand their significance.

We invite submissions from postgraduate students, early career academics and established researchers working in the fields of literature, cultural studies and elsewhere in the humanities to answer these questions and beyond. The aims of this conference strive not only to consider fading and emerging as aspects of narrative but also outside of the fictive world: how and where are trends and fads begun? Why are icons so attractive? What sparks crazes, new styles and popular movements in storytelling, fashion or music? And what is the cause of the more recent trend of remaking and rebooting older films and franchises?

These issues are often the subject of academic marginalisation, which begs the question: what trends can we see in academia? What causes a subject to fall out of favour? And why do so many academics fall prey to the idea that something is only worth studying after it has fully emerged?

We invite proposals for papers on any aspect of the theme of fading and emerging that could include, but are not limited to:

• Fictional traces
• Revelations/concealment
• Dawn/twilight
• Wallflowers and supporting characters
• Vanishing and waning
• Deus ex machina
• Fade-in, fade-out
• Styles, trends and movements
• Generic inception/genesis
• Fads and crazes
• The icon – the ‘It’ girl, the ‘It’ film
• Popular re-emergence
• Disappearance
• Re-reading (or re-viewing)
• Remakes and reboots

It goes without saying that writers, texts or topics need not be canonical. In addition, we actively encourage papers discussing writers, texts and visual media that engage with mainstream cultures from around the world.

Keynote speakers: Dr Kate Macdonald (Ghent University), Dr Nicola Humble (University of Roehampton), and Professor Yvonne Tasker (University of East Anglia)

Panels will follow the format of three 20-minute papers followed by questions.

Abstracts of no more than 350 words are invited by Monday 17 June 2013. Acceptances will be sent out by no later than Monday 1st July 2013. Please email abstracts and a cover sheet including your name, university, contact information, plus a brief biographical paragraph about your academic interests or any enquiries to marginalisedmainstream@gmail.com.

Conference organisers: Brittain Bright, Emma Grundy Haigh and Sam Goodman

Conference email: marginalisedmainstream@gmail.com

Conference website: www.marginalisedmainstream.com

GAMES OF LATE MODERNITY; Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens: 75 Years Later (January 15-17, 2014)

Wed, 22 May 2013 06:18:09 -0400

GAMES OF LATE MODERNITY
Johan Huizinga’s Homo Ludens: 75 Years Later (January 15-17, 2014)

The end of this year will be marked by the 75th anniversary of Johan Huizinga’s classic study of the Homo Ludens. Its main thesis is, as striking as it is simple, well known: Culture is founded on and as a form of play. Huizinga’s aim was to understand play as a ‘totality’. The element of play can be observed in all different aspects of culture, ranging from seemingly innocuous leisure activities to the uttermost serious and advanced systems, such as the financial world or political institutions.

Though, self-evident as Huizinga’s thesis still seems to be, with regard to multiple Huizinga-quotations in various fields of contemporary scholarship, the modern-day situation also raises a pivotal problem: it seems impossible to keep thinking of game and play as a humanistic principle of knowledge, ethics and aesthetics in the exact same sense as Huizinga did. Modern day experiences such as warfare and economical and scientific fraud, wherein every rule of the game is being postponed, force us to revise and amplify Huizinga’s thesis, in order to rediscover Huizinga’s far-reaching significance today. The purpose of this three-day conference is to bring together experts from a number of disciplines to shed light on Huizinga’s thesis. Participants are asked to address at least one of the following issues:

1. Playing after Auschwitz: how is it possible to formulate a theory of play that is able to deal with culture not only in its elegant and innocuous appearances, but in its most cruel and tragic forms as well?

2. To play or being played with: The power of the culture industry tells us that we are playing all of the time, from the first until the very last minute. But one has to come to terms with the fact that this can hardly be the free-play Huizinga has proclaimed.

3. From cultural history to sociology: intellectuals such as Levi-Strauss and Foucault and many more have deployed an idea of game as the structure society. How can they revise and strengthen Huizinga’s concept of game and play?

4. The ethos of play: to play means to play by the rules. But isn’t the disappearance of any rules whatsoever precisely late modernity’s main characteristic? How to deal with those who cheat?

We welcome individual abstracts as well as panel proposals, from every relevant field, such as sociology, anthropology and criminology, history and historiography, economy and management studies, ethics, philosophy, aesthetics and cultural studies, biology and psychology.

Speakers are: Loïc Wacquant, Elena Esposito, Giorgio Agamben (t.b.c.), Dubravka Ugrešić, Thomas Macho, Jos de Mul, Joyce Goggin, and Helmut Lethen.

