cfp.english.upenn.edu

We are issuing a Call for Proposals for scholarly and creative submissions for an International Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference entitled "The End?" to be held at Indiana University in Bloomington from March 25th-27th, 2010.

Bookends, happy endings, at wits’ end, means to an end, split ends, making ends meet… the list could go on. We imagine the end in endless ways when we think about our languages, our cultures, our disciplines, our arts, and ourselves. What sort of ends are we at, or fast approaching? What ends have we passed? When we structure our thinking around an ending, do we imply a certain teleology? Do we point to a moment of division or rupture? Do we ask about a new beginning?

This conference seeks to investigate, and perhaps challenge, the notion of ‘the end’ from a wide array of angles. We hope to receive papers from a variety of disciplines, employing any number of methodologies, and considering any time period. Below are some suggestions for possible topics. This list is by no means exhaustive; rather, we hope these ideas might inspire some exciting new thoughts about ends:

The ends of artistic works
Endings as beginnings
The apocalypse and apocalyptic literature
The end of the human
The end of the physical book/library (and the beginning of the digital)
Periodization and the definitions of disciplines
Ends of genres
The end of artistic creation as the beginning of criticism
Violence, death, grief, trauma
The fin de siècle
Moments of crisis
War
The ends of the earth
The notion of the beyond
Fringe, margins, outlines
The colonial/postcolonial
Pedagogy and the end of the class period/the semester
The ends of rhetoric and/or rhetorical education
The end of the university

We encourage proposals for individual papers as well as panel proposals organized by topic. We particularly encourage creative presentations and interdisciplinary projects. Please submit (both as an attachment AND in the body of the email) an abstract of no more than 250 words along with a few personal details (name, institutional affiliation, degree level, email, and phone number) by January 15th, 2010 to iugradconference@gmail.com.