cfp.english.upenn.edu

5th Annual University of Tulsa English Graduate Student Conference

Theme: Space, Place, and Travel in Literature

The aim of this conference is to engage with literature through the various lenses and concepts of space, place, and travel. While this is a graduate run conference primarily for graduate students, undergraduate submissions and paper abstracts are welcome and encouraged. Possible panels include:

• Space, place, or travel and its influence on writing
• Regionalism
• Southern writing
• Gender and place, space, or travel
• Place functioning as character
• Theatrical space and textual performativity
• Quest narratives
• Theories of place, space, or travel
• Place functioning as genre
• Travel writing and travel narratives
• Time travel/ Science fiction
• Imaginary space or place
• Colonial and post-colonial space or place
• Adventure fiction
• Liminality
• Mappings of place, space, or travel,
• Time and one of the conference’s themes
• How each of these concepts interact with one another in literature

Keynote Speaker:

Ann Brigham, Associate Professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Roosevelt University. Professor Brigham is also the Director of Women’s and Gender Studies. She attended Bard College and the University of Arizona. Her research interests include Twentieth-century American literature and culture, Native American literature, gender and sexuality studies, contemporary feminist theories, and theories of space, place, and tourism. Dr. Brigham’s current project is a book on representations of spatial and social mobility in American road narratives.

She co-edited Making Worlds: Gender, Metaphor, Materiality and has published on theories of space, place, and travel exclusively in the Arizona Quarterly, Genders, and Modern Fiction Studies. In 2005, Dr. Brigham taught a Newberry Library seminar on "Sites of Democracy and Difference: U.S. Popular Culture and Entertainment, 1880-1930" with Dr. Lewis Erenberg, history professor at Loyola University. Also, Professor Brigham delivered a radio talk as part of Chicago Public Radio’s Odyssey program; she discussed “The American Tourist.” The program can be accessed on Chicago Public Radio’s website at http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/audio_library/od_rajul02.asp.

Submission Information:
Abstracts of no more than 300 words for papers not exceeding 20 minutes should be submitted by 10 February, 2010 to the organizers at: english-grad-conf@utulsa.edu. You can also e-mail: samantha-extance@utulsa.edu. Or also, through regular post to: EGSA Conference Committee, English Dept. Zink Hall, University of Tulsa, 800 S. Tucker Dr., Tulsa, OK 74104. Please include the title of your paper, your name, your contact information, institutional affiliation, and any AV requirements.
There is a registration fee of $10.00 for all presenters (excluding TU graduate students who can register for $5.00 and TU undergraduates who can register for free). Registration forms will be available at the registration table as well as on the conference website: http://www.utulsa.edu/jjq/GradStudentConference2010.html.

Creative Writing Workshops:
There will also be a creative writing workshop and lecture. Creative submissions are encouraged that delve into (but are not limited to) the conference’s themes of space, place, or travel. Poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction are welcome. The fiction workshop will be run by Dr. Claudia Nogueira and the poetry workshop will be hosted by Dr. Grant Matthew Jenkins.

Creative Writing Submissions should be limited to no more than 3-5 poems and no more than 7-10 pages of fiction or creative non-fiction. Please include with your creative submission: your name, contact information, whether or not you are also submitting a paper abstract, institutional affiliation, and if you would like to take part in the open-mike reading at the end of the conference. There is no separate fee for creative writing submissions if you are already registering for the conference; however, if you are not giving a paper, then please follow the registration instructions listed in the above section.

Conference Dates and Location: Friday, March 26th through Sunday, March 28th at the University of Tulsa in the Allen Chapman Activity Center on the university’s campus.

Contact:
If you have any questions or require further information, please e-mail the conference director, Samantha Extance, at samantha-extance@utulsa.edu.