Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)Annual Convention
March 1-4, 2007
Baltimore, MD
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CFP: Medicine and Poetry: The Poultice and the Pen

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Much like the work of interpreting a poem, we also interpret our bodies,
their health, and even their pain. While nursing Jane Kenyon through her
struggle with leukemia, the poet Donald Hall said "I don't know how
anyone who does this work could not write poetry". With advances in
medical technology during the twentieth century, we have seen an influx
of poems about medicine, illness, and healing. From William Carlos
Williams to Sharon Olds, we find modern and contemporary poetics
increasingly informed by the world of medicine, medical concerns for the
needs of the body, and the role of poetry in attending to-and
representing-suffering and healing.=20

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How, then, do medicine and poetry correspond? What does poetry offer to
the world of medicine? How does medicine run central to the task of
poetry? What are the overlapping philosophical or theoretical concerns
which inform both poetry and medicine, and the practice of each? How
might medicine and poetry-in addition to addressing the physiology and
etiology of illness-also consider the intangible facets of healing, like
compassion and empathy? This panel seeks papers about medicine and
poetry addressing any aspect of health and suffering, illness and
recovery, hope and healing. Email submissions preferred; please send
250-500 word abstracts as MSWord attachment to Dr. Clare Emily Clifford
no later than September 1, 2006 <clifford[at]uab[dot]edu>. Accepted
panelists must be or become members of NEMLA by November 2006 in order
to present at the conference.=20

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Clare Emily Clifford

Assistant Professor of English=20

The University of Alabama at Birmingham

Birmingham, AL 35294-1260=20

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Received on Fri Aug 04 2006 - 09:25:42 EDT