An Interdisciplinary Exploration of/in Liminality

deadline for submissions: 
January 21, 2020
full name / name of organization: 
Graduate Students in English at the University of Arkansas
contact email: 

As graduate students we often find ourselves in the in-between spaces. No longer just students but not part of the faculty – working to professionalize but not recognized as professionals yet. Our experiences in this liminal space create the unique experience that crafts us into the scholars that we are working to become. This conference theme is focused on the concept of liminality both in scholarship and within our professional, classroom, and political spaces.

 

In a moment where we are concerned with the movement of people over/through borders, gender identities are simultaneously more defined and more fluid, and even people’s conceptions of their ethnicity/genealogy are being exposed as complexities with DNA coding technology. Existing in the liminal is becoming the norm. Liminality often interrogates the in between, spaces that are neither here nor there, identities that are not easily categorized, people that belong in multiple places, or no place at all.

 

Possible Paper Topics Include (but are not limited to):

  • Gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity
  • Liminal spaces – geographical, physical, or theoretical
  • Concepts of place and what certain places do or mean
  • Experiences inside or outside the academy as scholars
  • Experiences within the classroom
  • Life, death, and the cultural experiences surrounding them

 

This conference invites the participation of graduate/scholarly papers as well as exceptional undergraduate papers that deal with this theme in interesting and evocative ways. We also hope this conference can embody the liminal with the interdisciplinarity we hope to achieve – we invite papers working with any or multiple disciplinary approaches.

 

Proposals should include a roughly 500 word abstract, paper title, university affiliation/degree program, and contact email addresses. Additionally, abstracts should be in .doc or pdf file format. Paper and panel proposals should be sent to gsearkansas@gmail.com by January 21st 2020. Questions and concerns can be sent to the above email or directly to Jordan A. Savage at js046@email.uark.edu