In 1912, Zane Grey published Riders of the Purple Sage, an important text in the development of the American western. Over the past 100 years, the western has increased in popularity, and undergone a number of significant developments. This panel will explore the American western in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. What changes characterize the ongoing development of the genre? Please submit 250-400 word abstracts by September 30, 2011 to James J. Donahue at donahujj@potsdam.edu. Please include with your abstract: Name and Affiliation, Email address, A/V requirements.

Paper and Screen : the Inter-Art Work
2012 Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Rochester (NY), March 15-18, 2012

In recent years, the collapse of legal structures has been a prominent theme in legal studies as well as in cultural studies. Until now, however, there have been few attempts to unite the legal and the cultural studies approach to the state of emergency – and none on the field of disaster research.

Call for papers

Romanticism and Philosophy

An international conference
co-organized by the SERA (Société d'Etude du Romantisme Anglais), by the Université Paris 7 – Denis Diderot and the Université Lille 3 – Charles de Gaulle
to be held at Université Lille 3 – Charles-de-Gaulle on 28-29 September 2012

The Workshop on Integrated Design in Games is offered in conjunction with Nanocon IX. This year, the conference theme is horror. Integrated design means that all aspects of design come together to create a single experience, unified by a common theme. In relationship to horror games, integrated design means that mechanics, visual art, audio, and narrative converge to allow players to confront and perhaps overcome fear.

This year's keynote speakers are Chris Pruett, architect of famed website Chris' Survival Horror Quest and Senior Games Advocate at Google, and Dr. Bernard Perron, acclaimed scholar of horror games from the University of Montreal.

Conversazioni in Italia:
Emerson, Hawthorne, and Poe

Florence, Italy, June 8-10, 2012

Sponsored by the Ralph Waldo Emerson Society, the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, and the Poe Studies Association

The conference organizers are calling for proposals for papers and panels that discuss Emerson, Hawthorne, or Poe in terms of transatlantic literary culture in their era (for instance, questions of transatlantic travel, influence, slavery, the Civil
War, marketing, reception, and copyright). We also welcome proposals for papers and panels that relate the three authors to each other or to their European contemporaries, as well as proposals focusing on any topic related to Emerson, Hawthorne, or Poe in these contexts.

"Noticing the Slanty Bits: Converging on Discworld" (tentative title)

This volume will provide a variety of scholarly perspectives on Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Ideally, it will include essays that approach Pratchett's Discworld series, and its adaptations, from a range of fields, such as language and linguistics, literary criticism, political science and law, geography, visual and performance art, popular culture, etc.

We are currently seeking original submissions in the following areas: