In keeping with the SAMLA 89 conference theme of “High/Low Art: Borders and Boundaries in Popular Culture,” we invite participants to explore the convergence of time and place in the works of Caribbean writers living in and in between socially constructed spaces.  These might be identified as spaces where traditional and global cultures interface; where authors construct a world without borders in it; and where identities crossover and are transformed in the process. Narrativity and narratology are important aspects of such Caribbean writing, so we welcome papers with an interest in the narrative and/or poetic structure of the work under examination.

This session welcomes abstracts on any aspect of Modern Drama. Paper proposals addressing the SAMLA 89 theme, High Art/Low Art: Borders and Boundaries in Popular Culture, are especially welcome. By July 14, please submit a 250-word word abstract, brief bio, and A/V requirements to Aaron Botwick, The Graduate Center, CUNY, at abotwick@gradcenter.cuny.edu

While the study of modernism typically focuses on avant-garde formal experimentation, the collected volume of essays, Resistance and Reform: Modernist Women and American Social Engagement, offers an important corrective by insisting on a reassessment of the roots of modernist experimentation and innovation. This volume will include essays that analyze the careers and writings of modernist women writers during the first half of the twentieth century whose artistic productions were closely tied to or invested in various forms of social engagement, community activism, political resistance, or cultural change.