If you are interested in participating, please submit a 300-words paper proposal and a short résumé of your current research by September 1, 2013 to Léon Hanssen, Professor of Life Writing and Cultural Memory, Tilburg University, email: info@gamesoflatemodernity.org

Participants will be informed of acceptance by September 30, 2013. The conference fee will be €250 and includes: two receptions, lunch and refreshments during all three days of the conference, free admittance to De Pont (museum of contemporary art), access to all artist performances and video screenings.

Together with the keynotes a number of papers will be selected for a book to be published by Amsterdam University Press and an affiliated international academic publishing house.

[UPDATE] “Making Meaning at the End of the World: Apocalyptic Texts” SAMLA Nov. 8-10 Abstracts by 6/7

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:14:37 -0400

SAMLA Convention 2013
November 8-10, 2012
Marriott Atlanta Buckhead Hotel
Atlanta, Georgia 2013

“Making Meaning at the End of the World: Apocalyptic Texts”
Chair: Lynne Simpson, Presbyterian College
Affiliated Group: College English Association

As R.E.M., that great band from Athens, Georgia, famously sang, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.” What is driving our current American obsession with the apocalypse? Papers that explore imagined endings from environmental disasters to zombie invasions are welcome. What do apocalyptic literature, television, and film mean for us culturally, and what might we discern from these often cautionary tales? Please send abstracts of around 500 words to Lynne Simpson at lsimpson@presby.edu by June 7.

Divine Adaptations: New Perspectives on Dante’s Influence in Popular Culture

Tue, 21 May 2013 11:20:29 -0400

In Inferno V, 137 Francesca da Rimini explains to Dante how both book and author are responsible for her and Paolo’s ‘mal perverso’ that led to their ultimate death and eternal damnation. However, further investigation reveals that Francesca’s incrimination of the author, in addition to the text of the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere, is a misreading on the part of Francesca. According to Franco Masciandaro, the attempt to recreate the adulterous kiss, “brought about … sterility and death,” and in addition, “imitatio, with its potential creativity, was adulterated.” Masciandaro's critique of the lovers’ misinterpretation and Francesca’s distaste of the author both recall early criticism of adaptation theory. This dissatisfaction also includes late 19th century and early 20th century adaptations and performances of Dante’s works, specifically the Commedia and stories about the poets’ life. The objective of this panel is to analyze the relationship between Dante’s text and contemporary representations of the Commedia. This panel aims to reopen the conversation of Dante’s influence in popular culture by focusing on the medieval poet’s presence in cinema, theatre, and television. Papers addressing theoretical understanding of medievalism, adaptation, performance studies, and popular culture studies are particularly welcomed. Please send 300 word abstracts and brief bio to Carmelo Galati at carmgalati@gmail.com by September 30, 2013.

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

Anaphora Looking for New Journal and Press Board Members

Sun, 19 May 2013 18:29:11 -0400

If you have a strong publication record, and if you are tenured in your academic or publishing job, please send a note of interest in participating as a Board Member of the Anaphora Literary Press, and the Pennsylvania Literary Journal. PLJ is now in its 5th volume, and with 11 issues in print, it's ready to undergo some changes. Your area of study should be modern or current literary or creative writing studies in all genres (novel, poetry, film, art, theater). You should be interested in actively contributing by finding established peer-reviewers and by soliciting work from established creative and critical writers that you are familiar with. This is not a silent position. You might also help by contributing business and creative operations and methodology ideas on how to improve the organization, publishing process and other components of the press and the journal. Email a query to director@anaphoraliterary.com, with a brief statement of what you can offer in this position, and a paragraph biography. You can learn more about Anaphora at www.anaphoraliterary.com.

Adoption: Crossing Boundaries, March 27-30 (due July 15); Florida State Univ.

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:28:39 -0400

Call for Proposals

ASAC's biennial conferences feature stories and histories of adoption as explored by writers, artists, and scholars across the disciplines, especially the humanities. Adoptions and the lives of adoptees always involve crossing boundaries, whether the boundaries of families, the boundaries of races, the boundaries of nations, the boundaries of aboriginal peoples and others, the boundaries of communities, the boundaries of law, or all of these borders. This conference takes up these themes and threads, and also encourages other kinds of boundary-crossing—boundaries between disciplines; between adoptees, birthparents, adoptive parents, and social workers; boundaries between creative writers, scholars, and activists. And we extend our topic across other boundaries by considering similar issues with regard to foster care and assisted reproduction.
The conference includes academic work from a wide range of scholarly disciplines and areas—literature, film and popular culture and performance studies, cultural studies, history, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, religion, political science, law, women’s and gender studies— as well as film, creative writing, graphic art, music, drama, or productions in other media. We encourage interdisciplinary panels, presentations, and productions.
Keynote speakers:

Jackie Kay, Professor of Creative Writing, Newcastle University (UK), Scottish-Nigerian adoptee, author of the groundbreaking volume of poetry The Adoption Papers, the adoption memoir Red Dust Road, and many other works of poetry, prose, and drama.

