Borders and Border Crossings: Double Encounters (April 30-May 1, 2010)

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University of British Columbia Okanagan, Interdisciplinary Graduate Students Association
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The Interdisciplinary Graduate Students Association at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada, invites you to attend our third annual graduate student conference. This conference seeks to examine cultural artefacts from creative and critical perspectives. Although the focus is on studies in English, languages, culture, multi-media arts, and creative writing, we encourage submissions from across graduate disciplines.

Proposals for both academic papers and creative work will be considered, and all presentations will be 15 minutes in length. Proposals should be no longer than 500 words, bear no identifying information, and be accompanied by a covering letter that includes the applicant's name and contact information. Please submit proposals to ubco.igsa@gmail.com as email attachments in .pdf, .rtf, or .doc format by January 15, 2010.

Graduate students are encouraged to apply to one of the following panels. These are not meant, however, to restrict topics of presentation. Please feel free to submit any proposals around the conference theme.

Gothic texts: This panel invites submissions on eighteenth century, Victorian and modern Gothic texts. Possible areas of interest include abjection and border-crossing, physical doubles, alternate identities, evil twins, dissociation and psychical research, evil 'others', the Uncanny and liminal creatures (ie. ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, the undead, etc).

Theorizing the double encounter: This panel invites submissions that engage with critical theoretical work in the production of meaning. Possible topics include readings of contemporary theoretical work, analyses of the singular and the exemplary, and academic discourses and methods.

Representations of gender and sexuality: This panel invites submissions that interrogate representations of gender and sexuality against the complexities of identity, performance and classification. Possible areas of interest include deviance and hegemony, queer discourse, feminine masculinities/masculine femininities, the performance of gender and cross-dressing, gender-bending and gender 'transgression'.

Childhood fantasies: This panel invites submissions in the areas of fantasy, which has an inherent "doubleness," and the liminal space between child and adult literature. Areas of interest might include analyses of popular works (e.g. Harry Potter, Twilight) or of the crossings between genres and audiences.

Pop culture: This panel invites submissions that explore popular culture through its text and reception. Areas of interest include representations of doubles or multiples in television, cinema, music, graphic novels, popular fiction and videogames; the use of pastiche, collage, or bricolage in Post-Modern art and fiction; the use of parody; and intertextuality.

Post-colonial discourse: This panel invites submissions that explore post-colonial discourses through historical and literary contexts. Areas of interest may include critical or creative approaches to diaspora and hybridity, transnationalism, Aboriginal Canadian discourse, Indigenous texts and "Minor" literature.

The story retold: This panel invites submissions that analyse contemporary adaptations, remakes, mash-ups and re-visitations of existing cultural artefacts. Possible areas of interest include the written (e.g. literature), the visual (e.g. photography and film), and the aural (e.g. music and speech).

Double-edged (s)words: This panel invites submissions that explore the ontological, epistemological and ethical representations of violence and terror. Areas of interest may include narratives of 9/11, the politics of violence, and Romantic tales of terror.