第 12 屆英美文學學會
國際學術資訊 第九十九期
Contents
Conferences in Asia Pacific and Other Places
2
Conferences in North America
11
Conferences in Europe
37
Journals and Collections of Essays
58
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Conferences in Asia Pacific and Other Places
Shakespearean Journeys: ASA Conference Seminars
May 15-17, 2014
Due: December 10, 2013
Bi-qi Beatrice Lei / Asian Shakespeare Association
admin@AsianShakespeare.org
CALL FOR SEMINAR PAPERS
Shakespearean Journeys:
The Inaugural Conference of the Asian Shakespeare Association
Taipei, 15-17 May 2014
By land or sea, across city and country, journeys comprise an important motif in
Shakespeare’s works, be they smooth or perilous, round trip or to an undiscovered
country from whose bourne no travelers return. The journeys undertaken can be
physical, emotional, spiritual, or a combination. Though not in person, Shakespeare
also journeys extensively, crossing not only time and space but also language, culture,
and media. A most versatile and protean voyager, Shakespeare sometimes travels light
and does as the locals do, yet sometimes carries heavy baggage and remains a stranger
in a foreign land. “Shakespearean Journeys” aims to explore all aspects of this theme.
Keynote Speakers:
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Peter Holbrook, University of Queensland (Australia), Chair of the International
Shakespeare Association
Kawachi Yoshiko, Kyorin University (Japan)
Dennis Kennedy, Samuel Beckett Professor and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity
College Dublin (Ireland)
Lena Cowen Orlin, Georgetown University, Executive Director of the
Shakespeare Association of America (USA)
Perng Ching-Hsi, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, National Taiwan University;
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Visiting Professor, Fu Jen Catholic University (Taiwan)
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Shen Lin, Central Academy of Drama (China)
Special Guests:
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Rustom Bharucha, Jawaharlal Nehru University (India)
Ing K(anjanavanit), filmmaker, journalist, painter, writer (Thailand)
Nehad Selaiha, Higher Institute of Artistic Criticism, the Academy of Arts
(Egypt)
Live Performances:
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Betrayal (an adaptation of Cardenio by Rom Shing Hakka Opera Troupe from
Taiwan, dir. Wu Ziming)
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King Lear (a modern rock adaptation by Nomad Theatre from Korea, dir. Son
Jeung-Woo)
Sintang Dalisay (an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in traditional music and
dance by Tanghalang Ateneo from the Philippines, dir., Ricardo Abad)
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Film Screening:
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Shakespeare Must Die (an adaptation of Macbeth from Thailand, dir. Ing K)
Censors Must Die (documentary, dir. Ing K)
Submission Guidelines:
Please choose a seminar and submit a 250-word abstract and a short bio directly to the
seminar leader(s). Acceptance will be based on relevance, quality, and space capacity.
Deadlines:
Deadline for abstract submission is 10 December 2013. Results will be announced by
the end of December. If accepted, complete papers of 8-12 pages must be submitted
by 1 March 2014.
Fees:
Conference registration starts 1 January 2014. All conference participants must be
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registered members of the ASA and must remit the conference registration fee. If you
wish to apply for a need-based fee waiver or paid double-occupancy lodging, please
add a paragraph of explanation.
Contact:
Please send your query about the seminar to the seminar leader(s). General questions
concerning the conference should be sent to admin@AsianShakespeare.org.
Updates:
For conference updates, please visit http://AsianShakespeare.org.
Seminars:
1. Translating the “Untranslatable”: Trans-cultural and Trans-media Migration of
Shakespeare (Minami Ryuta, Shirayuri College)
Shakespeare has travelled worldwide, crossing geopolitical, cultural and temporal
borders and taking root in non-Anglophone countries and regions. Such transferences
of Shakespearean texts, which are often treated as literary or theatrical
translation/adaptation of the texts into a non-Anglophone language/ culture, almost
always coincide with their transpositions from one media platform to another. While
something is always lost in the verbal translation of Shakespeare’s texts from English
to the target language, the target media platforms such as stage, screen, manga,
animation or YoutTube, along with socio-cultural differences, encourage artists and
creators to add something new (and unexpected) to the source text in attempts at
replacing or compensating for the “untranslatable” or simply updating the source texts.
