cfp.english.upenn.edu

The 19th annual
Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language, and Media (MCLLM)
will be held April 1-2, 2011
at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois.
Keynote speaker: Dr. Emily Auerbach, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of Maestros, Dilettantes, and Philistines (1989) and Searching for Jane Austen (2004); Director of the UW Odyssey Project; and Project Director of the “Courage to Write” radio series.
This year’s theme is The Power of the Humanities. Inspired by Dr. Auerbach’s keynote address and her work across the humanities, the organizers encourage research that examines the influences of language and literature that have significantly altered those disciplines and people’s lives.

We invite proposals for fifteen minute papers from scholars at all stages of their career. Topics related to this year’s theme may include, but are not limited to:
- the construction of gender and ethnicity,
- writing across the curriculum,
- how individual authors or works influenced the discipline and/or canon,
- the power of literature to change lives,
- how people use language to exercise power,
- writing literature to exercise power,
- reading to exercise power,
- literature and its influence on people from underprivileged areas,
- efforts in the humanities to enact social and political change, and
- the effects of college programs in any discipline designed to encourage the success of students who are underprivileged.

MCLLM also welcomes papers on all areas of literature, language, and media studies.

Individual or panel (three to four people) proposals are welcome.

Proposals (no more than 500 words) by January 20, 2011, (e-mail submissions only, please) to:
mcllm@niu.edu