Home Fronts 1850-1950
ACLA 2008, April 24-27, 2008
Submission deadline: Nov. 15, 2007

Behind the story of every soldier is the story of the home front. For those who remain, letters
from loved ones or journalistic accounts intersect the wartime experience. Melville’s experience
of the American Civil War, for example, was shaped by reportage, largely that of the Rebellion
Record and other pictures, newspapers, and journals that claimed to document the “real war” for
its readers. Thus for an artist on the home front, the experience of the war is explicitly mediated
by the circulation and exchange of written and photographic accounts. This panel will focus on
the expressions of those who remain behind battle lines, who register the movement of war from
a distance. For them, the experience of war becomes the experience of mediation. By tracing the
many shifts of war through those removed from it, this panel will examine how artists meditate
on the experience of mediation.

Papers ranging across a geographical and generic spectrum are encouraged. The hundred-year
period from roughly the American Civil War to the close of the Second World War permits an
examination of texts beginning with the development of mass media and communications
markets (faster, wider circulation of newspapers, sketches and photos appearing in print), but
prior to the development of more immediate and invasive capabilities (television sets in the
home, live feeds, digital media). Shaping the period in consideration of these media technologies
foregrounds the interaction of expression and mediation. This panel will contribute to
understanding how texts negotiate these issues of representation, raising larger questions about
the literary experience of war and its complicated relationship with media.

The deadline for submissions is 11/15/2007. Please submit paper proposals through the ACLA
conference website:
http://www.acla.org/acla2008/
Only electronic submissions via the ACLA website can be accepted. When submitting your
proposal, make sure to select the title of this seminar.

For additional questions please contact: ezell_at_email.unc.edu

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Received on Thu Oct 18 2007 - 18:58:45 EDT