cfp.english.upenn.edu

Last year we heard Barack Obama say “Yes, we can” for a second time, and saw Youtube viewers watch and re-watch Psy’s “Gangnam Style” for the billionth time (really!): we live surrounded by repetition. As scholars embedded in a culture obsessed with imitation, parody, and countless other forms of re- acting, we ought to ask one another “what is the significance of repetition?” When is it a form of questioning or deconstruction, and when is it simply re(in)statement or obsession? We invite you to join us as we explore the ontological, political, ethical, and literary implications of repetition.

Subjects of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Poetics, allusion, illusion
- Psychoanalysis, madness, trauma, dreams, the unconscious
- Obsession, compulsion, criminality
- Family, inheritance, reproduction
- Genre conventions, genre fiction, archetypes
- Formalism, structure, refrains, schematic devices
- Visual art, photography, iconoclasm, pop art
- Imprinting, conceptual art, editions, paratext, digitization
- Performance, gender, sexuality
- Writing back, mimicry, hybridity, orality
- Nostalgia, memory, flashbacks
- Pedagogy, rote learning, memorization
- Existentialism, deconstructionism, différance
- Labour, boredom, mass production, commodification
- Adaptation, translation
- Sequels, trilogies, fan fiction
- Parody, satire
- Doubling, doppelgangers
- Journaling, life writing, biography

This conference is interdisciplinary: We welcome submissions from a variety of fields. Send an abstract (of up to 250 words) for your 20-minute presentation to uoftgradcolloquium2013@gmail.com, with your name and institutional affiliation.

Responses are due by March 1st, 2013