Re-conceptualizing Cartography: Space-Time Compression and Narrative Mapping
University of South Florida Graduate Conference
Tampa, FL
13–14 April 2012

Sponsored by the English Graduate Student Association at the University of South Florida, this interdisciplinary conference seeks presentations relating to considerations of time and/or space, space-time compression, and mapping. We encourage submissions from graduate students and professors from all fields, especially geography; sociology; literature; rhetoric and composition; gender, race, and sexuality studies; disability studies; history; political science; and globalization studies. We invite proposals for complete panels of three or four papers, round table sessions of up to five speakers, as well as individual papers. Please send abstracts (250 words for individual papers and 500 words for complete panels) and a brief biographical statement (if proposing a panel, one for each participant) to both Cassie Childs (cassiechilds@mail.usf.edu) and Jennifer Yirinec (jyirinec@mail.usf.edu) by December 30, 2011. Papers should take between 15–20 minutes to present, and panels should last no longer than 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Our inspiration for this conference comes from geographer David Harvey, who, in his The Condition of Postmodernity, explores the evolution of conceptions of time and space from the Enlightenment to the postmodern world. In his study, he contends that "our subjective experience can take us into realms of perception, imagination, fiction, and fantasy, which produce mental spaces and maps as so many mirages of the supposedly 'real' thing" (203). We hope this conference fosters productive considerations of mapping as more than a "factual" representation of space and illuminates the interrelatedness of power structures, mapping, territorialization, and boundary construction.

Papers might respond to, but are not limited by, the following questions/topics:

Travel narratives
Time travel
Temporality in writing (verb tenses, the present of online publication, the past and present of memoir)
The politics/rhetoric of cartography
Using narrative as a means to colonize/demystify territory
Constructing place through narrative
The ways in which mapping and materiality affect rhetorical practice
Mapping the body, sexuality, race, and/or gender
Liminal spaces and the phenomenology of place
Mapping the past
Demarcating social, geographical, mental, and other boundaries
Pedagogical insight on incorporating maps into the classroom

This interdisciplinary conference also seeks creative works, including fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry, that may exhibit the use of the following: the concept of time in narrative; time travel stories; time dilation and compression; anachronistic periods (steampunk, cyberpunk); the singularity or the posthuman era; historical fiction; manipulation of the past to create original narratives (Guns of the South, etc.), considerations of space and place; and other relevant work. We invite creative writing samples to be included in two nights of readings complementing the conference. Please send brief samples or outlines and a brief biographical statement to both Alan Shaw (ashaw5@mail.usf.edu) and Zachary Lundgren (zlundgren@mail.usf.edu) by December 30, 2011. Longer pieces should be presentable in less than 10 minutes.

For conference-related inquiries, please email either Jennifer Yirinec (jyirinec@mail.usf.edu) or Cassie Childs (cassiechilds@mail.usf.edu). Visit the conference website (https://sites.google.com/a/mail.usf.edu/university-of-south-florida-grad...) for more details.