Viva la Difference"": Distinctions in Two-Year and Four-Year Writing Classrooms
Presentations exploring meaningful differences in students, curriculum, and pedagogy, with emphasis on
opportunities for dynamic teaching and learning within the two-year college. Abstracts by 1 Mar to Nina
Bannett (nbannett@citytech.cuny.edu)
Computer Applications in English and Foreign Languages
South Central Modern Language Association Annual Convention
October 28-30, 2006
Fort Worth, TX
The 2006 SCMLA Computer Applications in English and Foreign Languages session welcomes
submissions on any aspect of computer-assisted instruction, humanities computing, electronic literacy, or
related topic. Please send papers or 500-word abstract to session chair Tom Nelson at
<tjnelson@mail.utexas.edu>.
Submissions due March 15. Notification of acceptance will be made by April 7; participants must be
members of SCMLA by May 15, 2006.
I would like to encourage you to submit a proposal for the session entitled "Practical Approaches to
Teaching Film", which I will be chairing this year at the 60th Annual Rocky Mountain Modern
Language Association convention. This session dedicated to using film in the classroom has met with
great enthusiasm in the past and led to a fruitful exchange of ideas among teachers from a wide range of
institutions.
Paper proposals based on a 300-word abstract must be submitted by March 1, 2006, preferably as an email
attachment. You be notified of the chair's decision by March 15th. This year's convention will be held at
the DoubleTree Resort Hotel at Reid Park in Tucson, Arizona from October 12-14, 2006. More
information on the convention (including the complete call for papers) can be found at
http://rmmla.wsu.edu/.
If you should have any questions regarding the session, please send me an email at rritterb@shepherd.edu.
I look forward to receiving your proposals!
Best regards,
Rachel Ritterbusch
Assistant Professor of French
Dept. of English and Modern Languages
Shepherd University
P.O. Box 3210
Shepherdstown, WV 25443-3210
office phone: (304) 876-5260
email: rritterb@shepherd.edu
Shakespeare after 9/11:
MLA Special Session and Journal Issue
In conjunction with the theme of a future issue of the Shakespeare Yearbook, "Shakespeare after 9/11"
(Theme Editor, Matthew Biberman), the journal will sponsor a special session at the upcoming Annual
Meeting of the MLA (Philadelphia, December 27-30, 2006).
In the wake of the New Historicism, much critical work on Shakespeare and his contemporaries has been
faulted for its failure to develop and deploy an active sense of historical self-consciousness. Such a failure
can be traced to a number of significant tendencies in historicist methodology: the privileging of
synchronic analysis over diachronic (or recursive) approaches; the conviction that truth emerges as an
immanent entity within culture, one that can be teased out by the patient critic; and (more fundamentally)
the lack of interest in how meaning functions across time -- what is often pejoratively labeled transhistoricist. Not surprisingly, little has been done to think through what it means to read and teach the
literary production of Shakespeare and his contemporaries after 9/11.
Shakespeare Yearbook hopes to fill this critical gap by seeking out and publishing scholarly essays that
take seriously what and how early modern English literature means in a post-9/11 world - a world where
strangers can be terrorists, where a heavy coat can be the signifier for a suicide attack or a briefcase can be
a dirty bomb, where the workplace, the daily commute, the shopping center, or even the theatre, can be
transformed in an instant into a site of mass suffering and death. The journal welcomes scholarship that
treats issues of religion, violence, empire, and race in works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries,
especially in light of post-9/11 readings, stagings, and films of such works.
To be considered for the MLA, please submit title and 250-word abstract of proposed paper along with a
brief scholarly bio by March 10, 2006 to Douglas A. Brooks (dbrooks@tamu.edu). Digital submissions as
e-mail attachments in Rich Text Format or Microsoft Word only. Proposed MLA papers must not exceed
eight double-spaced pages in Times New Roman 12 point.
To be considered for Shakespeare Yearbook prospective contributors should submit 250-word abstracts
and brief scholarly bios to Douglas A. Brooks (dbrooks@tamu.edu) by May 31, 2006 Digital submissions
as e-mail attachments in Rich Text Format or Microsoft Word only.
Maximum length for essays is 35 double-spaced pages in Times New Roman 12 point. Citations should be
formatted according to the Chicago Manual of Style. The name of the author/s should only appear in an
accompanying cover letter. All essays are reviewed anonymously by two readers.
