CFP: A Carnival of Sorts: Power, Fear, and Play at the MLA (5/15/06; NPCA/ACA, 10/27/06-10/28/06)
Every year between Christmas and New Year's, English professors and
graduate students, book editors and publishers and representatives, and
occasionally spouses gather in a major American or Canadian city to
meet, interview each other, present papers, and party. In this panel,
"A Carnival of Sorts: Power, Fear, and Play at the Modern Language
Association Annual Convention," we will explore the ongoing carnival
that
the convention invariably becomes from personal and scholarly
perspectives.
In particular, the panel hopes to provide a semiotic, sociological, and
anthropological analysis of one of the academia's most peculiar
events.