Call for Essays: Critical Collection in English Studies

Essays are invited for a collection tentatively entitled, Interdisciplinarity,
Fusion, and Reform: New and Critical Inquiries into English Studies.

This collection examines the field of English as it is conceived of by James
Berlin, Michael Berube, Sharon Crowley, Gerald Graff, Stephen North et. al,
Robert Scholes, etc. Within this conversation, English Studies is “a new
disciplinary enterprise” (North), one that encourages “a clash of paradigms,
frameworks, languages, and methodologies” (Waller) in the field of English, and
one that also generates interdisciplinarity, “fusion” (North), and integration
of English’s sub-disciplines.

The editors feel that this collection is an opportunity to develop the
material, administrative, and epistemological rationales for a fusion approach
to field reform. We welcome works that critique current curricular models of
separation or corporate compromise, that integrate the various sub-disciplines,
or that offer alternative models of English. As a conversation, we feel that
this collection will engage questions about the maintenance of a single
disciplinary identity for English, acting as a “locked room” (North) from which
new visions of the field emerge.

Submissions for this collection may examine the theoretical and historical
underpinnings of curricular reform, including cultural studies, rhetoric(s),
ethics, and postmodern approaches to English. Essays may integrate several of
the following: research, scholarship, administration, theory,
professionalization, and/or teaching, or demonstrate a fusion approach to
scholarship through synthesis of multiple sub-disciplines and/or genres. We
hope that essays in this collection will demonstrate an awareness of the
epistemological and methodological differences between the sub-disciplines.

Questions and/or topics of interest include:
· In what spaces is integration of the sub-disciplines of English
natural, imperative, or beneficial?
· How are our research methodologies (qualitative and quantitative)
complementary or contradictory?
· What kinds of epistemological frameworks inform English Studies as a
field (overlap, disparity, etc.)?
· How have calls for curricular reforms been enacted, battled, and/or
rehearsed?
· Have these reforms affected practice? How and why?
· Have these reforms affected the marketability of our graduates?
· How has English Studies as an “integrated” field been constructed?
· What can our institutional histories tell us about new models for
English Studies?
· How can scholarship between the sub-disciplines of English be fused?
· How have current moves to social responsibility (ethics, rhetoric(s),
disability studies, queer studies, multiculturalism, feminism(s), etc.)
affected the work of English?

The deadline for submission is October 23rd, 2003.
Please submit the following:
1) A short proposal examining the context of your essay (500 words)
2) An abstract of your essay (150 words).
Please submit materials electronically (Microsoft Word or Rich Text Format).
jlludwi_at_ilstu.edu

This collection is jointly edited by Jeff Ludwig and Lori A. Ostergaard
(Illinois State University).

--"[F]ocusing on the unknown and the particular can blind us to the common: thosepatterns that bind us in community, those impulses to connect to others, tofeel wanted, needed, supported. The common may be ordinary, hardly worthnoting, but it also binds us." -John C. Lovas =============================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP_at_english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/ or write Erika Lin: elin_at_english.upenn.edu ===============================================Received on Wed Jun 25 2003 - 23:07:09 EDT