cfp.english.upenn.edu

Call for Papers, African American Literature at CEA 2010
Annual Conference | March 25-27, 2010 | San Antonio, Texas
Sheraton Gunter Hotel; 209 East Houston Street, San Antonio, TX 78205

The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes
proposals for presentations on African American Literature for our 41st annual conference.

Special topics in African-American Literature is accepting abstracts for presentation on the main conference theme of VOICES. African American Literature is full of powerful voices that help to define the Black community. Within African-American literature we find disparate voices that show various representations of black people across the Diaspora. We seek papers that examine all aspects of Voices in African-American Literature.

The conference theme should be interpreted broadly as we will accept abstracts on any topic related to African-American Literature. Possible topics include:

Voices in the Black Church
Voices of Dissonance
Voices of Conflict
African-American Political Voices
Black Feminist Voices
Masculine Voices
Voices of the future
Gendered Voices
African-American Voices in the Media
Subjugated Voices

General Conference Theme: Voices
In addition, CEA welcomes proposals for presentations on the general conference theme, Voices.
Voices on opposing sides of the conflict culminating at the Alamo spoke for two distinctly diverse cultures. And within those cultures were voices and texts that influenced the actions during that struggle -- significant cultural markers of time, place, and being.

Before and after the struggle there, writers everywhere have reflected and influenced the events of their day, and from their experience, the great writers have created texts that have become ageless connections to what is past, or passing, or to come.

Their voices also call for us to acknowledge or recognize beauty or to realize or remember significant lessons -- perhaps via a character like Professor Farber from Fahrenheit 451 or a place like a raft on a river in Huckleberry Finn -- with an urgency no less than the Alamo’s. This correspondence we find within ourselves is our human condition -- but it is the capacity to listen for and to those whose message or memory is unlike our own that makes us scholars. Our voices blend with those we admire or abhor -- creating a text, which (if it stands the test of taste and time) will blend with still other voices, like those of our students, newly discovering “a peak in Darien”-- all wishing to be heard and remembered.
In the shadow of San Antonio’s famous symbol of voices that call for attention and allegiance, College English Association asks you to submit papers on any aspect of the theme of Voices.

General Call for Papers
CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English departments typically encompass, including literature, creative writing, composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of the English department in the university.

Submission: August 21-November 1, 2009
For more information on how to submit, please see the full CFP at http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2010.htm

Membership
All presenters at the 2010 CEA conference must become members of CEA by January 1, 2010. To join CEA, please go to http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/membership.htm

More information
• Find out more about the College English Association: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea
• Find out more about lodging and registration:
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conferencetravel2010.htm
• Contact CEA officers: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/officers.htm
Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Karen Madison
CEA 1st VP and Program Chair
English Department
331 Kimpel Hall
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701
cea.english@gmail.com