The E. E. Cummings Society and the Society's journal, Spring, invites abstracts for 20-minute papers for the 46th annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900, February 22-24, 2018, at the University of Louisville (http://www.thelouisvilleconference.com).  Taking up what Cummings means by “my specialty is living said,” this session explores Cummings’ various modernist/avant-gardist experiments with rhythm and sound that came to shape his new art and new poetry. To what extent, the session asks, do Cummings’ lines and line groupings, punctuation and typography, expressed through temporal and spatial movements, evoke a new measure? To what extent does Cummings’ prosodic and sound texturing convey cultural meaning and respond to cultural noise?  To what extent do Cummings’ poetic and language styles engage his concept of the self and social influences? We invite abstracts that examine Cummings’ thematic and aesthetic provocations, not only as a graphic artist but also as a poetic ironist working through a cultural i/eye. Papers discussing critical receptions of Cummings’ iconic or iconoclastic radicalism in poetic genres and other literary forms are also welcome. 

Please send 300-word abstracts (double-spaced and titled) and a brief bio by September 8, 2017 to: gch7u@uvawise.edu

Gillian Huang-Tiller

Professor of English

Dept. of Language & Literature

128 Zehmer Hall

University of Virginia-Wise

Wise, VA 24293

(O) 276-376-4552

FAX: 276-328-0173