-Douglas A. Brooks
Editor, Shakespeare Yearbook http://www-english.tamu.edu/pubs/sjb/
Associate Professor, Department of English
http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/brooks/
Faculty Coordinator, College of Liberal Arts Honors Program
http://clla.tamu.edu/lbarplan/
Texas A&M University
210 B Blocker MS 4227
College Station, TX 77843-4227
H: 979-574-0968; W: 979-862-1411; Fax: 979-862-2292
Dear Colleagues:
The Editors of _Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and
Appropriation_ are delighted to announce the release of Issue 1.2 (Fall/Winter 2005), our first
general issue, at www.borrowers.uga.edu.
This issue includes essays by Graham Holderness on scientific metaphors of appropriation; Thomas
Cartelli and Katherine Rowe on _The King is Alive_; Daniel Gil on the visual grammar of sexuality in
Orson Welles's Shakespeare films; Alexander Huang on historicism, presentism, and a Sino-Soviet _Much
Ado About Nothing_, and Sarah Hatchuel on "The Gift or Denial of Sight in Screen Adaptations of
Shakespeare's _Macbeth_," among others. Issue 1.2 also includes reviews of appropriations in performance
and recent critical books on Shakespeare and Appropriation.
Issue 2.1 (Spring 2006) will be a special issue, Shakespeare for Children. We have extended the due date
for issue 2.1 (special issue: Shakespeare for Children) and welcome submissions as soon as possible.
Currently we solicit essays, book reviews, accounts of Appropriation in Performance, essay-clusters, and
new discoveries for upcoming general and special issues. General issues appear in the Fall, and Special
issues in the Spring. Future special issues include Shakespeare for Children (2006), Canadian
Shakespeares (2007, guest-editor Daniel Fischlin), and Shakespeare and Opera. We welcome suggestions
for themes for special issues or for essay-clusters (groups of two or more essays on a related concern or
text).
Contributors interested in writing for our guest-edited special issue, Canadian Shakespeares, should
contact the guest-editor, Daniel Fischlin, at <dfischli@uoguelph.ca> with queries and should send
completed essays by December 31, 2006, to the guest-editor and general editors.
We also encourage submissions for our next general issue (2.2). We accept submissions for general issues
year-round, but recommend that contributors interested in publishing in issue 2.2 send us their
manuscripts no later than July 31, 2006.
Please address general inquiries to the General Editors, Christy Desmet and Sujata Iyengar, by email at
borrowers@english.uga.edu or to Associate Editor Robert Sawyer at resawyer1@charter.net. Book
reviewers may contact our book review editor, Kalpen Trivedi, directly by email at kalpen@uga.edu.
Reviewers of Appropriations in Performance may contact our performance revieweditor, Matthew
Kozusko, directly at mkozusko@ursinus.edu.
-Christy Desmet and Sujata Iyengar, General Editors
Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation
Department of English
Park Hall
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-6205
http://www.borrowers.uga.edu
borrowers@english.uga.edu
Call for papers: 'Chaucer and Time'
www.londonchaucer.org.uk
The Third London Chaucer Conference will be taking place at the University of London Senate
House, Bloomsbury, London, England, on 19-20 April 2007. Proposals for papers are welcome, and
should relate to an aspect of the Conference theme.
Relevant topics include
Chaucer and history
The past, present and future of Chaucer studies
Narrative time
Technologies of time
Metre
Historicisms
Medievalism
Presentism
Philosophies of time
The calendar and the seasons
Anachronism
Nostalgia
Teleology and eschatological time
Liturgical time
Lifespan and life-cycle
Further details and registration information will be posted at the conference website www.londonchaucer.org.uk - in due course.
Papers will be limited to 20 minutes. Abstracts of approximately 200 words should be submitted by 1
December 2006, together with any special requests for audio-visual requirements. In the meantime, please
address any queries, or send proposals for papers (either hard copy or as an email attachment) with an
abstract, to:
Anthony Bale, email: a.bale@bbk.ac.uk or at School of English and Humanities, Birkbeck, University of
London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX (Tel. +44 (0)20 7631 6081); or Alcuin Blamires, email:
ens01ab@gold.ac.uk or at Department of English and Comparative Literature, Goldsmith's College,
University of London, New Cross, London, SE14 6NW Tel. +44 (0)20 7919 7430; or Rosalind Field,
email: r.field@rhul.ac.uk, or at English Department, Royal Holloway, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX (Tel. +44
(0)1784 434455).
