[UPDATE] SAMLA 2011- Cracking Up the Well Wrought Urn: Humor and the Ethics of American Poetry (5/15/11 abstracts)

full name / name of organization: 
Walt Hunter and Cara Lewis/American Humor Studies Association

DEADLINE EXTENDED: 5/15/11

"How funny you are today New York!" writes Frank O'Hara in an exemplary moment of what John Ashbery might call "probably thinking not to grow up." Although the last ten years have seen a flourishing of claims about what poetry teaches us, recent work by Stephen Burt, Rita Felski, and others suggests that we should pay closer attention to how modern and contemporary poets make us laugh. We invite proposals that consider how American poets in the 20th century have posed as comedians, using humor to test the capacities of received form and to engage, rather than avoid, serious issues, including globalization, gender and sexuality, memory and trauma, race, and the environment. Please send an abstract of 250 words as a word document by May 15, 2011 to Walt Hunter (University of Virginia) and Cara Lewis (University of Virginia) via email at weh5b@virginia.edu and cll5c@virginia.edu.