CEA 2007 CFP -- Special Sessions

College English Association National Conference: "Empathy and Ethics,"
New Orleans, LA, March 29-31, 2007

Deadline for all proposals: October 15, 2006

I am coordinating a set of panels on the topic of "Self and Other:
Defining, Constructing, and Representing Relationships through Empathy
and Ethics," for the 2007 National College English Association Annual
Conference. We welcome individual and panel presentation proposals that
address the ways in which relationships build on, negotiate, and/or lack
a framework of empathy and ethics between oneself and others.

In An Ethics of Remembering: History, Heterology, and the Nameless
Others, Edith Wyschogrod raises significant questions with her
statement: "The history of ethics attests that, from the pre-Socratics
to the present, philosophers have attempted to adjudicate the
conflicting claims of self and other, to frame a concept of justice that
would subsume them" (xii). To what extent is "justice" an appropriate
model for conceptualizing and evaluating relationships? What types of
"conflicting claims" circumscribe and dominate different types of
relationships? What role do empathy and ethics play in determining the
way we relate to others? How do issues of power and equality impact our
ability to empathize with others and to relate to others in ethical
ways?

Proposals might consider the history, politics, and representation of
the empathy and ethics of relationships, as they relate to our personal,
professional, and academic lives. Some possible issues are:

* Classroom relationships: teacher--student; student--student;
student/school--object of study
* Cultural constructions of relationships between the individual and
his/her community
* Continuity and change in historical concepts of "relationship"
* The role of empathy and ethics in defining relationships as normative
versus "deviant"
* Memory and forgetting of the "other"
* Ethics and empathy as ways of reifying or dissolving boundaries
between "self" and "other"
* Speaking for "the other"
* Recovery of the lost or missing "other"
* Assimilation of/affiliation with the "other"

Proposals should include the following information:
Name
Institutional affiliation (if applicable)
Mailing address (include zip code)
Phone number and E-mail address
Title of the proposed presentation
Abstract of no more than 500 words
A-V equipment needs, if any
Special needs, if any

If you are proposing a panel, the panel organizer should include the
above information for all proposed participants.

Proposals may be submitted by post, fax, or E-mail (include abstract in
message body).

CEA limits presentations to 15 minutes; panels to 75 minutes (with 3 to
4 presenters to a panel).

All presenters must join CEA by Jan 1, 2007, to appear on the program.
No one may read more than one paper at the conference.

If you are willing to serve as a session chair or respondent, please
indicate this in your cover letter.

Please send your proposal by email, post, or fax, to:
Lisa Bernstein
University of Maryland University College
PG Metro III, Room 7733
3501 University Blvd. East
Adelphi, MD 20783
E-mail: lbernstein_at_umuc.edu
Fax: 240.582.2993
Phone: 240.582.2838

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Received on Mon May 15 2006 - 12:35:08 EDT