CALL FOR PAPERS

2006 ALSC Conference, San Francisco, California, October 13-15 2006

The Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC) invites proposals
for papers and presentations to be considered for its twelfth annual
conference to be held at the Hotel Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco,
October 13-15, 2006. The conference program includes six panels and three
seminars. A description of one of these nine session topics appears below,
along with an e-mail address and other contact information for submissions.
Please bear in mind that there will be many more submissions than can be
accepted, and that the criteria may include not only the merit of the
individual submission but the range and variety of a session's
contributions. The pleasure of the chairs is to see how much stimulating and
valuable work is being done, the pain to be able to accommodate only part of
it in panel or seminar.

For a complete listing of session topics visit our website at
www.bu.edu/literary.

Submission form and deadline. Abstracts no longer than a paragraph or half a
page must reach the chair of the session by March 31. Except as explicitly
stipulated otherwise below, they should be submitted only by e-mail, to both
(1) the chair of the panel or seminar and (2) the Association's office at
alsc_at_bu.edu. On the e-mail's Subject line please give your name and other
information in the form, "ALSC 2006, [Name of Panel] abstract by [Your
Name]."

Seminars

The 2006 ALSC Conference will feature a series of three concurrent seminars
designed to increase participation of younger scholars in the program.
Modeled on what has worked successfully for such organizations as the
Shakespeare Association of America and the Modernist Studies Association,
these three seminars will each be led by a distinguished member of the
Association.

Each seminar will have fifteen (15) guaranteed places, and each person
accepted for a seminar will receive an official letter of invitation to the
conference and will be listed in its program. Seminar participants will
write brief position papers (2-4 pages maximum, double-spaced), and will
circulate their papers to the other participants and read all the papers
prior to the conference. The listing of the titles in the conference program
should help participants obtain travel funding for the conference from their
home colleges and universities. Senior scholars are eligible to apply for
these seminars, but graduate students and junior faculty especially are
encouraged to do so; and we hope that senior scholars and others will spread
the word and encourage their graduate students and junior colleagues to
apply. The three seminars will run concurrently. Those admitted as
participants in each seminar will participate in the actual discussion, but
anyone at the conference is welcome to attend one of the seminars as an
auditor-not a participant-provided there is sufficient room. Details on
submission of abstracts are given above and on the topics of the seminars
below.

Association membership is required for participation in the conference.
Student memberships cost $25. Standard new memberships cost $35. For details
on how to join the ALSC, visit our website at www.bu.edu/literary. Secure
online forms for membership application and conference registration are
available there.

SEMINAR: Pleasures of the Imagination in Science Fiction

Chair: Paul K. Alkon (University of Southern California)

This seminar will focus on the imaginative pleasures of science fiction
rather than on its didactic concerns or its uses as grist for the
cultural-studies mills. What in fact are the imaginative pleasures of
science fiction (if any)? How are they manifested and to what ends? Please
send abstracts of papers that address these and related questions by
concentrating on a single noteworthy work of science fiction to Paul K.
Alkon, Department of English, University of Southern California, Los
Angeles, CA 90089-0354. (alkon_at_usc.edu)

Michael Gouin-Hart

Executive Director

Association of Literary Scholars and Critics (ALSC)

650 Beacon Street, Suite 510

Boston, Massachusetts 02215

Phone: 617-358-1990 / Fax: 617-358-1995

Email: alsc_at_bu.edu / Internet: www.bu.edu/literary

 
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Received on Sat Mar 04 2006 - 15:04:01 EST