Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection suggests that the formation and maintenance of both individual subjectivity and group identity depends on the management of a psychological and corporeal imperfection that our enculturation requires we repudiate. What is abject in ourselves we disavow, and through transference shift onto the Other who, in turn, becomes the guarantor of our bounded selfhood and our group identifications. This ideal state, defined through metrics of subjectival coherence themselves based on a fantasy imposed by the logic of late capitalism – the fear of lack and of loss that today drives unprecedented levels of industrial and corporeal incorporativity – is one whose attainment haunts and motivates us.

Call for Papers

for

Literary MiscellanyVol. 6, No. 2, Jul-Dec 2017

Special Issue onIndian Poetics: Theory and Praxis

Inaugural Sponsored Panel by the David Henry Hwang Society

The David Henry Hwang Society was founded in 2016 at the Comparative Drama Conference with the goal of promoting scholarly examination of Hwang’s theatrical works. Since his first breakout play, FOB, in 1980, David Henry Hwang has proven the most significant and prolific Asian American playwright to date.  From the global phenomenon of M. Butterfly and more recent successes with Yellow Face and Chinglish,Hwang has staged stories of the Asian American experience and explored questions of race, culture, and identity.

American Documentary Poetics

CFP for American Literature Association (ALA) 28th Annual Conference

May 25-28, 2017, Boston, MA

Call for papers on any topic related to American docupoetics/investigative poetics. Part documentary, part imagination, investigative poetry incorporates a variety of data and reportage into the poem—including photos and images, testimonials, interviews, facts and figures—in order to explore the historical and political conditions of contemporary culture.

Submit 250 to 500-word abstracts and a CV, by January 15, 2017, to Tana Jean Welch, Florida State University, at tana.welch@med.fsu.edu 

 “Goin’ Up Yonder”: Sounding a Secular/Sacred American South in Gospel Music Performance

The Society for the Study of Rebecca Harding Davis and Her World welcomes proposals for two sessions at the next meeting of the American Literature Association. The conference will be held May 25-28, 2017 in Boston, MA.  For further information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org. 

Saturday 9 December 2017

Keynote Speakers: Stephen Baxter

Dr Sarah Dillon (University of Cambridge)

Sir Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most important British sf writers of the twentieth century – novelist, short-story writer, scriptwriter, science populariser, fan, presenter of documentaries on the paranormal, proposer of the uses of the geosynchronous orbit and philanthropist.

We want to celebrate his life, work and influence on science fiction, science and beyond.

We are looking for twenty-minute papers on topics such as: