cfp.english.upenn.edu

The Department of English at Texas Southern University will host the Thirteenth Annual Interdisciplinary McCleary Symposium, March 24-25, 2011, Houston, Texas.

The general topic for the conference encompasses “Intersections: Literature, History & Art/Science & Technology.”

The goal is to examine the relevant, symbiotic, and generating points of intersection, reciprocity, and convergence between the arts and sciences. We seek literary explorations of all aspects of this tenuous yet enriching relationship, from the Romantic distrust seen in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Sonnet to Science” in which he describes science as: “Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?” to the more modernist inspiration and symbiosis of technology and culture. Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum plays with the edges of science and literature. Peter Frayn in his play Copenhagen explores extant uncertainties in life and science, drawing strongly from Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle. Thomas Pynchon’s “Entropy” and David Auburn's Proof serve as additional examples. Modernism rose to its height on the strong air currents of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Freud’s views on the subconscious. Leading writers like William Carlos Williams and Anton Chekhov pursued medicine along with literary endeavors. James Herriot, a British veterinarian, wrote about people and animals in All Creatures Great and Small. Many works today break down the perceived borders between the arts and sciences, offering rich dialogue and cross-influences about the language, thought, and concepts relevant to both areas of pursuit.

Abstracts of 300 words or less are requested. For more information or to submit an abstract to the 2011 McCleary Interdisciplinary Symposium, contact the Department Chair Rhonda Saldivar at 713-313-7667 or Saldivar_rx@tsu.edu. We encourage electronic submissions of abstracts. Texas Southern is located at 3100 Cleburne, Houston, Texas 77004