cfp.english.upenn.edu

CALL FOR PAPERS

BLEEDING JEWEL: ANGUISH AND ART IN THE
TEXTUAL UNIVERSE OF SAMUEL BECKETT

Special collection
Editions Degré Second
(2013)

Guest Editor
R.-L. ETIENNE BARNETT

DESCRIPTION

To negotiate the Beckettian ontology is to encounter texts that often slither into transgressive recesses, slake into subversive gorges, into linguistically-intoned chasms where spiritual deadlock overtakes all but visions dissolute, allot no space to other. The discourse so birthed -- extradited to the margins, to interstices, to gaps barren and unbridged -- over-determines a kind of non-emergent embeddedness and challenges the very constructs of representationality. A universe of fissures, in sum, of breaches, of stultifying contraventions, critically branded as metaphor and thus perilously minimized. And yet the “poetic gleam” is everwhere apparent, unmistakably present in this universe of elegantly haunting refrain. Anguish and art: are they reconciled? Can they be? Should they be? How does each function in juxtaposition with the other? What is the ultimate vision that proceeds from a work at once so rich and so barren, so universal and so involuted, so alluring and so distancing, so stunning in its beauty and so disarming in its portrayal of vacuity?

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Theoretical or applied contributions focused upon the dimensions of “anguish and art” in the work(s) of Beckett, as specifically enucleated within each individual submission, will be given full and serious consideration.

Manuscripts in English or French, not to exceed twenty-five (25) double-spaced pages, including notes, bibliography and appendices, where applicable, are welcome.

Format and submission requirements: Papers, prepared in accordance with MLA guidelines and accompanied by an abstract and 6-8 key words (abstract and key words in English), are to be submitted via email in the form of a WORD document (attachment) to Dr. R.-L. Etienne Barnett (Guest Editor) at RL_Barnett@msn.com and at RLEBarnett@editionsdegresecond.be.

DEADLINE FOR FINAL MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION
September 1, 2012