MLA 2017 Special Session: Troubadour Pessimism

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Modern Language Association
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This MLA special session concerns the troubadour tradition across periods and geographies, with particular focus on pessimism as a philosophy, affect, and politics. From 12th century Occitan poetry to the Troubadour nightclub in Los Angeles, the proposed session assumes a creative or plastic approach to lyric poetry and the love song.

Papers might concern:

--Joni Mitchell, Arnaut Daniel, Arnaut Vidal, Beatritz de Dia, Carole King, Folquet de Romans, Waylon Jennings, 19th century French neo-troubadour architecture, George Carlin, and other members of the troubadour tradition.

--Troubadour poetics and gender politics, sexual violence, race and the nation-state, futurity, the environment, Afropessimism, etc.

--Song and the history of pessimism in 19th and 20th century philosophy.

The session is open to any other original constellations of troubadour verse and pessimism.

~300 word abstracts due by March 15th, 2016 to jason.bell@yale.edu.