Call for papers for a panel on 'writing queerly' at the NEMLA 2011 session in Rochester, NY. For more information about the conference, please visit the NEMLA website: http://www.nemla.org/convention/

'Queer' is often understood as a form of resistance or destabilization. This destabilization is most frequently applied to temporal or spatial subjects: the queerness of the future or the past has been a popular subject, as has the queering of towns or streets. Scholars such as Judith Halberstam, José Esteban Muñoz, and Scott Herring have explored the term 'queer' as well as what queerness does to our understanding of time and space. Language has not been ignored in this theoretical history. Those scholars who have focused on language, however, have most often looked to the spoken word.

This panel seeks papers that explore the possibility of a queer style of writing, particularly what it might look like or mean to write queerly. Of particular interest are papers that closely read works published 'before' the advent of queer identification; however, this call is meant to be interpreted broadly. What might queer style reveal about literary interpretation, or the possibilities and problems of 'queer' as a mode of identification? Send inquiries or abstracts of no more than 300 words to Jessica Lewis-Turner at jlewturn@temple.edu before September 30, 2011.