CFP: [Cultural-Historical] Life Writing and Translations

full name / name of organization: 
Craig Howes
contact email: 

Call for Papers
The Sixth Biennial International Auto/Biography Association Conference
Honolulu, Hawai‘i
June 23-26, 2008
Abstract Deadline: November 1, 2007

Conference Topic: Life Writing and Translations

The Center for Biographical Research and the International Auto/Biography
Association invite scholars from around the world to attend the sixth IABA
conference, which will be held at the East-West Center, next to the campus
of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, in Honolulu.

Translation is central to all forms of representation; the theme for this
conference is Life Writing and Translations, in the widest sense of the
term. We welcome papers dealing with the following kinds of translation,
and others as well:

Linguistic­-Accounts of language acquisition, and their relation to senses
of identity, of relations with others, of community, of separateness.
Immigrant life writing narratives. Indigenous peoples and life writing.
Poly-lingual texts. Polyphonic and heteroglossic texts. And of course,
the translation of life writing texts from one language to another.

Generic­-Life writing texts often move from one literary, artistic,
disciplinary, technological, or rhetorical form to another. Papers can
deal with representing peoples’ lives in any medium­film, graphic text,
writing, image, performance. They can examine the adaptation of one
representational form to another­from book to film, from film to musical,
from orature to literature, from page to stage to page, from popular
confession to auto-ethnography, from case study to gossip. Or they can
look at multi-generic works­online life writing incorporating visual,
aural, and textual dimensions, or performance works combining presence and
representation in several media.

Cultural­-Cultural translation involves the vexed but necessary efforts to
communicate central ideas, histories, concerns, desires, needs, politics,
identities from one cultural position or community to another. Translation
is the act that takes place in Mary Louise Pratt’s contact zone, or on Greg
Dening’s beach, or at a Truth and Reconciliation Committee hearing.
Translation is often the negotiating of issues of gender, race, class, and
disability (transnational, transgender, transcultural). Translation, as
movement between states or spaces­transits, transitions­also shapes travel
narratives. Translation, as a mediation between past and present, takes
into account historical specificity. And translation participates in the
political and cultural dynamics between nations, and national groups.

Because our primary concern will be striking up and sustaining
conversations between conference participants, papers should be limited to
fifteen minutes in length, to insure time in all sessions for questions and
full discussion. Panels on a single topic and submitted together are
welcome. (Panels and sessions will have three presenters.) Given the
theme of the conference, panels and individual papers may be conducted or
delivered in the language of the participant’s choice­various arrangements
will be made well before the conference to allow other conference attendees
to participate. All participants should also inform the organizers about
media requirements for presentations­DVD, live internet, visual projection,
audio, and so on.

Abstracts for papers should be @300 words long. There should be an
abstract for each paper in a panel presentation. The deadline for
abstracts will be November 1, 2007. Though e-mail is preferred, abstracts
can be submitted by mail or fax to the following numbers and addresses.

* * *
IABA Conference Call for Papers
c/o The Center for Biographical Research
Department of English
1733 Donaggho Road
University of Hawai‘i at Manoa
Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822
USA
Fax number: 1-808-956-3774
e-mail: biograph_at_hawaii.edu

We would be happy to answer questions. Contact the CBR at the same numbers
and addresses.

Craig Howes
Director, Center for Biographical Research
Co-Editor, Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly
Professor of English

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Received on Sun Sep 02 2007 - 03:53:24 EDT