This seminar will discuss variegated forms of translation/adaptation of Shakespearean
texts so as to expound and consider what happens to the “untranslatable” when
Shakespeare migrates or is migrated to any media platform of non-Anglophone and/or
unconventional contexts. (mlc18498@nifty.com)
2. The Journey: Scene of and Metaphor for Transformation (T. J. Sellari, National
Chengchi University)
This seminar will approach various forms of transformation in Shakespeare's works,
where change can take the form of a literal or metaphorical journey. Papers for this
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seminar will cover transformations and shifts in time and space, as well as the effects
on character and consciousness that result from the recognition of change. They may
also explore the representation of immaterial transformations, and question the ways
in which such claims of transformation are, like the drama and poetry which bear
them, both representational and wholly presentational, supposing referents while
making none available for appeals to accuracy or verisimilitude. The variety of the
transformations addressed in these papers will illustrate the diverse forms journeys
take in the different genres in which Shakespeare worked, and test the limits of the
usefulness of the journey as a metaphor for change. (tsellari@gmail.com)
3.
Shakespeare across Media (Yoshihara Yukari, University of Tsukuba)
Film, TV, comics, manga, games, gambling machines, farce, animation, Hollywood,
Bollywood, musical— Shakespeare is everywhere across media. Some renderings
attempt to faithfully reproduce Shakespeare’s originals, while others dare to be vastly
different from them. Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) reproduces Shakespeare’s
original story relatively faithfully, while GONZO’s animation Romeo X Juliet (2007)
and Ryan Denmark’s Romeo & Juliet vs. The Living Dead (2009) show us totally
different scenes, employing only the very bare plot line and character names of the
original. To take instances from comics/manga/animation, Classics Illustrated series
Hamlet and Gianni De Luca’s versions belong to the former; Neil Gaiman’s Sandman
series where Shakespeare appears as a Prospero-like character, is somewhere in the
middle; Ophelia in Yagi’s Claymore (2001-), a gigantic monster with a dragon’s tail,
has almost no resemblance to her original. We can think of varieties of
Shakespeare/fakespeare films, such as Xiaogang Feng’s The Banquet (2006), Farah
Khan’s Om Shanti Om (2007), Won-kuk Lim’s Frivolous Wife (2007), Hou Chi-jan’s
Juliet’s Choice (2010) and Connie Macatuno’s Rome and Juliet (2011), with varying
degrees of faithfulness to the originals. By examining these Shakespeare across media,
this seminar attempts to locate their intertextualities within the larger cultural frames
of vernacular literary adaptation, pop appropriation, use/abuse of Shakespeare.
Intermedial Shakespeares, both faithful/unfaithful to the originals, are welcome.
(yukariyoshihara@gmail.com)
4. Cross-Cultural Performativity of Shakespearean Plays (Katrine K. Wong,
University of Macau)
“[T]he purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold, as
'twere, the mirror up to nature” (Hamlet 3.2.20-22). Hamlet lectures the players on
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principles of acting and explains the quintessence of acting, a concept prevalent since
classical times. What is reflected in the mirror is “the very age and body of the time
his form and pressure” (3.2.23-24). In terms of dramaturgy, this “nature” can be
interpreted as an embodiment of the fundamental characteristics of the place and
people which such playing features and, perhaps, upon which such playing is modeled.
This seminar invites papers about cross-cultural interpretation of Shakespearean plays,
including but not limited to a focus on performativity, translation and adaptation.
Discussions may be about any ethnicity, nationality, historical period, style and genre
of production. Though not necessary, seminarians are welcome to examine the
correlation between textual and theatrical dimensions. It is hoped that this panel,
through looking at cross-cultural renditions of Shakespearean plays that transcend
temporal, geographical and cultural locales, will explore various elaborative and/or
reductive treatment and representation of Shakespeare's narrative and mise-en-scène.
