cfp.english.upenn.edu

The medium is the message. Using this conceptual framework, our conference will explore how historical changes in media from the oral to the digital lead to the emergence of hybrid literary forms and the constant reinvention of literariness itself. With the revolution of (e)merging technologies as our schema, we seek pluralistic and interdisciplinary research on the dynamic network linking modes of communication, mass media and textuality.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

- Manuscripts, archives and cartography
- The sublimation of the oral and the primacy of the visual
- Rise and fall of the Lettered City
- Journalism and/as literature
- From the page to the stage and screen
- Words, music and images
- Agency, memory and witness bearing
- Gender performativity
- Hybrid Genres: Factual fiction, reality and verisimilitude
- Silence in texts and silenced texts
- Writing in the age of blogs, collective authorship and digitalization

Hosted by the Graduate Student Organization, this colloquium is organized to provide graduate students with an opportunity to share their current work and research interests. Our colloquium will be held on November 13-14, 2009.

Papers in English, Portuguese and Spanish will be considered. Reading time of final papers is limited to 15 minutes. The organizing committee encourages submissions of panels (not to exceed three papers) organized around a specific topic, author, theory or work. Papers in Portuguese are strongly encouraged. Please submit an abstract of approximately 250 words electronically by September 1, 2009 to 18coloquioUT@gmail.com Do not include any personal information on the abstract. Instead, on a separate page please include the following: title of presentation, name of participant, affiliation, and e-mail. The general registration fee for all presenters is $30 (or a $40 on-site attendance registration).