"Strangers, Gods, and Monsters":
Encountering the Other in Defoe and His Contemporaries

In Strangers, Gods, and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness, the philosopher Richard Kearney writes, "Strangers, gods, and monsters represent experiences of extremity which bring us to the edge. They subvert our established categories and challenge us to think again. And because they threaten the known with the unknown, they are often set apart in fear and trembling: exiled to hell or heaven; or simply ostracized from the human community into a land of aliens." We seek papers for this ASECS 2010 panel that consider the treatment of "strangers," "gods" or "monsters," or the "experience of alterity" in the works of Defoe and his contemporaries. Some of the conversations generated at the panel will be continued on in Digital Defoe, the new on-line peer-reviewed journal of the Defoe Society (http://www.english.ilstu.edu/digitaldefoe/).

Please send abstracts by e-mail to Dr. Holly Faith Nelson (Trinity Western University) at holly.nelson@twu.ca by September 10, 2009.

Holly Faith Nelson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Acting Chair and Graduate Stream Coordinator
Co-Director, Gender Studies Institute
Co-Editor, Digital Defoe
English Department
Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Road
Langley, British Columbia
Canada V2Y 1Y1
Telephone: 604-888-7511, Local 3241
Email: Holly.Nelson@twu.ca; hnelson@sfu.ca
http://www.twu.ca/academics/faculty/profiles/nelson-holly.html