theory

Comparative Caribbeans: an Interdisciplinary Conference*

This is why we stay with poetry. And despite our consenting to all the indisputable technologies; despite seeing the political leap that must be managed..., the full load of knowledge to be tamed..., at the bow there is still something we now share: this murmur, cloud or rain or peaceful smoke. …We cry our cry of poetry. Our boats are open, and we sail them for everyone.
– Édouard Glissant

Sponsored Session: The Department of English Studies at Durham University invites submission of proposals for its session at the 47th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan from May 10-13, 2012. The panel seeks proposals of 300-500 words with a working title and department affiliation by September 1, 2011. Participants will be contacted regardless of whether or not their proposal has been accepted. All proposals submitted but not accepted will be sent on to the general committee for consideration in one of the general sessions at Kalamazoo. The CfP is as follows:

Postcolonial England

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Intellettuale editore, curatore editoriale, consulente, editor: sono molti i nomi con cui viene indicato il ruolo di chi trasforma il manoscritto nel prodotto editoriale vero e proprio, il libro. Questa incertezza terminologica registra i cambiamenti nel lavoro editoriale dal Dopoguerra a oggi e manifesta la permeabilità di un ruolo, quello dell'editor, svolto in tempi e modi diversi da gran parte degli intellettuali italiani del Novecento.

Conference Panel:
Television and comics serials get 'rebooted' and filmic versions of classics pile up in seemingly endless succession. Re-adaptations must acknowledge the visual heritage of the adaptations that came before them, while also asserting some sort of uniqueness - a return to the source text or a resituating in time and space: an 'update.' This panel will interrogate the need for such re-imaginings. What makes a character or world ripe for re-envisioning, and what shapes the way that re-envisioning occurs?

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

Animals frequently appear as symbols or allegories in medieval literature. This panel, however, seeks to recover the original animality that is lost when we dismiss the animals as transparent allegories. We might know what the animals mean for the narrative, but why does the story use animals—and why these particular animals—in order to convey such meanings? Papers can potentially combine animal studies, close-reading, and historicism to examine the portrayals of animals as animals in medieval literature. Papers could consider such wide-ranging topics as:
The micro-narratives of animals in the midst of larger medieval tales (such as the weasels in the Volsungsaga or beasts of battle in heroic poetry).