CFP: TYCA-West Annual Conference [UPDATE. Deadline 9/1/11]
Two Year College English Association for the Western Region
lutfi.hussein@gmail.com
(http://tycawest.org/)
Conference Dates: October 7-8, 2011
Conference Location: Mesa Community College, Mesa, AZ
(http://www.mesacc.edu/)
Transitioning into and out of Academe: Thinking and Writing for College Students
The theme for TYCA-West 2011 Conference centers on the transitions that students make as they join our
colleges. Our students have to negotiate new course materials, new methods of instruction, and possibly
new academic expectations, all against the backdrop of an unstable job market and potentially busy
personal lives. These challenges often manifest themselves in students’ writing. Therefore submissions that
address the theory, methodology, and curriculum of college writing (with emphasis on basic writing) are
encouraged. Topics relating to other English or Humanities courses taught in the first two years of college
are also welcome.
If interested, please submit a cover page that includes the title and the name, institutional affiliation, email,
and phone number of the speaker(s), along with a brief 100-200 word description of the presentation and
the format of the presentation desired (panel/workshop/lecture/paper reading).
The sessions are 1 hour and 20 minutes long. Please tell us if you would like to be partnered with another
presenter (so you each will have approximately 40 minutes), or if you would like to have the entire time
slot. All rooms will have a computer with Internet connection and projection capabilities. You may request
a room with laptop computers for all participants. Only one copy of this information need be submitted.
Proposals should be submitted to Lutfi Hussein, Program Chair, at lutfi.hussein@gmail.com by August 15,
2011 [EXTENDED TILL SEPTEMBER 1, 2011.]
For more information about the conference, please visit TYCA-West website (http://tycawest.org/).
Borders: 43rd Annual Conference, College English Association, March 29-31, 2012
College English Association
cea.english@gmail.com
Call for Papers, CEA 2012 | BORDERS
43rd Annual Conference | March 29-31 | Richmond, Virginia
Omni Richmond Hotel, 100 South 12th Street, Richmond, Virginia
(804) 344-7000
Submission deadline: November 1, 2011 at http://cea-web.org/
The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English
studies, welcomes proposals for presentations for our 43rd annual conference.
Submission: August 31 - November 1, 2011
Please see the submission instructions at http://cea-web.org/
Conference Theme: Borders
Borders, boundaries, margins—what lines provide the perimeters to our profession? What demarcations
continue to separate and define English studies in the second decade of the new millennium? When is
“crossing a line” a desirable professional/pedagogical stance? How have scholarly fields evolved,
dissolved, merged or consolidated in areas that we have traditionally viewed as distinct? Exactly where and
how is English expanding and extending its borders?
For our 2012 meeting, CEA invites papers and panels that explore the pedagogical and professional
implications of borders. For more information, please see the full CFP at http://cea-web.org/
Featured Speakers
The conference’s plenary session will feature noted essayist Scott Russell Sanders while the all-conference
luncheon will be addressed by former United States Poet Laureate Rita Dove.
General Call for Papers
CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English
departments typically encompass, including literature, creative writing,
composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome
papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including student
demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student
advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of
the English department in the university.
Membership
All presenters at the 2012 CEA conference must become members of CEA by
January 1, 2012. To join CEA, please go to http://cea-web.org/
More information
* Get short, timely messages from CEA via Twitter: http://twitter.com/CEAtweet
* Connect with CEA on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/CollegeEnglishAssociation
* Find out more about conference lodging and registration: http://cea-web.org/
* Contact CEA officers: http://cea-web.org/
Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com.
Colloquium in American Literature and Culture
New York University
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Colloquium in American Literature and Culture (CALC) at New York University is pleased to
announce a call for papers for our Fall 2011 events. CALC is an interdisciplinary forum for the presentation
and discussion of new Americanist scholarship by both junior and senior researchers. In the upcoming
semester, we will focus specifically on questions of American book history, aiming to provide a forum for
those researching topics like material texts, print culture, and reading practices in an American context, and
we encourage paper proposals by graduate students and faculty that focus on any subject relevant to these
fields.