(KWong@umac.mo)
5. Crossing Gender and Cultural Boundaries in Shakespeare: Cross-dressing in
Plays, Adaptations, and Popular Culture (Yilin Chen, Providence University and Ian
Maclennan, Laurentian University)
The theme of cross-dressing occurs frequently in Shakespeare’s plays. In his romance
and comedy, heroines disguise themselves as young men. The most frequently
discussed plays in relation to the object of such transformation are probably The
Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona and
Cymbeline. His earliest history plays also feature female characters, who probably
appear in masculine battle-dress, such as Joan in Part I of Henry VI, Margaret in Part
III, and Eleanor in King John. On some occasions, male characters are dressed in
female clothes, like Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew and Falstaff in The Merry
Wives of Windsor. This seminar welcomes new ideas about these plays, and aims to
explore the cross-dressing journeys that Shakespeare’s characters have been through,
with a consideration of how their journeys are adapted and appropriated in
performance and popular culture. Shakespeare travels across borders. Thus, the
seminar invites discussion about the inquiry into the variety of Shakespearean
cross-dressing journeys in single-sex performance or adaptations. Furthermore, a
close examination of the ways in which sexual pleasure is described and translated
into specific cultural settings will be highly appreciated. (yc276@yahoo.com)
6. Shakespeare Performance and Contemporary Asian Politics (Yong Li Lan,
National University of Singapore)
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Any performance of Shakespeare by Asians has a political resonance, if not always a
definable agenda. In quite different socio-political and theatrical situations today,
distinctive histories that have connected Shakespeare with Asian performers underpin
why Shakespeare is a viable, even a necessary, choice; and that history forms an
environment that defines a production’s choices of how his play is to be adapted and
staged, and in which those choices are received by audiences. Whereas the political
roles played by Shakespeare in Europe and North America have been the subject of
collective research in recent years, the utilization of his plays as a means of staging
and negotiating power formations in contemporary Asian contexts is currently
understood in terms of unique, discrete examples. This seminar aims to bring together
accounts of the political usage of Shakespeare in Asian performance contexts, whether
as a deliberate strategy or as an implication of the performance. The objective of the
seminar is to elaborate the range of topics through which the political performativity
of Asian Shakespeares may be articulated and compared. Papers are therefore
encouraged to extrapolate from the concrete details of productions to the broader kind
of political purposiveness that Shakespeare serves in each case. We invite papers that
explore one of the following topics:
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the position created by using Shakespeare’s work to represent local political
issues and agendas, instead of an indigenous play
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the performativity of theatrical genre, music, translation, race and/or gender in
presenting ideological relations
re-formulations of the positionalities in Shakespeare’s play with respect to local
hierarchies
production and rehearsal processes, mechanisms and infrastructures in relation to
the cultural position that Shakespeare occupies
censorship
the political significance and influence of a production
the political “neutrality” of Shakespeare; or, his “universality”
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(ellyll@nus.edu.sg)
7. Travel and Identity: Renegotiating the Self in and through Shakespeare
(Paromita Chakravarti, Jadavpur University)
This seminar focuses on how Shakespearean characters who travel from familiar
locations to unknown destinations are compelled to challenge and renegotiate their
identities. Their moorings in gender, class and nationality are rendered slippery as
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their encounters with “others” require them to reinvent themselves. While this creates
a sense of disorientation, it also makes for a renewal of the self. By extension, the
seminar will also examine how Shakespeare’s plays, as they travel from their original
sites of composition and performance to “foreign climes” and unfamiliar contexts,
stage a “rehearsal of cultures.” These relocations throw up profound challenges to
notions of racial, cultural and national identities as well as to the idea of an integrated
and “original” text and calls for new conceptions of hybridity. While examining these
processes of renegotiating selfhood through experiences of travel, the seminar will
question whether these disorientating encounters actually transform identities or in
fact serve to recuperate and reinforce them? (chakravarti6@gmail.com)
8. Nature, Human Nature, the Supernatural (Kien Ket Lim, National Chiao Tung
University)
Nature, human nature, and the supernatural in Shakespeare are tied to an ethical issue
of its own that must be resolved together in one fell swoop: they all involve how
humans should act accordingly in Nature, and how, in the setting of the plays, the
aristocrats should assume a proper, if not better, identity in a pastoral land as the forest
of Arden, or on a far-flung island of The Tempest, where Nature is replete with
supernatural beings that stake out what humans should and should not do. Nature is
ethical: it is full of an ethical insight of its own that holds the human vision in awe.
