cfp.english.upenn.edu

This panel seeks papers on twentieth and twenty-first century literary artists of the Americas that explore the subject's increasingly complex relationship with national and ethnic cultural complexes. Given the increasingly modular, as opposed to monolithic, nature of these forms for some subjects,
it might be said that the 'cognitive maps' envisaged by Fredric Jameson might prove too unitary. How do contemporary artists take advantage of what might be conceived rather as a cognitive jigsaw-puzzle? What are the advantages and disadvantages this non-monolithic cultural situation presents to resistance movements, such as those focused on indigenous, LGBT, and womens rights? A more modular mass culture is more able to consume and denature the interventions of these movements, but artists like Maxine Hong Kingston have demonstrated that a certain freedom can be found in clashes between otherwise monolithic cultures brought together through immigration, for one example. Similar opportunities exist along national borders, as demonstrated by Gloria Anzaldúa in *Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza*. This panel is conceived in the hope that a dialogue can be sparked between analysts of culture and literature that have brought both critical and theoretical concerns to bear on artistic works arising from this destabilization.

Please e-mail abstracts of 250-500 words to Nathaniel Doherty, SUNY Stony Brook, nathaniel.doherty@stonybrook.edu