The 52nd annual College English Association welcomes proposals for presentations about service learning in the English Studies classroom that move to the general conference theme: Confluence. The conference will be held in San Antonio, a city that itself is a kind of confluence: it has been the home of multiple cultures; it has seen the rise and fall of famous missions and military presidios; and it honors in its daily life today its Hispanic heritage and cowboy culture alike. It is no wonder, then, that it is recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Given all its diverse and rich culture, San Antonio’s authors have taken due notice. The newest Poet Laureate of the city, Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson, voices in her #MyTongueIsChallenge, “My tongue, much like your tongue, has the power to bless or curse this land….” Sanderson might as well be describing the whole of Texas’ literary scene. The state has given us such well-known tongues as Katherine Anne Porter, Larry McMurtry, June Fairfax Davis Arnold, and Estela Portillo Trambley. More recently, it has watched as Monica Munoz Martinez has tackled border issues in The Injustice Never Leaves You, and Phillipp Meyer has considered what it means to be a Texan in The Son.

In the diverse spirit of the Lone Star State, CEA invites proposals from academics in all areas of literature, language, film, composition, pedagogy, and creative, professional, and technical writing. We are especially interested in presentations that feature topics relating to our theme of confluence in texts, disciplines, people, cultural studies, media, and pedagogy. For your proposal, you might consider a variety of concepts:

• Convergence: blending the past and the present—or dividing it
• Individuality: struggling to find the self in the many; the value of standing alone
• Heritage: recognizing those who came before and their influence on us now
• Transcultural life: living in-between; creating a new space
• Revision: re-seeing the parts that have created the whole; the dangers of privileging one
• Reclamation: uncovering the forgotten voices; contrasting with the dominant voice

General Program

CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English departments typically encompass, including literature criticism and scholarship, creative writing, rhetoric, composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of the English department in the university.

New feature

Additionally, the CEA Conference in San Antonio will introduce a new feature, “Roundtable Sessions.” These sessions are designed to encourage lively discussions of the conference’s theme. Each table will feature presenters who deliver short essays. These 500-word papers, rather than fully realized arguments, are meant to be kernels of ideas. With ample time for response from colleagues, the roundtable is thus a chance for presenters to try out with a live audience a notion, to discover other resources, or to begin imagining the next steps towards developing ideas into longer, more typical conference papers or even articles.

Online Submission

Electronic submissions open August 15 and close on November 1, 2022. Proposals should be between 250 and 500 words in length and should include a title. Please note that only one proposal may be submitted per participant. Notifications of proposal status will be sent in early December.

Proposals should be submitted electronically by November 1, 2022, through our conference management database housed at the following web address: https://www.conftool.pro/cea2023.

Submitting electronically involves creating a user ID then using that ID to log in to a welcome page. A link then will be provided for submitting your proposal under one (or two) of the following appropriate topic areas:

Academic Administration Leadership / African-American Literature /American Literature: Early, 19th Century, 20th and 21st Century / Assessment and/or Learning Outcomes / Book History and Textual Criticism / British Literature: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval; 16th and 17th Century; Restoration and 18th Century; 19th Century; 20th and 21st Century / Byron Society of America (BSA) / Caribbean Literature / Children’s and Adolescent Literature / Composition and Rhetoric: Practice or Theory / Creative Writing: fiction and poetry or non-fiction / Disability Studies / Film and Literature / Film Studies / Grammar and Linguistics / Graphic Novels / Hispanic, Latino/a, and Chicano/a Literature / Irish, Scottish, and Welsh Literature / Literary Theory / Thomas Merton (ITMS) / Multicultural and World Literature / Native American Literature / Peace Studies / Pedagogy / Pedagogy: Diversity in the English Curriculum / Pedagogy: Service Learning / Pedagogy: Active Learning / Popular Culture / Post-Colonial Literature / The Profession / Queer Studies / Religion and Literature / Southern Literature and Studies / Teacher Education / Technical Communication (ATTW) / Transatlantic Literature / Travel and Literature / Visual and Material Culture / War and/or Trauma and Literature / Women’s Connection, Women’s literature, and WGST

Important Additional Information

• CEA equips each conference room with a data projector, screen, adapter for your laptop, and limited Internet access. CEA does not provide computers/laptops.
• If you have attended CEA before and are willing to serve as a session moderator for a panel other than your own, please indicate so on your submission.
• If you are submitting a pre-formed panel with multiple participants, kindly create a user ID for each proposed participant.
• To preserve time for discussion, CEA limits all presentations to 15 minutes.
• No person may make more than one presentation at the conference.
• Presentations must be made in person at the conference venue. Neither proxy nor “virtual” (Skyping, etc.) presentations are permitted.
• Papers must be presented in English by scholars beyond the undergraduate level.
• Any form of special accommodation must be requested at the time of proposal submission.
• CEA is unable to sponsor or fund travel or underwrite participant costs.

A Special Invitation to Graduate Students

Graduate students are encouraged to attend and submit their conference presentation for the CEA Outstanding Graduate Student Paper Award, which carries a prize of $250. Submissions will be solicited via email in January 2023.

Venue 

The 2023 conference will be held at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel, 205 East Houston Street, San Antonio, TX 78205. To receive the special CEA rate, lodging must be booked through CEA’s dedicated link.  For more information about that and conference registration rates, check this space after November 1.

To see the historic conference venue, visit https://www.marriott.com/en-us/hotels/satgs-sheraton-gunter-hotel-san-antonio/overview

Join the College English Association

All presenters must join CEA by January 1, 2023 to appear on the program. To join or to find out more information about the organization and conference, please see the CEA website at www.cea-web.org.

Connect with CEA

• via Email: cea.english@gmail.com
• via Facebook: www.facebook.com/

27-3241.CollegeEnglishAssociation

• via Twitter: twitter.com/CEAtweet

Have Questions?

Please contact Stacy Bailey at cea.english@gmail.com (and put “Program Chair” in the Subject line).