Call for Papers, Trauma and Literature at CEA 2009
70th Anniversary Conference | March 26-28, 2009 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The Omni William Penn Hotel, 530 William Penn Place, Pittsburgh, PA
15219; (412) 281-7100

The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in
English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on trauma and
literature for our 40th annual conference, celebrating the organization’s
70th anniversary. While the psychological study of literature recognizes
the humanity carried by texts and the characters contained within them,
scholars must also stop to recognize the complexity of a representation
of trauma within these texts. Questions as to the nature of the
representation become central to our understanding of the text in
question. Is the text an entirely constructed representation of trauma,
crafted to mimic the behavior of a victim, or is the text the evidence of
a real (rather than imagined) trauma suffered by its creator? In either
case, design bears a significant role; both the artist who borrows the
language and structure of the traumatized self and the artist who creates
because of his or her own trauma reveal much through the design of plot,
narrative structure, character development, etc. Papers that address this
relationship between the conference theme of design and trauma are
particularly encouraged, although other avenues of analysis of the
literary representation of trauma are invited.

General Conference Theme: Design
In addition, CEA welcomes proposals for presentations on the general
conference theme, Design. We live in a world atomized into text messages
and jump cuts, socially constructed snippets on networking sites,
fragmented blogs and news bites, ones and zeroes. In such a context, is
there still a role for conscious design - of literature, of art, of
rhetoric, of learning? After the death of the author, who designs the
texts we love to see, read, and study? Or do we make our own
designations, sketching out the plot, shading in the design, creating
meaning as we find it?
 
General Call for Papers
CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English
departments typically encompass, including literature, creative writing,
composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also
welcome papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including
student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment,
student advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and
the place of the English department in the university.
 
Submission: August 31-November 1, 2008
For more information on how to submit, please see the full CFP at
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2009.htm
 
Membership
All presenters at the 2009 CEA conference must become members of CEA by
January 1, 2009. To join CEA, please go to
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/membership.htm
 
More information
• Find out more about the College English Association:
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea
• Find out more about lodging and registration:
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conferencetravel2009.htm
• Contact CEA officers: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/officers.htm
 
Other questions? Please email cea.english_at_gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Brooke McLaughlin Mitchell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Wingate University
bmclaugh_at_wingate.edu

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Received on Fri Sep 05 2008 - 15:56:41 EDT