The English Department at The University of Alabama is inviting
proposals for its biannual symposium that will convene March 29-30,
2007. Entitled "Eruptions of Funk," the symposium will provide a venue
in which scholars and artists can engage issues specifically related to
African American cultural memory. Featured speakers include:

Mark Anthony Neal
Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Aldon Lynn Nielsen
Kalamu ya Salaam
Tracie Morris
Cheryl Keyes

The symposium will include a performative component, featuring poetry,
dance, and music. In addition to more widely engaged cultural forms,
such as blues, jazz, and hip-hop, we are especially interested in essays
that explore funk. We are also interested in papers that examine
performativity in the black church, fashion and style in African
American culture, and the aesthetics of such filmmakers as Julie Dash
and Haile Gerima, who engage the issue of black cultural memory while
simultaneously employing innovative modalities of narration. We also
welcome papers that analyze any aspect of literary discourse in relation
to black vernacularism. The proceedings will be published by Palgrave as
a component of its Signs of Race series. Revised, article-length essays
will be considered for the published collection. Additional paper topics
may include:

Hip-Hop:
Hip-Hop and Vernacular Dance
Digital Technology and Black Musicianship
Scratching as Instrumental Discourse
Hip-Hop and Ideological Conflict
Hip-Hop and Hybridity in African American Culture
Hip-Hop as Poetry
Graffitti

Funk:
James Brown
George Clinton
Sly and the Family Stone
Earth, Wind & Fire
Zone(s) of Infinite (or Zero) Funkativity
The Funk Aesthetic
Funky Drummers
Funk(y) Criticism
The Pleasure Principle

Blues:
Women Instrumentalists (e.g., Memphis Minnie and Sister Rosetta Tharpe)
Blues and Gender Politics
Blues and Visual Art (e.g., Romare Bearden)
Blues Criticism
Blues Poetics

Jazz:
Swing
Avant-Garde Jazz
Bebop and/or Hard Bop
Jazz Music and the Problem of Erasure
Jazz Poetry
Jazz Criticism
Sun Ra
John Coltrane
Don Pullen

Please send 250 word paper proposals and proposals for panels by
December 1st to:
Tony Bolden
Email: tbolden_at_english.as.ua.edu

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Received on Sun Nov 05 2006 - 20:38:40 EST