Papers for a panel to be proposed for the Modernist Studies Association's
10th annual conference, Nashville, Nov.13-Nov.16 2008.

Devolution of the Word?

J. Alfred Prufrock’s cry, “I cannot say just what I mean!” reverberates
throughout modernist literature; individual writers’ understandings of
linguistic limitation, however, have distinct premises and implications.
This panel aims to bring together perspectives on how writers
conceptualized language and linguistic power. Did they partake of what
Bordieu calls “the myth of linguistic communism”--the idea that a language
is a communal linguistic store, “universally and uniformly accessible” to
all speakers? Did they posit a linguistic quasi-organism susceptible to
deterioration or devolution, or, equally, capable of regeneration? How did
they propose to gauge verbal facility, or its opposite, inarticulacy? Did
they see linguistic power as an individual trait, an outcome of
socialization/education, or dependent upon the vitality of the communal
store? How do such conceptions affect literary practice or social
attitudes? Links to the conference theme ("Modernism and Global Media")are
not required, but might include: responses to sound recording technology;
the impact of mass media on spoken language; the idea of photographic or
filmic images as a “universal language”; representations of dialect or
non-standard speech.

Send 300-500 word abstracts and brief bio to Ella Ophir, e.ophir_at_usask.ca
by April 18.

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Received on Wed Mar 12 2008 - 16:49:26 EST