cfp.english.upenn.edu

Ephemerality, Mutability, and Marginality:
Print Alteration and Literary Culture

This conference aims to explore the relationships between literature and extra-literary culture. For the purpose of this conference, we are defining as “ephemeral” any transitory publication, including but not limited to broadside ballads, advertisements, pamphlets, magazines, periodicals, and comic books. We also welcome papers that discuss the ways in which ephemeral print has influenced the production and circulation of texts, thereby shaping conceptions of the literary canon. Additionally, we invite discussion of print culture in connection with alterations of printed texts (such as marginalia) as well as materials that extend the literary beyond print (for example, textual illustrations and digital humanities websites).

We particularly welcome proposals that address or are related to the following topics:
● Connections between ephemera from differing time periods (i.e. between Early Modern and Modernist periodicals)
● Extraneous material that accompanies a text, such as photography, illustrations, poetry, marginalia, doodles, etc.
● Relationships between literary texts and extra-textual materials
● Ways a given text mutates in different cheap print incarnations
● Connections between ephemera and research methods, ephemera and the canon, ephemera and archives, ephemera and digital humanities
● Textual adulterations (e.g. William Blake’s Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses and editorial attempts to alter manuscripts)
● Interdisciplinary approaches to adaptations and alterations of texts
● Interrogating differences between “high” and “low” art forms
● Alterations in medium that transform the reception of a text (i.e. transitions from print to digital formats)

We encourage papers from other disciplines including Art, Music, History, Communications, Journalism, Sociology, Political Science, and Women’s Studies. We welcome submissions from undergraduates as well.

Keynote Speakers:
PROFESSOR MARK L. SCHOENFIELD & PROFESSOR JOHN RICHETTI

Submission Information:
Abstracts of 250-300 words for papers not exceeding 20 minutes should be submitted by **August 31, 2012** to the organizers at tulsagradconf@gmail.com, or through regular post: EGSA Conference Committee, English Dept. Zink Hall, The University of Tulsa, 800 S. Tucker Drive, Tulsa, OK 74104. Please include the title of your paper, your name, your contact information, institutional affiliation, and any presentation requirements (laptops, projectors, etc.) you may have.

Conference Dates and Locations
Thursday, October 4th through Saturday, October 6th on campus at the University of Tulsa.

Further information can also be found on the conference webpage at http://tuegsa.wordpress.com/conference.