A typical CALC event features two presentations of 20-25 minutes, followed by audience questions and
discussion. Sessions are open to the public, and we invite the attendance of all faculty and graduate
students, regardless of specialty. For more information, please visit our website at: http://nyucalc.com/.
To submit your work for consideration, please email an abstract of your project to Annie Abrams and
Blevin Shelnutt at nyucalc@gmail.com by Friday, September 16th. CALC also encourages, but does not
require, submitters to include a CV with the abstract.
Call for Papers: Eudora Welty Society Session
Welty, Whiteness, Race, and Civil Rights
Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Nashville, TN March 29 – April 1, 2012
Conference Theme: "Anniversaries"
Deadline for Proposals: October 15, 2011
The 50th Anniversaries of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act are approaching, and to
celebrate them, this SSSL panel will further explore the issues of whiteness and race in Eudora Welty’s
fiction. Topics include, but are not limited to new readings of:
-Welty’s 1960’s stories: “Where is the Voice Coming From?” and “The Demonstrators”
-early stories that have not yet received the same attention as “Powerhouse” on the issue of race ("Keela,"
"A Worn Path," and "Livvie")
- race relations and issues of whiteness in Delta Wedding or The Golden Apples
- irony and humor in Welty’s black characters awareness of whiteness
- whiteness/ blackness as performance or as comic performance
- portraits of “the help” in Welty’s fiction, including Fannie in One Writer’s Beginnings
- marginalized black characters present in fictions focusing on white communities, and whether and how
they point readers towards complex lives obscured by the color line of the Jim Crow segregated South
-issues of class intersecting with race in Welty’s work
-continuity and change in Welty’s attention to whiteness and Jim Crow across the decades of her career
-the possible meaning of Toni Morrison’s praise of Welty’s handling of her black characters, during the
same period in which Morrison wrote eloquently about the troubling uses of black characters by many
white writers
- the contrast between Welty's and Faulkner, Wright, or Morrison’s handling of these issues
Please send statements of interest as soon as possible and proposals of 500 words by October 15 to Harriet
Pollack, Professor of English, Bucknell University, pollack@bucknell.edu
Literature: Ecocriticism & the Environment
February 8 - 11, 2012 – Albuquerque, New Mexico
Hyatt Regency Hotel & Conference Center
Proposal submission deadline: December 1, 2011
For details and information please go to: http://www.swtxpca.org
Panels are now being formed for presentations regarding Literature, Ecocriticism and the Environment.
Specific areas might include:
*ecocritical approaches to literature
* environmentally-focused artists and their art
* representations of nature and the environment in popular and American culture
* interdisciplinary approaches to the environment by environmental historians, philosophers, geographers,
ecologists, governmental agencies, etc.
* environmental/ecocritical pedagogy & environmental education
* environmental discourse in the media
* the environment in film
* ecofeminism
* environmental issues in the Southwest
* urban environmentalism
* nature writing and its authors
* environmental activism, non-profit, governmental issues, etc.
To submit a proposal, go to http://conference2012.swtxpca.org and enter the proposal into the database.
Deadline for submissions is December 1, 2011. Accepted applicants will be notified by email, and must
register for the conference by December 31, 2011.
Call for Papers: Native American Literature at CEA 2012
March 29-31, 2012 | Richmond, Virginia
Omni Richmond Hotel, 100 South 12th Street, Richmond, Virginia (804)344-7000
The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals
for presentations on Native American Literature for our 43rd annual conference. Submit your proposal at
http://www.cea-web.org
The Native American Literature panel at CEA welcomes submissions on any aspect of Native American
Literature, including papers on individual authors, Native American literary separatism, the Native
American Renaissance, native sovereignty, indigenous rhetorics, etc. Of particular interest will be papers
that address the conference theme, BORDERS, from an indigenous perspective or worldview.
