ST. JOHN'S UNIVERSITY 

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH | WRITING ACROSS COMMUNITIES PRESENTS

UNEXPECTED ALTERATIONS

SJU ENGLISH GRADUATE CONFERENCE 2023

FRIDAY, MARCH 31st, 2023

ST. JOHN’S UNIVERISTY, QUEENS CAMPUS (IN PERSON)

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: February 3rd, 2023

St. John’s University’s Department of English, in collaboration with Writing Across Communities, invites graduate student scholars and artists to submit proposals for presentations at our annual English Graduate Conference.

This year’s theme, “Unexpected Alterations,” seeks to explore how sudden disruptions change us as people, as academics, and as members of an academic community. These presentations can be derived from scholarly papers, dissertation or thesis chapters, article drafts, etc. We also encourage proposals from students exploring this through poetry, performance, and other creative work.

Why “Unexpected Alterations”? Literary study helps us track and trace cultural disruptions—but the past several years have proven that potentially world-altering disruptions are happening in real time, altering our presents and perhaps our futures. The COVID-19 pandemic, international warfare, economic downturns, climate change, mass shootings, unfinished racial justice movements, and the end of Roe v. Wade are just some of the “unexpected alterations” that are bringing changes to our lives, to our academic priorities, and to our professional futures. What new perspectives or approaches do these changes bring to our academic work? What possibilities of transformation do they hold for us?

We open our conference to proposals that explore all sides and outcomes of “unexpected alterations,” including but not limited to:

• Literature’s stories of change and disruption

• Crisis as a driver of critique and creativity

• Theories and pedagogies of change

• Apocalyptic scenarios and panics

• “New normals,” adaptations, and mutations

• Learning together and apart throughout COVID

• New occasions for feminist, anti-racist, queer, and disability rhetorics

• Life and death

• Humbling realizations/unexpected aspirations

This conference is interdisciplinary, and we thus encourage submissions in all fields of English studies, including creative writing. We will highlight work that speaks to different knowledge systems, research formats, critical and creative practices, and/or collaborate models. We welcome work that reflects upon and/or models decolonial, collaborate, community-centered, activist, and feminist models of knowledge production and dissemination. Successful submissions will consider how we, as budding academics, can thoughtfully break away from Eurocentric and normative ideas and formulas and create new models of equity for the next generation. We also welcome work that rethinks the possibilities of research settings, formats, scales, rhythms, and durations.

Please submit your proposals using the following form: https://forms.gle/2oP9sCmhHnx2gGrC8

As this event will be in person, all visitors, panelists, and attendees must be fully vaccinated and will need to provide proof of vaccination in order to attend this event. We are still monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic situation, and we will keep you updated if there are any changes or updates. For more information, please see our campus COVID-19 policy here: https://www.stjohns.edu/life-st-johns/health-and-wellness/student-health...

Please contact the Graduate Conference Co-Organizers, Mosammat Sultana, Jacqulyn Graber, and Gabrielle Pierre at sjugradcon23@gmail.com with any questions or concerns.