New Approaches to the Gaze in American Literature and Culture
For this approved roundtable for the NeMLA 2020 conference in Boston, MA, scholars from a broad range of American literary and cultural studies are invited to propose short papers that address a variety of approaches to gaze theory. The emphasis will be on current debates around gaze theory, contemporary applications of gaze theory to American literature and culture across historical periods, and new theoretical formulations of the gaze. It will engage such questions as whether gaze theory remains a viable way to think about representations of acts of seeing and being seen in texts and images, how gaze theory can help us understand shifting power dynamics in society at large, and whether one can ever supplant the gaze. Abstract and brief c.v. due Sept.