42nd Annual Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) April 7-10, 2011, New Brunswick, NJ,
Hyatt New Brunswick. Host Institution: Rutgers University

This panel invites papers that seek to understand the ways in which imaginative literature, in Jeremy Rifkin's words, "allows empathic consciousness to grow and develop." If literature is a vehicle for extending empathy and expanding human consciousness, how does reading literature from around the globe contribute to a "biosphere consciousness" (Rifkin), the belief that "each human being has responsibilities to every other" (Appiah)? Papers from a variety of perspectives and disciplines--sociology, anthropology, biology, political science, etc.--are welcome. Benjamin Carson benjamin.carson@gmail.com