Laura Briggs, Professor and Chair of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of Somebody’s Children: The Politics of Transracial and Transnational Adoption (Duke UP, 2012), the winner of the James A. Rawley Prize from the Organization of American Historians

Featured films will include: Somewhere Between (2012), a documentary which follows four teenage girls adopted from China; Resilience (2009), which shows a Korean birthmother who searches for and meets her son in the US; and Any Day Now, (2012) a fictionalized account of a gay couple’s attempt to adopt a special-needs child they have fostered (the script is based in part on events in Florida, and we hope to have some of the parties at the conference.)

We invite proposals for papers and panels that:
● Analyze literary, cinematic, dramatic, musical, visual, dance, popular culture, or performance art representations of boundary crossing in adoption, foster care, or other nonstandard means of family formation or child care, and boundary crossing in narratives of the lives of adoptees, adoptive parents, and/or birthparents
● Study boundary-crossing in adoption and other reproductive, family and caring structures in historical, anthropological, philosophical, sociological, legal, religious, political, gendered, LGBTQ, and/or psychological perspectives.
● Promote dialogue between people positioned differently with regard to adoption because of their life experience, profession, and/or discipline.
We expect that most papers will run about 20 minutes and that panel proposals should allow some time for discussion (assuming that panels will be about an hour and fifteen minutes ).
We also invite creative presentations (writing, film, drama, graphic arts, other media, etc.) on border crossing in relation to adoption. Writing samples should ordinarily be less than 10 pages.
Please send 200-word proposals for papers or samples of creative work, a cv or resume along with your proposal, and links if you are working in visual or multimedia, to asac2014@fsu.edu. Give your proposal, cv, and/or writing sample a title that includes your last name.

Proposal deadline July 15, 2013

Applications from graduate students interested in submitting papers are invited for a travel grant award of up to $500. Awards will be given based on quality of paper submitted by July 15 (not just 200-word proposal), cost of travel, contribution of papers to scope of conference, and amount we have available.

A conference website is under development and we will soon post information about registration, accommodation, and travel. For additional information, contact Eric Walker at ewalker@fsu.edu

Conference program planning committee includes:

Eric Walker, Department of English, Florida State University, co-chair
Marianne Novy, University of Pittsburgh, co-chair
Karen Balcom, McMaster University
Emily Hipchen, University of West Georgia
Margaret Homans, Yale University

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

Sun, 19 May 2013 17:10:47 -0400

Title of the Panel: Adaptations as (Re)Creations of Discourses in Latin American Theater and Cinema

Description: A recurrent trend in contemporary Latin American theater and cinema is the adaptation of myths, hybrid texts as chronicles, and fictional texts as novels and short stories. By focusing on the “new” reading that authors do of the adapted texts through the use of the theatrical and cinematographic features, their adaptations offer new meanings to the adapted texts and constitute original texts. Following Linda Hutcheon’s approach to adaptation proposed in her book A Theory of Adaptation (2006), this panel explores the intertextuality among hybrid and fictional texts, and their adaptations as plays and films. Hutcheon states adaptation, as a form of intertextuality, involves not just formal relations of texts such as different modes of engagement with the story, shifts of mediums or frames (from telling to showing), but also implies political, social, pedagogical or personal reasons that compel the adaptor to contest, deconstruct or give a new meaning to the adapted text. By discussing how, why and for what playwrights and filmmakers deal and position themselves in the process and in the creation of the adaptation, the panel will visualize the adapted works as original works into new social, cultural and aesthetic conventions. This panel welcomes critical works on individual or a set of theatrical and/or cinematographic creations that stand out in other texts.

Please send 250 word abstracts in English, Spanish or Portuguese to María Magdalena Olivares mmolivareshenriquez@smcm.edu by Sept. 30, 2013.

Re-Imagining Communities and Civil Society Conference [UPDATE: Deadline Extended]

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:23:52 -0400

The aim of this conference is to explore what role social movements, artists, intellectuals, writers, cultural institutions and others play in shaping our ideas of community, civil society and the connections between the two. We are especially interested in papers and panels that examine how the creation and strengthening of ties between communities and civil society promote democratization in Europe and/or Latin America. However, we welcome abstracts on any aspect of community and civil society.