(limk@faculty.nctu.edu.tw)
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Physical Cultures: Bengal and Beyond
February 21-22, 2014
Due: December 15, 2013
School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
offog1@gmail.com
In the centuries following the incorporation of ritualized (and often combative)
physical training into community-based lives of hunter-gatherers, nomads, and
agricultural populations of the pre-historic world, the term ‘physical culture’ has seen
many uses in the cultural imagination of various peoples and cultures. In Western
societies, since Plato’s famous prescription of gymnastikê (“physical training” as a
form of moral education for guardians of his dream republic), some understanding of
‘physical culture’ has invariably accompanied negotiations of the community and the
self. From its traditional uses in imbibing personal virtue and political balance in the
individual and the community through informed explorations in ancient combative
and performative traditions, ‘physical culture’, especially after the coming of
industrial capitalism, has been understood as a by-word for contemporary conventions
regarding athleticism, physical beauty, and consumerist narcissism, as well as the
participatory ethos of Nazi mass cultural parades, and military and quasi-military
marches inspired by Western conceptualizations of nationalism and the nation-state.
In non-Western societies, however, and especially in traditional Asian societies, the
ambit of ‘physical culture’ has been much wider: removed from the conceptual
dichotomies of the mind and the body, the individual versus the community, the
‘rigour’ of academics versus the ‘acrobatics’ of plebeians and proles, and so on; it has
been understood as inseparable from an individual’s experiential journeying through
life and the universe where the ‘physical’ aspect is coterminous with the educational
objectives of virtue and intellectual achievement of the journey, while reaffirming the
individual’s bonds with the traditional community and the natural world. The aim of
this conference and workshop is to look beyond the functional Western description of
physical culture, and locate diverse practices of physical culture in non-Western
societies, with particular focus on historical Bengal.
This conference is part of a project titled ‘Physical Cultures of Bengal’, being carried
out by the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, and supported
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by the ‘University with Potential for Excellence-Phase II’ scheme of the University
Grants Commission, India. The conference aims to bring together researchers as well
as practitioners of physical cultures, both traditional and contemporary. Though the
focus of the conference is Bengal, paper proposals on other regions are also welcome.
Papers on the following areas of physical cultures are particularly welcome:
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Feats of strength, body-building, and weightlifting
Traditional wrestling
Circus and acrobatics
Stick, sword, and knife fighting arts
Indigenous martial dance forms such as Bratachari, Raybenshe
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Ju-jitsu, Aikido
Along with the papers, it is expected that there will be demonstrations of the
endangered indigenous Bengali martial dance form Raybenshe, as well as more
contemporary martial art forms such as Aikido.
The conference will be graced by the presence of Sri Bishwanath Dutta, one of the
direct disciples of the legendary Bengali wrestler Gobor Goha.
Paper proposals should be sent by 15 December 2013, to any or all of the following
addresses: Abhijit Gupta (offog1@gmail.com); Nikhilesh Bhattacharya
(nikhilesh1981@gmail.com), and Deeptanil Ray (deeptanilray@gmail.com).
