The Jack London Society is sponsoring a panel at this year's American Literature Association Symposium on American Fiction 1890-Present, October 8-10, 2009. The conference is taking place at the De Soto Hilton in Savannah, Georgia. Proposals of no more than 200 words are invited for 20-minute papers on any aspect of Jack London's fiction. Please send your proposals by email to kbrandt@scad.edu. Proposals are due by July 12, 2009.

For more information on the Symposium visit the ALA website at: http://www.calstatela.edu/academic/english/ala2/

Writers, philosophers and artists have long pondered the relationship between the beautiful and the good. Elaine Scarry's seductive _On Beauty and Being Just_ leaps calmly into the fray, arguing that beauty "actually assists us in the work of addressing justice," thereby establishing a tenuous relationship between beauty and human rights. But the opposing argument--that beauty essentially derails justice, either by distracting or lulling the senses or, more insidiously, by aestheticizing what is dangerous and unjust—-still thrives. This panel welcomes proposals for twenty minute papers on contemporary fictional explorations (whether overt, as in Zadie Smith's _On Beauty_, or implicit; of this controversy.

The figure of the silent person endures as one of fascination. The silent character is a site for the projected voices, concerns, investments and anxieties of others. The silent character is thus powerful, in the Foucauldian sense. This session invites papers which offer close readings of texts which privilege or contain a silent figure in literature, film or in popular narratives. The aim of the panel is to present papers which are not wholly theoretical but rather offer a discussion of the powerful effects of those figures through an elaboration of the narrative trajectory through and around them. Send a 200-250 word abstract to Prof Berkeley Kaite at berkeley.kaite@mcgill.ca