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[UPDATE] "Catastrophe and the Cure": The Politics of Post-9/11 Music (Deadline July 1, 2009)

updated: 
Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 11:33am
Anthology Theorizing Post-9/11 Music

In current debates about the War in Iraq, it has become commonplace for politicians and journalists to conjure the specter of the Vietnam War as a means of quantifying the impact of the current war in American culture and throughout the world. Surprisingly, though, few have scrutinized these comparisons to examine the differences between the popular music of the Vietnam era and the music of the current post-9/11 era. While the Vietnam era found countless bands and musicians responding in protest to that war, there has arguably been a significantly smaller amount of contemporary musicians who have taken overt stances, in their music, about the politics of post-9/11 life, in America and elsewhere.

Critical Theory: The Text and the World. Submission Deadline: 10 July, 2009/ Conference Date: Sept. 17, 2009

updated: 
Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 6:34am
University of Exeter, UK

Call for Papers:
Critical Theory: The Text and the World
September 17th 2009, University of Exeter
Keynote Speaker: Professor Colin MacCabe

Critical Theory: The Text and the World is a one-day Postgraduate conference designed to provide a venue for students and early-career academics to explore a multitude of critical approaches to literary and filmic texts. This event will provide a collaborative research forum which can direct contemporary debates in critical theory towards concrete socio-political issues. These issues include climate change, the global economic crisis and the war on terror.

New Directions in Detective Fiction, Apr. 7 - 11, 2010

updated: 
Thursday, June 18, 2009 - 3:18am
Maria Plochocki/ NorthEastern Modern Language Association

Long marginalized as either not "literary" or conservatively pandering to bourgeois or other established interests, the genre of detective fiction has continued to defy doomsayers through its continued evolution, being produced by writers from a variety of backgrounds and likewise being set in a variety of milieux and so problematizing different sets of rules, conventions, and moral and other judgments. But what has been the cost or other outcome of this evolution? Has the genre truly become more inclusive, or has this rather happened through the hegemonization and repackaging of previously excluded authors, like various new voices from Asia, Latin America, and Africa?

Transpacific Visions of Native America: Collection (Deadline for Abstracts: September 15, 2009)

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 8:28pm
National Ilan University (Taiwan)

Western scholarship has historically adopted a vision of contemporary aboriginal literature and art as categorizable along racial, cultural, regional and historical characteristics. This tends to homogenize and de-nationalize the tribal, while simultaneously confining the Native artist to a North American narrative of "ethnicity." The editors of this project hope to highlight and perhaps challenge these "captive" conceptions of North American indigeneity with essays from prominent scholars situated throughout the Pacific Rim whose exposures to and experiences of Asian and Pacific indigenity in all its diversity enables them to undertake refreshingly new readings of Native American writing and art.

[UPDATE]--Women's Studies deadline extended to 6/30/09

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 5:06pm
Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Conference

WOMEN'S STUDIES AT MAPACA
The Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association Conference
Boston, MA
November 5-7, 2009

Women's Studies seeks papers, panels and roundtables that investigate and discuss any of the many overlaps between gender and popular culture. Topics include, but are certainly not limited to:
*women and the media
*women and politics
*portrayals of motherhood
*working women
*women and religion
*women writers, written women

The Marketplace in/and Twentieth-Century Literature (NeMLA, April 7-11, 2010; submission deadline: 9/30/09)

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 2:40pm
Northeast Modern Language Association, 41st Annual Conference, Montreal

Ezra Pound once wrote, "Nothing written for pay is worth printing. Only what has been written against the market." As if in response, Robert Frost wrote, "Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market." How do market forces or market values function in twentieth-century English/Anglophone, American, or Canadian literature? Emphasis on literary representations of the marketplace and/or the tensions and contradictions that emerge when artists attempt to exploit the marketplace. 250-word abstracts to Steven Canaday at sbcanaday@aacc.edu.

Frontier Technology/Techno-Frontiers: Technology and the American West (8/15/09; 10/29/09-10/31/09)

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 11:19am
John R. Milton Writers' Conference / The University of South Dakota

Please join us for the biennial John R. Milton Writers' Conference, held October 29-31, 2009, at The University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota.

We are seeking panel and round table proposals, scholarly papers, and creative writing related (either explicitly or implicitly) to the theme of Frontier Technology/Techno-Frontiers: Technology and the American West. Possible topics or approaches might include, but certainly aren't limited to:

• Frontier Technology/Techno-Frontiers in Western American literature, history, and culture;

• Frontier Technology/Techno-Frontiers in American Indian literature, history, and culture;

Call for Book Reviews

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 8:40am
MP: an Online Feminist Journal

MP Journal, an online international feminist journal (http://www.academinist.org/mp/) is currently seeking book reviews for future issues. We welcome reviews of books that are relevant to feminist or womanist issues from a variety of disciplines. Reviews must be academic in nature and provide an examination of the books' strengths and weaknesses, raising important and relevant questions about the subject under discussion. While no author likes to be overly criticized, reviewers should offer an honest appraisal of the books' argument, readability, research, and overall approach using professional language that is rich and robust without an overabundance of jargon.

