CFP: Literature *on* the Body (11/17/06; PCA/ACA, 4/4/07-4/7/07)
PCA/ACA national conference organizers have indicated a strong
interest in my proposed panel, titled "The Story on the Body:
Textual Tattoos and the Corporeal Canvas".
Panel Description:
Whereas Melville's Queequeg is one of American literature's earliest
fictional tattooed characters, it is Hawthorne's Hester who upends
one of the conventions of the body in literature: Her scarlet "A"
reminds us of the role of her body in the novel, but it is the
adulterous story told on her body that positions Hester herself as a
text to be read.