-----------Dr Anthony Bale
Lecturer in medieval literature
School of English & Humanities
Birkbeck, University of London
Malet Street
LONDON WC1E 7HX
0207 631 6081
a.bale@bbk.ac.uk
CFP: Medieval Romance: Historical and Literary Approaches (3/1/06; RMMLA, 10/12/06-10/14/06)
Paper proposals are invited for the "Medieval Romance: Historical and Literary Approaches"
session at the 2006 Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association conference in Tucson, Arizona.
Papers may focus on any aspect of medieval romance, but preference will be given to papers that explore
historical elements of the romance. Please send a 1-page abstract before March 1, 2006 to:
Ryan Muckerheide
Arizona State University
Department of English
PO Box 870302
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
Or by email attachment to: Ryan.Muckerheide _ at _ asu.edu
All presenters must be current RMMLA members as of April 1, 2006. For more information, see the
website at http://www.rmmla.org <http://www.rmmla.org/>.
I am also seeking an Alternate Chair for this panel. Duties would include running the session if for some
reason the Chair is unable to attend, and possibly taking over the panel as chair for the 2007 conference in
Calgary. Presenters and attendees are invited to volunteer.
-Ryan Muckerheide
Arizona State University
Department of English
P.O. Box 870302
Tempe, AZ 85287-0302
The theme of the "SymPo(e)sium," a special session of the 60th Rocky Mountain Modern Language
Association Annual Conference, to be held in Tucson, Arizona, October 12-14, 2006, will be "Poe and
. . . ." The session organizer would welcome submissions of 250-500 word abstracts or completed
papers on topics relating to Edgar Allan Poe's literary influence. Papers might explore topics relating
to Poe's influence on another writer or creative artist, Poe's influence on a contemporary or on a writer or
artist who flourished after Poe's time, Poe's influence on an American or other-than-American writer or
artist. Please email proposals to toliver-c@mssu.edu or mail them to Cliff Toliver, Department of English,
Missouri Southern State University, Joplin, Missouri, 64801, by March 15, 2006.
Abstracts are invited for the Short Fiction Session of the South Central Modern Language
Association meeting which will take place in Fort Worth, Texas, 28-30 October 2006.
"Revolutionizing Short Fiction: Kate Chopin, Katherine Mansfield, and Katherine Anne Porter"
This session invites papers exploring any of the revolutionary and revolutionizing aspects of the short
fiction of Kate Chopin, Katherine Mansfield, and/or Katherine Anne Porter. Four papers will be accepted
for this panel.
Some aspects of "revolution" which might be explored include but are not limited to the:
*transformation of the form or style of the genre
*subtle feminist positioning achieved through characterization and/or narrative perspective
*language as transforming agent
*setting as character or metaphor
Please send brief abstracts(up to 250 words) by e-mail (no attachments please) or regular mail to:
Dr. Julie Chappell, Department of English & Languages, HUM 312 Box T-0300, Tarleton State
University, Stephenville, TX 76402 (chappell@tarleton.edu) no later than 15 March 2006.
Panelists will be notified no later than 1 April and must be a member of SCMLA by 15 May. For more
information on membership, etc. visit http://www.ou.edu/scmla/
For any questions regarding this session, send an e-mail to: chappell@tarleton.edu
Julie A. Chappell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Associate Director of Graduate Studies
Department of English & Languages
Humanities 312 Box T-0300
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, Texas 76402
Tel 254.968.9320
Fax 254.968.1931
Beckett and the Thirties
October 20, 21, 2006
Paris, France
In celebration of the centenary of Samuel Beckett, the universities of Paris III-Sorbonne nouvelle,
Strasbourg II-Marc Bloch, and Paris VII-Denis Diderot, are co-organizing the conference, Beckett and
the Thirties, to be held at the Ecole Normale Sup E9rieure in Paris, where Beckett held the post of
lecteur from 1928-1930.
As the title indicates, this conference will focus on the period of 1929-1939, and in particular on Beckett s
relationship with both the city of Paris and French literary, philosophical, and intellectual traditions and
texts. At the same time, we wish to emphasize the specificities of Beckett s work as an English-language
writer during this time, which preceded his much more intensive use of French as language of
composition from the nineteen-forties onward. We would also welcome considerations of Beckett s
deeply formative encounters with German and Italian literature, philosophy, and art during this period.
