55th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association

Conference Theme: Surplus

Dates: March 7-10, 2024 in Boston MA

“Out of Time: An Exploration of Surplus Value in Marginalized Bodies” proposes a space for scholars to present research on temporality, excess, and marginalization. Our goal is to consider Alison Kafer’s concept of “crip time” from Feminist, Queer, Crip alongside Robert McRuer’s understanding of “crip excess,” Amber Musser’s use of “sensual excess,” and Nicole Fleetwood’s analysis of “excess flesh” to explore how bodies exceed their text within the capitalist order. This panel examines temporality and its impact on our comprehension of bodies signified as surplus within the realms of Crip, Queer, and Disability Justice theories. We're interested in uncovering the multifaceted intersections of temporality, spatiality, and corporeality, with an emphasis on ways that race, gender, sexuality, and class are understood through notions of surplus as it relates to the body.

This panel invites scholarship examining literature, film, and non-traditional narrative forms produced in the age of capitalism and from any geographic location to engage in a transhistorical and transnational discussion of surplus and excess in relation to marginalization and the body. Our aim is to cultivate a dynamic conversation around the concept of surplus—its dual role as a form of resistance and as a mechanism of control—and how it influences physical bodies, especially those marginalized due to race, class, and ability. We're particularly interested in understanding how non-productive time relates to bodies and why non-productive uses of time are tied to marginalized bodies.

What does it mean when bodies become defined by surplus? How does this label, often used to devalue or dehumanize, become a site of resistance and even celebration within crip-of-color critique, queer-of-color critique, and cripqueer theory? And how does the concept of invisibility tie into these notions of excess? The panel intends to address these pressing questions, weaving a discourse around the forms of activism that arise from the resistance to compulsory ability.

Please submit 300 word (max) abstracts by September 30th, 2023 through NeMLA’s CFP portal (https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20707), where you will need to create an account if you do not have one already.

​​Contact: Megan Harlow, George Washington University (mharlow@gwu.edu) and Rachael Nebraska Lynch, George Washington University (rachaelnebraska@outlook.com)

This panel will be held at the upcoming Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) convention, March 7-10, 2024 in Boston, MA.