Kurt Vonnegut Society Session at NeMLA: Vonnegut and Resilience

deadline for submissions: 
September 30, 2022
full name / name of organization: 
Kurt Vonnegut Society

This panel is sponsored by the Kurt Vonnegut Society and seeks presentations that address the conference theme of RESILIENCE as it relates to any aspect of Vonnegut's work, including novels, short stories, essays, and public appearances. We also welcome presentations that situate Vonnegut's work in conversation with his contemporaries and/or later twenty-first-century American authors.

Abstracts might affirm or deny Vonnegut's commitment to resilience (as described below). As a reminder, the conference theme explores:
* how we bear up under trauma (how might Vonnegut's characters guide us in this regard?)
* how we counter ableism (Welcome to the Monkey House?)
* redress social and racial marginalization (Hocus PocusBreakfast of ChampionsA Man without a Country?)
* environmental destruction (Galapagos? 1970 Earth Day Rally? Breakfast of ChampionsPalm Sunday?)
* how we celebrate bodily, cognitive, and neurological difference (Welcome to the Monkey HouseMother NightSlapstick?)
* how we access silenced voices (God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian?)
* how we recover from the pandemic (Cat's Cradle? What might we glean from Vonnegut's oeuvre in this regard?)
* how struggle to save the humanities, and humanity itself from the maw of neoliberalism (any Vonnegut work seems relevant here)

We also welcome approaches that consider multiple of the above bullet points or suggest additional ways of thinking about Vonnegut and Resilience.

Abstracts must be submitted through NeMLA's submission portal here: View Session (cfplist.com)