Conference Theme: Borders
CEA welcomes proposals for presentations on the general conference theme, Borders.
Borders, boundaries, margins—what lines provide the perimeters to our profession? What demarcations
continue to separate and define English studies in the second decade of the new millennium? When is
“crossing a line” a desirable professional/pedagogical stance? How have scholarly fields evolved,
dissolved, merged or consolidated in areas that we have traditionally viewed as distinct? Exactly where and
how is English expanding and extending its borders?
General Call for Papers
CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English departments typically
encompass, including literature criticism and scholarship, creative writing, composition, technical
communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our work as
academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student
advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of the English department in the
university.
Submission Dates: August 31-November 1, 2011
For more information on how to submit, please see the full CFP at http://www.cea-web.org
Membership
All presenters at the 2012 CEA conference must become members of CEA by January 1, 2012. To join
CEA, please go to http://www.cea-web.org
Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Benjamin D. Carson
benjamin.carson@gmail.com
CFP- Special issue of "parallax" on stupidity.
This issue of parallax seeks to consider stupidity both as an object of political investigation as well as a
rhetorical strategy and problem. Stupidity troubles the boundaries of understanding and is traditionally
perceived as a pejorative judgment; however, we wish to ask what dissonances, critiques historical
narratives and productive uses the politics of stupidity elicits. We invite submissions on stupidity as a
philosophical and political tool. Stupidity can be defined by intent: it is identifiable when one wilfully
refuses to understand. Associated with tactlessness, self-certainty and forcefulness, stupidity is consciously
enacted, making it thus a category of thought. If stupidity entails refusal, could it enable new forms of
political dissent? At the same time, Derrida demonstrates that stupidity is actually not so much defined by
intent as being bound to involuntary acts. This would seem to disrupt stupidity’s relationship with
conscious thought. Stupidity is for Derrida an inexplicable failure of judgment aligned with the
unconscious. How does one take advantage of stupidity’s force without returning it to intentionality? Can
stupidity be affirmed without losing its elusiveness? Is writing stupidly an impossible project? Or might
understanding stupidity enable us to conceptualise political action, taking account of how the ability to act
is compromised?
Through a close reading of Avital Ronell’s Stupidity, Derrida developed his theory of stupidity as an
insufficient translation of the French term bêtise. Locating the contingency of stupidity’s meaning he reads
it as a negative judgment without a ‘univocal’ concept. Derrida believes stupidity’s ignoble stature makes it
an unspeakable core within philosophy. The neglect of stupidity highlights the denigration of minoritarian
subjectivites that the accusation of stupidity can demean. If the intellectual is not exempt from stupidity and
if it cannot be overcome by accumulating more knowledge, how can the problem of stupidity be worked on
and through?
Moreover, stupidity’s ability to punish or to give credibility derives from a hegemonic power relation. Eve
Sedgwick refers to the ‘privilege of unknowing’ whereby patriarchal heteronomative culture plays ignorant
and implicitly stupid to deny its dependence upon the circulation of same sex desire. Does embracing
unintelligibility enable non-normative subjects to avoid complicity in discriminatory politics of
identification? If stupidity is used to discredit unintelligibility, what advantages are there in this move?
How might the problem of stupidity be posed in relation to the refusal of distinct sexual definitions which
underwrites much of contemporary queer politics?
We invite papers that respond to stupidity by examining its marginalisation within philosophical practice
whilst also encouraging contributors to take seriously the provocation of writing stupidly as a critical
practice.
Submission deadline: 1 April 2012
Potential contributors are encouraged to contact the guest editors:
Paul Clinton and Andrew Hennlich
Art History and Visual Studies
Mansfield Cooper Building
School of Arts, Histories and Cultures
The University of Manchester
Manchester
M13 9PL
Email: paul.clinton@manchester.postgrad.ac.uk
andrew.hennlich@gmail.com