[UPDATE] "Leaps of Faith" SAMLA Atlanta 11/6-11/9/2009 DEADLINE 7/8/2009

updated: 
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 - 5:26am
Stephen J. Gallagher

South Atlantic MLA Atlanta GA 11/6-11/9/2009

This panel will interrogate the upsurge of the new(?)
homicidal/suicidal religiosity in the West. Some possible perspectives are literary, sociological, artistic, or historical, and interdisciplinary approaches are always
welcome. Some possible ideas, not intended to restrict panelists but rather to spur thinking on a few possible approaches:

- the suicide bomber as Kierkegaardian hero

- religious mania as a reaction to/ byproduct of Western modernity

- leaps of technological faith: the new high-tech cargo cults (Heaven's Gate, etc)

- the faith of Abraham vs the faith of Andrea Yates

MISSED CONNECTIONS Penn Humanities Forum Graduate Conference 2/19/10

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 11:17pm
Graduate Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania

MISSED CONNECTIONS

The Graduate Humanities Forum of the University of Pennsylvania invites submissions for its 10th annual conference: "Missed Connections." The one-day interdisciplinary conference will take place on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at the Penn Humanities Forum in conjunction with its 2009-2010 topic: "Connections."

Unlikely Bedfellows: Unexpected Collaborations Within the Information Environment ALISE Conference 2010 – January 12-15, 2010; B

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 12:58pm
Cindy Welch/ALISE - Historical Perspectives Special Interest Group

CFP: Unlikely Bedfellows: Unexpected Collaborations Within the Information Environment
ALISE Conference 2010 – January 12-15, 2010; Boston, MA

From the American Library Association's alignment with "Hustler" publisher Larry Flynt, to YALSA reading programs with the World Wrestling Federation, information workers have historically enjoyed – or, perhaps, tolerated – improbable partnerships and alliances. The Historical Perspectives SIG invites papers on this topic, for a panel at ALISE 2010. Papers should explore the unusual collaborations information workers in all venues or environments have built or been part of in order to accomplish their goals.

Kate Chopin International Society Panel- submission deadline 6/19/09!

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 12:54pm
Kate Chopin International Society

The KCIS is newly affiliated with the Society for the Study of American Women Writers and, as such, we will be presenting a panel at the SSAWW conference being held in Philadelphia on October 21-24.

Please submit 1/2-1 page abstracts on any Kate Chopin topic via e-mail by Friday, June 19, 2008. Papers will need to be presented in no more than 20 minutes.

Address any further questions to Kelli O'Brien, KCIS Conference Coordinator, at kobrien1@memphis.edu.

Myth and Reality: Language, Literature, and Culture in Modern Ireland (Oct. 29-30; due 08/31/2009)

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 12:35pm
Dalarna University Centre for Irish Studies, DUCIS, at Dalarna University

According to mythographer Lewis Spence a myth explains "our relation to the universe, the environment or a social programme". In the Irish context, this definition of myth helps to understand the interrelationship between the retrieval of the Irish mythological lore and the construction of communal identity that characterised twentieth century Irish history, literature and socio-political reality. Spence's broad definition of myth, though initially referring to gods or supernatural beings, can easily be adapted to explain the construction of contemporary myths.

[UPDATE] Postcolonial Actualities: Past and Present - 6th Annual Interdisciplinary Conference, 16 and 17 October 2009, Austin TX

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 11:51am
Program in Comparative Literature, The University of Texas at Austin

The deadline for submitting an abstract for the conference "Postcolonial Actualities: Past and Present" to be held at the University of Texas at Austin on October 16 and 17, 2009, has been postponed to June 30, 2009. Information about the CFP can be found in the previous posting on this site.
Sincerely, Simone Sessolo (Conference Organizer)

[UPDATE] Fairy Tale Economies

updated: 
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - 9:06am
Dr. Molly Clark Hillard: University of Southern Mississippi and Group for International Fairy Tale Studies

Fairy Tale Economies

An interdisciplinary, international conference
October 1—3, 2009
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg MS

Mindful of our own global economies, this colloquium addresses economies in fantastic literature and culture. We shall identify economy both as a theme within literatures and as a way of thinking about the value of fantastic literature itself.

On the Aesthetic Legacy of Ishmael Reed: Contemporary Reassessments (12/09)

updated: 
Monday, June 15, 2009 - 11:57pm
Paul Kareem Tayyar (Golden West, California) and Sämi Ludwig (UHA Mulhouse, France)

CFP:
On the Aesthetic Legacy of Ishmael Reed:
Contemporary Reassessments

Under this working title, Paul Tayyar (Golden West, California) and Sämi Ludwig (UHA Mulhouse, France) want to collect the views of young scholars and artists who represent yet another generation cherishing Ishmael Reed's work. After a furious start in the 1960s, Reed found a place in the contemporary African-American canon in the 1970s when some major criticism appeared on his writing. In the 1980s interest in him slackened--although we know that many young scholars in particular love his stories, his poems, and his essays.

