This panel invites writers to consider how gossip and its related forms
negotiate the distance between high and low culture and public and private
spheres. Does gossip function as a conservative or subversive force? What
happens when scandalous talk circulates in print? How do "high" literary
genres (such as biography) mimic the content or strategies of "low" forms
(such as scandal sheets)? Does gossip function as a trope or a threat for
authorship? How can scandal be commodified--as news, talk shows, published
diaries, scandal sheets, even blackmail? When a secret becomes public
knowledge, whose story is it? We hope these questions serve as a
springboard to generate papers from many theoretical positions and
historical periods.

Please send a 500-word abstract to Dr. Paula Reiter, Mount Mary College
(Milwaukee, Wisconsin), reiterp_at_mtmary.edu by April 15, 2006.

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Received on Tue Mar 07 2006 - 18:21:14 EST