Emerson Society ALA panels cfp

full name / name of organization: 
Ralph Waldo Emerson Society
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The Ralph Waldo Emerson Society will sponsor two panels at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association, to be held in San Francisco, CA from May 26-29, 2015. For information about the conference, see http://americanliteratureassociation.org/calls/annual-conference/.

Emerson as Orator and Rhetor
This panel examines Emerson in his oratorical and rhetorical milieu. We welcome papers that consider the relationship between Emerson and rhetorical studies broadly considered, but we are especially interested in papers that highlight Emerson's career as lecturer, that consider his work in the context of rhetorical history, and that investigate his connections to oratorical culture. We welcome new readings of Emerson in light of rhetorical theory, as well as presentations that consider his work in the context of various intellectual traditions, including the study of eloquence, elocution, oratory, homiletics, religious rhetoric, the rhetorical tradition, discourse theory, and speech act theory.
E-mail 300 word abstracts to Roger Thompson (roger.thompson@stonybrook.edu) by Dec. 20, 2015. Membership in the Emerson Society is required of presenters, but it is not required to submit proposals for consideration. The Emerson Society also provides grants that may be of interest to presenters, including a Research Grant and a Graduate Student Paper Award. If you are a graduate student and would like to be considered for the Graduate Student Paper Award (up to $750 of travel support to present a paper on an Emerson Society panel at ALA or the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering (July 2016), please indicate so when you submit your abstract.

Global Emersons
This panel examines the way that Emerson has been figured as an international (transatlantic, global) figure or been appropriated across national boundaries as relevant to local histories, politics, and culture. We are interested in Emerson as an international figure, and we welcome presentations that investigate Emerson's travels abroad, his engagement with literatures and philosophy from across the globe, his understanding of international politics and cross-border conflicts, and his reputation--contemporary or contemporaneous--abroad. We also welcome presentations that examine Emerson in translation, and we are especially interested in presentations from international scholars whose work examines Emerson as a global figure or whose papers describe or theorize the state of Emersonian scholarship in their home country.

E-mail 300 word abstracts to Roger Thompson (roger.thompson@stonybrook.edu) by Dec. 20, 2015. Membership in the Emerson Society is required of presenters, but it is not required to submit proposals for consideration. The Emerson Society also provides grants that may be of interest to presenters, including a Research Grant and a Graduate Student Paper Award. If you are a graduate student and would like to be considered for the Graduate Student Paper Award (up to $750 of travel support to present a paper on an Emerson Society panel at ALA or the Thoreau Society Annual Gathering (July 2016), please indicate so when you submit your abstract.

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