Ireland and Wales: Correspondences

updated: 
Monday, June 15, 2009 - 3:43am
Laura Wainwright Cardiff University

Ireland and Wales: Correspondences
Call for Papers
A one-day interdisciplinary postgraduate symposium to be held at Cardiff University on Thursday 17 September 2009 and hosted by the Wales-Ireland Research Network
Keynote speaker: Professor Luke Gibbons

[UPDATE] EXTENSION "Utopian Spaces of British Literature and Culture, 1890-1945"

updated: 
Sunday, June 14, 2009 - 6:14pm
English Faculty, University of Oxford (UK)

"Utopian Spaces of British Literature and Culture, 1890-1945"
18 September 2009
University of Oxford

***NOTE: The deadline for submission of abstracts has been extended until 15 July. Registration will open after this date; the registration form will be available for download on the conference website.***

GEMCS [UPDATE] deadline 7/14 for conference 10/22/09-10/25/09

updated: 
Saturday, June 13, 2009 - 1:57pm
Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies

Deadline extended to July 14.

Call for Papers
Early Modern Culture, 1450-1850

The Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies (GEMCS)

"Tracing Footprints"

October 22-25, 2009
Dallas, Texas

GEMCS was formed in 1993 to promote the study of literature, history, art history, and material culture from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries.

This year's theme, "Tracing Footprints," is intended to be suggestive rather than prescriptive. As always, GEMCS welcomes panels and proposals on all aspects of culture between 1450 and 1850.

18th Colloquium on Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Linguistics. Abstracts deadline: September 1, 2009. Austin, Texas

updated: 
Saturday, June 13, 2009 - 5:55am
The University of Texas at Austin, Graduate Student Organization

The medium is the message. Using this conceptual framework, our conference will explore how historical changes in media from the oral to the digital lead to the emergence of hybrid literary forms and the constant reinvention of literariness itself. With the revolution of (e)merging technologies as our schema, we seek pluralistic and interdisciplinary research on the dynamic network linking modes of communication, mass media and textuality.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

Exploring Childhood Studies

updated: 
Friday, June 12, 2009 - 9:26pm
Rutgers University-Camden/Graduate Students of Department of Childhood Studies

Department of Childhood Studies
Rutgers University, Camden

Call for Papers – Exploring Childhood Studies

The graduate students of the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers University, Camden invite submissions for papers and poster presentations for their first formal graduate student conference on April 9, 2010. Graduate students from all disciplines who are engaged in research relating to children and childhood are encouraged to submit proposals.

[UPDATE]The Beautiful and the Good: Exploring the Beauty Controversy in Contemporary Fiction DEADLINE EXTENDED

updated: 
Friday, June 12, 2009 - 12:43pm
Margaret E. Mitchell/ SAMLA (Atlanta, GA, November 6-8 2009)

Writers, philosophers and artists have long pondered the relationship between the beautiful and the good. Elaine Scarry's seductive _On Beauty and Being Just_ leaps calmly into the fray, arguing that beauty "actually assists us in the work of addressing justice," thereby establishing a tenuous relationship between beauty and human rights. But the opposing argument--that beauty essentially derails justice, either by distracting or lulling the senses or, more insidiously, by aestheticizing what is dangerous and unjust—-still thrives. This panel welcomes proposals for twenty minute papers on contemporary fictional explorations (whether overt, as in Zadie Smith's _On Beauty_, or implicit; of this controversy.

The Silent Figure in Literature, Film, Culture

updated: 
Friday, June 12, 2009 - 12:05pm
NeMLA

The figure of the silent person endures as one of fascination. The silent character is a site for the projected voices, concerns, investments and anxieties of others. The silent character is thus powerful, in the Foucauldian sense. This session invites papers which offer close readings of texts which privilege or contain a silent figure in literature, film or in popular narratives. The aim of the panel is to present papers which are not wholly theoretical but rather offer a discussion of the powerful effects of those figures through an elaboration of the narrative trajectory through and around them. Send a 200-250 word abstract to Prof Berkeley Kaite at berkeley.kaite@mcgill.ca

Ghostly Women & Apparitional Lesbians

updated: 
Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 3:54pm
Ula Lukszo/NEMLA

This panel will examine the appearance of "apparitional lesbians" in various works of fiction in order to question whether the apparitional, the unseen, and the invisible can be rendered visible, and how such a new visibility readjusts our understanding of those works. The panel will also consider papers on newer lesbian texts that employ the ghostly or empower it explicitly. Please send abstracts of 250-500 words.

[UPDATE] "Catastrophe and the Cure": The Politics of Post-9/11 Music (Deadline July 1, 2009)

updated: 
Thursday, June 11, 2009 - 3:16pm
Anthology Theorizing Post-9/11 Music

In current debates about the War in Iraq, it has become commonplace for politicians and journalists to conjure the specter of the Vietnam War as a means of quantifying the impact of the current war in American culture and throughout the world. Surprisingly, though, few have scrutinized these comparisons to examine the differences between the popular music of the Vietnam era and the music of the current post-9/11 era. While the Vietnam era found countless bands and musicians responding in protest to that war, there has arguably been a significantly smaller amount of contemporary musicians who have taken overt stances, in their music, about the politics of post-9/11 life, in America and elsewhere.

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