Fairy Tale Economies

An interdisciplinary, international conference
October 1—3, 2009
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg MS

Mindful of our own global economies, this colloquium addresses economies in fantastic literature and culture. We shall identify economy both as a theme within literatures and as a way of thinking about the value of fantastic literature itself.

This conference is the fourth in a series of international colloquia focused on fairy tale studies and hosted by various institutions in the US and Canada. This year's theme encompasses subjects as wide-ranging as literature, print culture and linguistic anthropology. Special interests for the conference include the cultural and material history of fairy tales, the adaptation of stories orally or for the stage, and folklore across cultures. We encourage submissions from fields in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Arts; and welcome inter- and cross-disciplinary studies.

This year at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, the conference is part of a semester-long "World of Words" hosted by USM's College of Arts and Letters.

We encourage scholars to think creatively about this conference theme, and invite papers on topics including but not limited to:

Economy of fairy tales
• As a genre: the brevity of its narrative, the economy of its words, the size of its books.
• The economy of fairy tale publications and adaptations: the market for fairy tales, production and consumption costs (both literal and figurative), the careers of writers.

Economy in fairy tales
• Economic systems within fairy tales
• The worth of people and things
• Economies of the body and social body
• Discourses of poverty, wealth, and class status

Economy and fairy tales
• Ideas of worth and value associated with the fairy tale
• The fairy tale as a renewable resource or recycled form across genres and eras.
• The ways in which various (current or past) economic discourses have been shaped by fairy tale structures, motifs and themes

Even more broadly, we invite proposals that investigate ideas of "value," "worth," "profit," as well as "conservation," "sustainability," and "recycling" with reference to:
• Book history and genre adaptation
• Narrative "unrealism"—the Gothic, supernatural, or uncanny
• Fantastic and uncanny bodies of all kinds

Proposals should outline topic, as well as theoretical and disciplinary framework. Please send proposals (300 word maximum), together with a brief biography that indicates academic affiliation and scholarly activity by June 30, 2009 to Dr. Molly Clark Hillard (mollyclarkhillard@gmail.com). (We also accept proposals from graduate students: please indicate status in your biography.)