cfp.english.upenn.edu

This is a proposed special session for the 2012 MLA convention.

Do the conditions of modernity engender psychopathological behavior? Do the changes wrought by industrialization cause new types of psychological stress? Do they bring about madness? How do characters in modernist fiction and/or poetry react to these changes?

This panel seeks papers that examine pyschopathology in single or multiple works of modernist fiction and/or poetry. While psychopathological tendencies are not unique to (post) industrial society, this panel will investigate how modernity (particularly in the transition from pre-industrial to [post] industrial, rural to urban, etc.) may lead to certain types of psychopathological behavior.

Please send a 250 word abstract and brief CV by 15 March 2011 to Adam Meehan at ameehan@email.arizona.edu

All presenters must be MLA members by 7 April 2011.