Please send a short proposal (250 words maximum) and a short cv to either Daniel Katz
(dkatz@wanadoo.fr), Carle Bonafous-Murat (cbmurat@aol.com), or Ciaran Ross (ciaranross@tele2.fr) by
April 30, 2006. Please mention Beckett and the Thirties in your subject line, and paste your text into
the message rather than sending attachments.
Birth was the death of him : Samuel Beckett, Death, Dying and All That Other Unfinished
Business'
An International Conference in honour of Samuel Beckett s Centenary
Avenue Campus, University of Northampton, 1st 3rd December 2006
The Centre for Contemporary Fiction & Narrative, School of Arts,
University of Northampton;
The UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies;
and the London Beckett Seminar Group
Co-organized by:
Birth was the death of him. Again. Words are few. Dying too. Birth was the death of him. A Piece of
Monologue
Keynote speakers to be announced
The centenary of Samuel Beckett s birth is with us and, in the period since his death in 1989, his texts
have continued to thrive and spark massive critical engagement. For Beckett, death marks us all, and haunts
our existences. Christopher Ricks, in Beckett s Dying Words, insists that Beckett is concerned not with any
instinct of self-preservation, but The desire of oblivion (Clarendon Press, 1993; p. 3) Beckett s oeuvre is
ineluctably associated with states of death, dying, limbo, purgatory, and various conditions of (non-)being
pervading the Beckettian text and subject. Such contexts and themes will be the foci for this international
gathering of scholars.
Northampton seems an appropriate place for such a consideration since, as a young man, Beckett twice
played cricket for Trinity College against Northamptonshire (appearing in Wisden) and much later
frequently visited Lucia Joyce in St Andrew's private psychiatric hospital in Northampton, where she was
institutionalized from 1951 to 1982, suffering what her biographer, Carol Loeb Shloss, called a mysterious
illness (Bloomsbury, 2004; p. 6). In addition to being where Lucia died and is buried, this asylum is
where John Clare, the Northamptonshire peasant-poet, died in 1864 after living 23 years in the hospital.
Hence, in your travels to the conference you will literally be following in both Beckett s and Clare s
footsteps. This final centenary gathering will consequently analyze and consider the tropes referred to
above in terms of their relationship to Beckett Studies, and will hopefully take these ideas and concepts
even further, investigating themes of Beckettian deathliness that act as a finally anxious influence surviving
in other writers.
On one of the evenings of the conference, there will be a private reading of a late Beckettian text by
renowned Beckett actress and scholar, Dr. Rosemary Pountney. Other activities, including keynote
addresses and a conference dinner, to mark Beckett s centenary will follow throughout the weekend;
academic papers will be delivered over the course of Friday 1st December to Sunday 3rd December 2006.
Accommodation can be provided at the Sunley Management Centre, but both this and the conference
dinner will be charged in addition to the basic registration fee specified below. Details of other local
hotels can be sent by e-mail on request.
Papers and panels are invited on all relevant topics and themes, considering all of Beckett s work in its
various genres and phases. Especially welcome are papers and panels capable to working within the
following proposed themes, although these are not to be considered as inclusive:
Beckett's Deathly Humour
Gothic Beckett and Beckett's Gothic
Holy Living and Holy Dying: Beckett s Formative Readings
Textual Death: Genetic Criticism since 1989
Beckett s Demise and an Afterlife of Archival Revelations
Philosophy, Time and Finitude
Eschatology, Teleology, Religion and The End Deathly Lives and Deathly Living: Beckett s Drama
Lunacy as Limbo: Limbo as Lunacy
Beckett s Legacy: Deathly States
Repetition as Deathliness
Disembodied Voices: Beckettian Narratives
Psychoanalysis, Death and Other Unfinished Business
N.B. Other themes will be considered!
Send abstracts for proposed panels and/or papers of 200 250 words per
paper. Proposal deadline: Friday 8th September, 2006; however notification of acceptance for international
delegates requiring confirmation for travel funding is guaranteed by Monday 17th July 2006 if such
proposals are received by Friday 30th June 2006. Individual requests for earlier confirmation may be
possible.
