cfp.english.upenn.edu

Call for Proposals: “Occupied: Taking up Space and Time”
*Extended Deadline: Jan. 20, 2012*

We are issuing a Call for Proposals for scholarly and creative submissions for an International Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference entitled “Occupied: Taking up Space and Time” to be held at Indiana University - Bloomington from March 22-24, 2012. This 9th annual conference is hosted by the graduate students of the IU Department of English.

Recent calls to occupy space for indefinite durations have provoked us to consider what it means to occupy or to be occupied both spatially and temporally. The current position of “occupy” as a political buzzword confers a multiplicity of new meanings onto a concept already charged with complex histories and forms. This conference seeks to explore the cultural significance and interrelations of its many meanings and implications, from mental pre-occupation and obsession, to the physical spaces we occupy (locked bathrooms to occupied nations), to the ways in which we spend or take up time. Tracing the theoretical, formal, and political implications of this issue necessitates a variety of methodologies and disciplinary perspectives, so we particularly welcome interdisciplinary approaches considering any time period. Below are some suggestions for possible topics. This list is by no means exhaustive; rather, we hope these ideas might inspire some exciting new thoughts related to the theme:

• Occupation as aggression, including military and colonial occupation
• Occupation as vocation
• Mental space; preoccupation, daydreaming, obsession
• Boredom, pastimes, and taking up time
• Pedagogical and Academic space
• Space/time continuum (and compression)
• Private and public spaces (domestic space, etc.)
• Nesting (and other ways of establishing or creating spaces)
• Clean and dirty spaces
• Regional spaces; rural/urban/suburban spaces and neighborhoods
• Imprisonment and incarceration
• Environment and Nature
• Digital, liminal, and imaginary spaces
• Protest and occupy movements
• Marketplace(s)
• Landscapes and soundscapes
• Moving between spaces; transiency, trespassing, the frontier
• Deep time and various conceptions of historical and linear time across different eras
• Velocity; modernity and freneticism, speed dating, slow food, “island time”
• Performance space

Our keynote speaker will be Caroline Levine from University of Wisconsin. Information about Professor Levine can be found at: http://www.english.wisc.edu/people-faculty-levine.htm

We encourage proposals for individual papers as well as panels organized by topic. We also encourage the interaction of scholarly and creative work within papers or panels. Please submit (both as an attachment AND in the body of the email) an abstract of no more than 250 words along with a few personal details (name, institutional affiliation, degree level, email, and phone number) by January 20, 2012, to iugradconference@gmail.com.

Visit our website (http://www.indiana.edu/~engsac/conference/) for the complete CFP and additional information in the coming weeks!