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Eudora Welty Society, Call for Papers
American Literature Association Conference
May 26-29, 2011, Boston, MA

Glamorous Scoundrels, Vaunting Heroes, Protective Fathers, Wandering Lovers: Masculinity in Welty’s Fiction

This panel will consider the roles men play in Welty’s work. Welty’s men are robber bridegrooms, protective fathers, glamorous scoundrels, vaunting heroes, adored rapists, overseers, optimists. What can we say Welty does with male gender identities? How does she construct, revise, parody, adore, queer or critique the performance of masculinity? What do we learn from looking at men in one or several of her fictions? What do we learn from looking at groupings of her father figures, or of her husbands, her sons or lovers? Is there a relationship between the father we meet in One Writer’s Beginnings (that is Eudora’s own), the fathers in her “autobiographical” stories, and the general patterns? Which patterns are visible across her work, and over the course of her career? Do the treatments change in time? Do they inform one another? All related topics are welcome. Please send inquiries and statements of intent, as soon as possible, and titled paper proposals of 500 words by December 1, 2010 to Harriet Pollack, Bucknell University, at pollack@bucknell.edu.