Civil society is the nongovernmental space of associational life. As Philip Oxhorn, author of "Organizing Civil Society," explains, civil society is composed of groups that “simultaneously resist subordination to the state and demand inclusion in national political structures” (252). These groups can be grassroots political associations, church groups, bowling leagues, book clubs, etc. While academics in the humanities are familiar with the concept of “community,” the term “civil society” has largely remained in the realm of the social sciences. This conference seeks to expand the boundaries of the terms and to explore relationships of communities and civil society by considering the following topics:

• What role do civil-society organizations play in the formation of (artistic, ethnic, sexual, local, etc.) communities?
• Who sponsors civil societies? How are communities and civil-society organizations funded and maintained?
• How have philosophers, artists and producers of culture defined the concepts of community, civil society, and the interplay between the two? What is/has been the role of culture in shaping and bringing together communities and civil society?
• How do cultural institutions (academies, literary and artistic prizes, cultural festivals) contribute to civil society? As civil society organizations, what role do cultural institutions play in the creation of new communities or preserving communities? How is a community shaped by its inclusion or exclusion from canonical/ mainstream/ recognized cultural events sponsored by cultural institutions? What are the relationships between cultural institutions and the communities they are intended to serve? How do communities and civil society define cultural value?
• What has been, and what is likely to be, the role of both mainstream and alternative news media in shaping our understanding of civil society? Do social media strengthen civil societies and empower organized societal actors to assert claims vis-à-vis the state and corporations? How does this vary within and between societies in the Americas and Europe?
• What effect has the discourse of civil society had on language policy, linguistic rights, language revitalization, and identity? What are the roles of marginalized speech communities in the construction of a civil society?
• Are think-tanks part of civil society in Europe and the Americas? What role do they play, and what role should they play, in efforts to make the term “civil society” known to a broader cross-section of society, for example through University courses and programs? What role do think tanks play in organizing and shaping the claims-making by collective actors toward the state and corporations?
• How do artists, writers, and other cultural producers shape community or a civil society into arenas in which non-citizens can participate?
• Can civil society usher in new forms of art and/or enable artists to reclaim public spaces for social action? Can forging a connection between civil society and communities also bridge the space between politics and aesthetics?
• How can we create forms of collective action that are attentive to class and racial differences by forging connections between local communities and civil society?
• How do NGOs help enrich civil society? How can NGOs mediate the relationship between community and government?
• Has the discourse of culture been displaced by the discourse of civil society (David Chandler 2010), particularly in multiethnic communities in Latin America?

October 25-27, 2013

Languages of the conference: English, French and Spanish.

Papers will be considered for publication

Guelph is 80 km from Toronto and 50 km from the Toronto airport. Greyhound departs almost every other hour from Toronto to the University of Guelph campus.

Keynote Speakers: James F. English, John Welsh Centennial Professor of English and Director of the Penn Humanities Forum, Judith Adler Hellman, Professor, Coordinator of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program, York University, Philip Oxhorn, Professor, Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University.

A 500 word abstract of individual papers or sessions should be sent by June 30, 2013 to the conference committee at gyovanov@uoguelph.ca

C21 Literature Journal: Twenty First Century Genre

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:04:26 -0400

CALL FOR PAPERS
C21 LITERATURE: ISSUE THREE AUTUMN 2014: TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GENRE

Genre has become an increasingly significant part of academic and popular criticism since the year 2000. From Steampunk to Crunch Lit, Young Adult to Nordic Noir, new genres have arisen to sustain fiction and popular culture markets in the new millennium. Issue three of C21 Literature asks if the politics of genre can offer insights into developments across the first thirteen years of the twenty-first century. If genre development is a process of evolution then how and where do these genres originate – and what are the intertextual and historical frames in which they operate? The journal calls for articles examining developments in genre across the twenty-first century. Topics may include:

• the history of literary genre
• multi-platformed genre developments
• new genres and authors
• cultural studies and genre
• politics and genre
• humour and genre
• academia and genre
• technology and genre
• popular culture and parody
• alternative histories
• old genres, new millennium
•
C21 Literature also seeks reviews, features and opinion pieces from academics, readers and writers and conference reports relating to twenty-first century genres.
Articles should be 6000–7000 words.
Reviews and conference reports should be 1000–2000 words. The journal uses the author/date Chicago style referencing system.
Full article submission, abstracts only will not be considered.
Please send all submissions, questions or enquiries to journal editor Dr Katy Shaw at K.Shaw@brighton.ac.uk

About The Journal
C21 Literature is an international peer reviewed journal that aims to create a critical, discursive space for the promotion and exploration of 21-st century writings in English. It addresses a range of narratives in contemporary culture, from the novel, poem and play to hypertext, digital gaming and contemporary creative writing. The journal features engaged theoretical pieces alongside new unpublished creative works and investigates the challenges that new media present to traditional categorizations of literary writing.
Website: http://www.gylphi.co.uk/journals/C21Literature/
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/C21Literature
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/c21literature
Blog: http://c21literature.blogspot.co.uk/