Using Word, abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent as an attachment to all of the following
three e-addresses with the subject line as Death, Dying and Samuel Beckett: Centenary Conference (this
is essential as your messages will be searched for and sorted automatically and unless you use this subject
line your message will not be retrieved this phrase can be cut and pasted easily enough):
Matthew Feldman: matthew.feldman@northampton.ac.uk
Philip Tew: tewp@ukf.net
Steve Barfield: barfies@westminster.a.uk
Please note that there will be a special discounted rate for participants who pay before Monday, 2nd
October 2006. Academics and the public: A355.00 [fifty-five pounds sterling]; participant members of
the UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies, and the London Beckett Seminar, and University of
Northampton staff A330:00 [thirty pounds sterling]; unwaged and students: A325 [twenty-five pounds].
Accommodation and meals will be charged in addition to this fee. Prices to be sent to delegates on
acceptance.
Please note that after the deadline for payment on Monday, 2nd October 2006 a surcharge of A320
[twenty pounds sterling] will be added to all of the above. Only sterling amounts can be accepted either
cheques or money orders [although details for electronic transfer may be available on request] N.B.
cheques and money orders must be made out to: THE LONDON NETWORK FOR MODERN FICTION
STUDIES (please note the different appellation for our bank account!)
Send payments to:
Prof. Philip Tew
Director
UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies
c/o 22a Fairmead Road
Tufnell Park
London, N19 4DF
United Kingdom
Or:
UK Network for Modern Fiction Studies
c/o Suzanne Wills
English Department
Brunel University
Department of English
Brunel University
Uxbridge
Middlesex UB8 3PH
EMERGENCY CONTACT ONLY BY PHONE OR TEXT MESSAGE: 00 44 (0)7956 951 930
(mobile rates apply as from your location to the UK)
Conference Convenors and Coordinators:
Mr. Steve Barfield
Dr. Matthew Feldman
Prof. Philip Tew
Call for Papers - The Line of Contemporary Poetry
The British and Irish Contemporary Poetry Conference
22-24 September 2006
to be held as St Anne's College, Oxford, England
in association with the University of St Andrews, Seamus Heaney Centre Queens University, Belfast, and
Lancaster University
Speakers include Professor Jonathan Bate, Professor John Kerrigan, Professor Robert Crawford, Dr Mark
Ford and Dr Deryn Rees-Jones
Abstracts are invited on the conference theme of: The Line of Contemporary Poetry. Abstracts to be 300
words in length on the conference theme and should propose papers which will read to 20 minutes.
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 March 2006 Ideas for panels and conference events in nontraditional formats are welcomed.
For further information, contact John Stammers editor@poetryconference.org.uk or go to
www.poetryconference.org.uk
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Boxcar Poetry Review, a new online journal, is pleased to announce the call for submissions for its
March 2006 and future issues.
We are currently seeking reviews and critical writing on first books of poetry published in the past
five years (2001-2005). We also welcome creative submissions of poetry and artwork on any theme.
Boxcar Poetry Review is updated regularly to showcase the finest poetry in written in the English language,
be it lyric or narrative. In addition to poetry, Boxcar features b&w photography, reviews of first books of
poetry, and interviews with first book poets. An anthology of the best of the year's work will be published
in print at the end of the year.
Submit by email to boxcarpoetry@gmail.com
Poetry: 3-5 poems as a Word or RTF attachment, include a brief bio in the body of your email.
Simultaneous submissions ok with immediate notification.
Reviews: Reviews should be no longer than 750 words. Include a brief bio in the text of your email. Please
note that we only take reviews of first books of poetry published in the past 5 years.
Art & Photography: Send 3-5 images in JPG format for review. Include a brief bio in the text of your
email. If accepted, we may request larger and/or uncompressed versions.
Please visit our website for more information: http://www.boxcarpoetry.com
From:
Neil Aitken, Editor
http://www.boxcarpoetry.com
editor@boxcarpoetry.com
Proposed Special Session (and possible edited volume) on “Poet’s Theater”
Submission Deadline: March 15, 2006
MLA Convention: Philadelphia, Dec. 27-30, 2006
In the spirit of the 2006 MLA convention focus on poetry, this panel seeks to examine “Poet’s
Theater” as practiced by a variety of twentieth-century poets, playwrights, and theater groups. As
envisioned for this panel, “Poet’s Theater” refers to material and/or performative language brought
into the realm of live, embodied stage performance. This category includes both works of “poetry”
brought into the space of theater and works of “theater” whose self-conscious use of language might be
productively examined in poetic terms. Although the immediate goal is to organize papers for an MLA
panel, it is also my hope to gather enough strong submissions for a possible collected volume.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
Histories of Poet’s Theater (as genre, as local practice, etc.)
