CFP: Southern Crossroads Storytelling Conference (no deadline noted; 10/13/06-10/14/06)

full name / name of organization: 
Owen Elmore
contact email: 

Southern Crossroads Storytelling Conference

LSU Alexandria (Alexandria, Louisiana)

October 13 and 14, 2006

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Alice Walker's story "Everyday Use" uses quilts as a symbol for her
characters' familial past. These quilts, though certainly valuable
artistically, must still be of everyday use to the family. The quilts
will wear out from use, certainly, but these worn squares would be, as
they've always been, replaced with new squares; the piece from
great-great-grandma's sundress might be replaced with a patch from
daddy's overalls.

=20

The quilting tradition could be seen as a metaphor for southern
community. And to transpose the symbol, aren't storytellers and writers
kinds of quilters? Do they not take old stories and story elements and
update the worn parts with new superficial details to make the stories
understandable ("useful") to people today, all the while making sure to
retain the age-old kernels of meaning that define the story?

In addition to your presence and your take on these questions, this SCSC
will include the participation of LSUA students. Upcoming Southern
Literature courses will be tailored around an exhibit of quilts on
display in our campus art gallery. The reading list for these courses
will weave together not just the past and the future and the new and the
old but also different southern narrative forms to include songs,
poetry, stories, art, photography, and literature. Sample texts: Agee's
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and Welty's A Curtain of Green and Other
Stories. Further suggestions are welcome from those who wish to join us
and present their work!

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Our keynote speaker on the night of October 13 will be Caren Neile. Dr
Neile is the founding director of the South Florida Storytelling Project
at Florida Atlantic University and is a consultant to the International
Storytelling Center and social action coordinator on the Board of the
Healing Story Alliance. She is also managing editor of Storytelling,
Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies.

=20

Submit your paper abstracts or panel ideas to Owen Elmore at
oelmore_at_lsua.edu. Slots will fill up quickly.

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Received on Mon Feb 27 2006 - 12:19:21 EST