NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS

Call For Papers

Words Into Pictures
E. E. Cummings' Art Across Borders

Jiri Flajsar and Zeno Vernyik eds.

In his 1996 collection of essays on the American poet and artist E. E.
Cummings, entitled (Re)valuing Cummings: Further Essays on the Poet,
1962-1993, Norman Friedman refers the reader to the introduction of Guy
Rotella's E. E. Cummings: A Reference Guide (1979). He argues that certain
areas of work are still left unexplored by Cummings criticism. Rotella's
"useful list of things remaining to be done" (Friedman 1996, 101) in
Friedman's reading includes the following: "a selective edition of the best
poems, a complete collection of letters, a concordance, a study of Cummings'
use of irony and ambivalence, of his personal sign system, of his treatment of
death, his use of the city, his alleged solipsism, and his use of nature"
(Ibid). In the years that have passed since Rotella's 1979 statement of gaps
in Cummings criticism, some – indeed very important – work has
emerged. An
inconclusive, introductory list might contain Martin Heusser's analysis of
some of the cardinal signs in Cummings' sign system, as well as his tackling
with the issue of death, both in his I Am My Writing: The Poetry of E. E.
Cummings (1997); Teresa Gonzalez Minguez's essay on his city, and Taimi
Olsen's book that dealt with the architectural in his works; and some essays
by Michael Webster, Milton A. Cohen and other contributors to Spring: The
Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society on his irony, solipsism and his use of
nature.

However important these works might be, further work in these fields remains
to be done. The aim of this volume, to be published by Cambridge Scholars
Press, is thus to collect new essays that explore the mentioned topics, as
well as other approaches that may be equally intriguing and important.

Although it is, indeed, our aim to encourage multidisciplinarity and a healthy
sense of eclecticism in approach, it nevertheless seems important to introduce
a certain guiding principle in organizing the upcoming volume. All essays
should fall under the general label "crossing borders." Therefore, proposed
areas include, but are not limited to:
- adaptation (crossing the borders of genres and media: Cummings and film,
e.g. George Lucas' 1967 short "anyone lived in a pretty how town"; setting
Cummings to music, e.g. the work of Björk, Peter Graham, Eric Whitacre,
Marshall Bialosky, Steve Heitzeg, Vincent Persichetti, Jere Hutcheson, and
others),
- translation and reception (Cummings' reception and influence in non-English
speaking countries, e.g. Cummings and the 1956 Revolution in Hungary, Cummings
and the poetry of Dezso Tandori; the translatability of Cummings),
- crossing the boundaries of sacred and profane,
- Cummings' use of intermediality,
- problematizing the self and the other,
- recharting the boundaries of the body,
- Cummings across movements of his and our time (Bauhaus, Post-Modernism,
Absurd),
- redrawing the borders between public and personal,
- recharting space.

Please submit the title and a 350-word abstract of the proposed paper, and a
CV by September 30, 2006 to Zeno Vernyik. Digital submissions through e-mail
in OpenDocument (.odt), Rich Text (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) format are
preferred, however, traditional mail submissions are also accepted. In the
latter case, please enclose the files on a CD with the hard copy of the text.
Please do not send floppies. The minimum length for final essays is 2000
words, while the maximum is 10,000 words. Further details about the required
style are sent to authors of accepted proposals.

New contact information for submission and inquiries:
e-mail: 195584_at_mail.muni.cz

mail:
Mgr. Zeno Vernyik
Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky
Filozoficke fakulty Masarykovy univerzity
Arna Novaka 1
602 00 Brno
Czech Republic

phone: +420-739-913-824

         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================
Received on Mon Jul 31 2006 - 22:00:56 EDT