Production histories
Poet’s Theater communities
Strategies of writing, directing, and/or acting
Collaborative aspects of Poet’s Theater
Critical approaches
Examinations of audience
Approaches to staging
Multimedia and visual elements in Poet’s Theater
The role of embodiment in Poet’s Theater
The role of language in Poet’s Theater
Comparisons of different Poet’s Theater practices, communities, etc.
Poet’s Theater as cultural, political, and/or ethical intervention
Please submit 300-word abstracts and brief bio or CV to heidi-bean@uiowa.edu
by March 15, 2006 (and indicate with your submission whether you will require any audiovisual
equipment). Selected presenters are required to be members of MLA by April 7, 2006.
Collection Compelling Confessions: The Politics of Personal Disclosure
(abstracts by 3/31/06; accepted manuscripts by 5/19/06)
Personal testimony seems ubiquitous in contemporary culture, raising fundamental questions: is the
authentic personal disclosure we apparently prize—whether in classrooms, on television, in clinical or
legal settings, or elsewhere—productive, advisable, or even possible, from a psychoanalytic or other
theoretical perspective? Manifestations of a confessional impulse are widely available not only in in
fiction, poetry, autobiography, and memoirs but also in ethnography, within therapeutic or legal
frameworks, in popular, so-called “reality” television, in “expressivist” writing theories and, increasingly,
in a testimonial strain observable in pedagogical scholarship. Less available to general readers and
viewers, however, are the strategies for assessing modes of personal disclosure in literature, the classroom
and popular media.
Which theories, concepts, and terms equip interested observers with a critical understanding of
confessional strategies and effects? Compelling Confessions aims to make available to general readers a
range of essays (2500-5000 words) that visibly interact with relevant theory by way of making clear the
promise, pressures, procedures and/or pitfalls connected with “telling one’s story.” In other words, this
compilation aims to provide a critical vocabulary with which its readers might more systematically assess
the confessional rhetoric they encounter. Essays that interrogate unexamined assumptions within the
discourse about personal disclosure are welcome; the crucial point is that they make what is at stake in
their interrogations clear and meaningful to a general readership. Compelling Confessions differs from
collections such as Modern Confessional Writing: New Critical Essays (Routledge) in its inclusion of
popular media, non-literary communication, and contemporary pedagogy within the confessional
paradigm and in its purposive aim at a non-scholarly audience.
Please direct all inquiries/abstracts to sdiamond@ysu.edu and use “Compelling Confessions” as the subject
line to ensure a prompt response. Abstracts should be pasted into e-messages (not posted as attachments)
accepted manuscripts should be snail-mailed (along with authors’ contact information) to S. Diamond,
Department of English, Youngstown State University, One University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555.
Deadline for abstracts: March 31, 2006. Deadline for accepted
manuscripts: May 19, 2006.
CFP: Dismodernist Poetics / Post-Ableist Poetics (March 17; Modernist Studies Association annual
convention 06, October 19-22)
The purpose of this panel is to bring two interdisciplinary fields (Disability Studies and Modern &
Contemporary Poetics) into conversation, putting pressure on emerging terminology in these fields,
with a view toward imagining a "post-ableist poetics."
Lennard Davis' founding study, Enforcing Normalcy, posits the source and salient character of ableist
ideology as specifically Modern, while his recent work on "Dismodernism" envisions "a new category
based on the partial, incomplete subject whose realization is not autonomy and independence, but
dependency and interdependence." Deliberate or not, this phrasing reads practically identical to axioms in
innovative poetics (re: readership as well as composition), specifically those poetics associated with
Modernist, avant-garde, and contemporary poetries of "indeterminacy."
Classical and neo-romantic conceptions of aesthetics' relationship to eugenics has been a salient point of
scrutiny in Disability Studies thus far. It remains to bring Davis' cue into a new conversation about the
ways in which Disability Studies and poetics can serve one another. Thus, I'm seeking papers addressing
forms, processes, and systems--ways of making--which engage or engender new subjectivities which may
be specifically post-ableist.
* This panel is proposed, not yet accepted. Send an abstract and short bio (or CV) by March 17 to
patrickdurgin at earthlink dot net. I will be in touch soon thereafter. I am also seeking a chair / respondent
for the panel.
Dr. Patrick F. Durgin
Lecturer in English Language & Literature
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor