victorian

"In any period," M.H. Abrams writes, "the theory of mind and the theory of art tend to turn on similar analogues, explicit or submerged." How has the literature of the long twentieth century responded to philosophical and cultural transformations brought about by the rise of mind science? What thematic and formal means have literary artists used to explore the ontological, epistemological, and ethical implications of cognitive materialism? How has the explanatory power of cognitive science eclipsed the explanatory power of psychoanalysis in recent fiction and poetry? Possible topics include the neuronovel, drug use, the resistance to science, mental illness, correspondences between biological and textual form.

The recent popular success of "Downton Abbey" calls for a renewed examination of such earlier BBC/ITV/Masterpiece Theatre serialized period dramas as "Upstairs Downstairs," "The Pallisers,"and "The Forsyte Saga," among others, that have aired (and have been repeated)since the 1970s. We also want to examine how more recent dramas like "Downton Abbey" engage with these earlier productions in terms of style, thematic content, and programming.

Contributions are solicited for a web resource on teaching English literature at the college/university level, Teaching College Literature (http://teachingcollegelit.com).

The Journal of Narrative Theory (JNT) seeks submissions for an upcoming special issue, "Rethinking 'The Good Life.'"

In a conversation that draws upon her work on "the cultures of affect" to posit the urgency of re-imagining state and civil society, Lauren Berlant asks,

"What if people were to take the opportunity to reimagine state/society relations such that the flourishing of reciprocity were differently constructed and assessed, and in which consumer forms of collectivity were not the main way people secure or fantasize securing everyday happiness?"

39th Annual Conference of the SCLA to be held October 18-19, 2013
at Guilford College (Greensboro, NC).

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