CFP: Race, Region and Ethnic Difference in the American Short Story (1/21/07; ALA, 5/24/07-5/27/07)
Race, Region, and Ethnic Difference in the American Short Story
American Literature Association Conference
Boston, MA 5/24/2007-5/27/2007
The short story's position in late-nineteenth century literary production
was marked by the contradictory tasks that it was expected to perform. On
the one hand, it was used by authors to represent and record the
distinctive regional and cultural communities that existed within the
borders of the United States, and on the other, it was put to work by
editors, critics, and authors in the project of unifying the nation as a
collective whole. In taking up this paradox of representation within the
context of American literary history, we seek papers that reframe
discussions of racial and ethnic difference through analyzing the cultural
narratives that concurrently operated in late nineteenth century short
story productions. Topics might include: the relation between ethnography
and anthropology and the production of short fiction; the emergence of
photography along with print culture's increasing ability to effectively
reproduce imagery on a massive scale; the tensions between realism and
regionalism as discursive literary practices as well as the role each
played in coalescing assumed notions of difference; the unprecedented
growth in periodical production along with the fascination concerning the
presentation of regionally "authentic" people; the tension between
caricature and "faithful portrayal" in regional writing; and the complex
slippage between these diverse categories in terms of the cultural and
aesthetic ideologies that they espoused.
Send 1-2 page abstracts to Dr. Bill Hardwig at whardwig_at_utk.edu by January
21, 2007.
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Received on Mon Dec 11 2006 - 19:53:05 EST