Intermountain Graduate Conference: “Making Connections: Within, Between, and Beyond English and the Humanities”

                                                                                         March 8-9, 2019

                                   LOCATION: Salmon River Suites, Student Union Building, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho

                                      TIMES: Friday, March 8, 09:00 AM – 06:30 PM; Saturday March 9, 08:30 AM- 06:30 PM

Call for Papers:                    

The increasing proliferation of books, scholarly journals, conferences, discussion groups, and research articles in every field of study comes with a risk of isolation and narrow thinking. To counteract this tendency, using an interdisciplinary approach of connecting ideas from different authors, fields, or disciplines can be a means of creating synergy from seemingly disparate concepts. In fact, critics like Marcus Nordlund (2002), and E. O. Wilson (1998) both stress the importance of “unity among the different realms of knowledge” when engaging in research with other disciplines, understanding that a particular field functions well in conjunction with other fields in building a coherent epistemology.

We invite participants to present work that seeks to explore these forms of interconnectedness; though there are countless possible approaches, here are few examples: 

• Applying a historical or anthropological lens to a work of literature• Exploring the pedagogical value or implications for a concept, work, or theory• Studying how technology might influence a genre or work of art• Assessing overlaps among gender, race, or cultural studies • Bridging concepts through diverse rhetorical analyses and expressive ideologies• Networking implications between philosophical theories and other disciplines • Recontextualizing a work of art or theory to highlight new or undiscovered connections.

While much work in English and the Humanities is already interdisciplinary to varying degrees, this conference seeks to celebrate interconnectedness and challenge participants to revisit research or areas of interest to highlight relationships that are not usually acknowledged. 

Though this conference is supported by the English Graduate Student Association, we welcome submissions from graduate students in fields other than English; we also encourage undergraduate applicants to apply, though they should also include a letter of recommendation from a professor with their submission. 

Other Conference Information: 

Our keynote speaker is Professor Ira Allen, from Northern Arizona State University, who will be talking about the experience of being a literature major, yet published work on composition and rhetoric studies. We will also have two faculty panel discussions: One is about teaching with technology, and the other is about publishing interdisciplinary student work. 

The conference format presumes oral presentations of 15 to 20 minutes; A/V equiment is available to all presenters. It is a student friendly conference and almost always students would get plenty of constructive feedback from attendees who are well-known specialists, faculty members, and fellow graduate studetns from Idaho State University and neighboring institutions. 

Please submit a 300-word proposal to egsa@isu.edu by January 28th, 2019. Also, for any questions or other accomodations, please contact egsa@isu.edu.