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Conferences in North America
Caribbean Literature, CEA 2014
March 27-29, 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
Laura Barrio-Vilar / College English Association
lxbarriovil@ualr.edu
Call for Papers: Caribbean Literature at CEA 2014
March 27-29, 2014 | Baltimore, Maryland
CEA 2014 will be held at the Hyatt Regency, 300 Light Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies,
welcomes proposals for presentations on Caribbean Literature for our 45th annual
conference. Submit your proposal at http://www.cea-web.org
We welcome individual and panel presentation proposals that address Caribbean
literatures in general, including—but not limited to—the following possible themes:
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Racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, class, and national identities
Colonization and empire
Nationalism and citizenship
Hybridity, transculturation, creolite, and mestizaje
Resistance and resilience
Migration, exile, transnationalism, and/or globalization
Travel and tourism
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Orality and the spoken word
Intertextuality
Diasporic theory and Caribbean literatures
Postcolonial studies and Caribbean literatures
Comparative literary, historical, political, or cultural analyses of Caribbean
literatures
Conference Theme: Horizons
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General Call for Papers: We welcome presentations by experienced academics and
graduate students on all areas of literature, languages, film, composition, pedagogy,
creative writing, and professional writing. Proposals may interpret the CEA theme
broadly, including—but not limited to—the past and future of literature, language,
composition, technology, text, the writer, the poet, the classroom, the internet, gender,
and globalism.
Submission Dates: August 31-November 1, 2013
For more information on how to submit, please see the full CFP at
http://www.cea-web.org
Membership: All presenters at the 2014 CEA conference must become members of
CEA by January 1, 2014. To join CEA, please go to http://www.cea-web.org
Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com.
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Death Sentence, ACLA 2014
March 20-23, 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
Elizabeth Wijaya/ David Coughlan/ American Comparative Literature Association
ew388@cornell.edu/ david.coughlan@ul.ie
With the 2013 publication in English of Volume 1 of Jacques Derrida’s The Death
Penalty, this is an opportune time to discuss the death sentence, which demands
thinking about the limits of punishment and pardon, of death and life, of human and
non-human, of the self and State, of the body, and, it can be argued, the ends of
philosophy itself.
A capital sentence is a death sentence, a lawful determination that the State will put a
person to death as punishment for a crime. This seminar seeks to consider the death
sentence, and its place in theoretical, visual, and literary texts. What does the death
sentence tell us of the value of life, or of the conditions of being, human or not?
Moreover, this seminar is interested in considering the death sentence as text, or the
pre-scribed text as death sentence. And how might one translate a death sentence?
This would be a question not only of language, but of laws, jurisdictions, territories,
and technologies. In an age of rendition and drones, we can ask if a death sentence is
always declared, or if it often remains unspoken.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
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The enforcement of a death sentence, by the Law, Fate, Author
Forms of “death sentence”
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Psychoanalysis and the death drive
Recordings of life, death, and the after-life
Surviving a death sentence: ghosts and immortals
Technologies of execution
Typography, and the end as full-stop, or dash -
Please submit proposals of 250 words or fewer to http://www.acla.org/submit/,
seminar selection "Death Sentence" Proposals must be received by November 1.
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Please contact Elizabeth or David if you have any questions.
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Canons, Counter-narratives, and Social Capital in
Imagined Communities, ACLA 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA)
ksammond@fdu.edu
Benedict Anderson’s 1983 study, Imagined Communities, explores how diverse
peoples have been using literature (in particular, the novel) to construct and legitimize
their national identities. Literature has provided a central means through which
communal identity could be narrated and imagined; as such, it defined correlative
personhood within distinct societies—rendering some narratives canonical in order to
form and reinforce such claims, while excluding or “forgetting” counter-narratives.
Historically, the social capital derived from imagined communities has strategically
used literature in order to benefit and legitimize particular visions of identity,
strengthening claims of cultural, social and political authenticity. Though they seek to
defy the dynamism inherent in identity narration, communities experience revisions to
the canonical literature upon which they are grounded—most improbably by
incorporating counter-narratives whose purpose had been to challenge, question or
subvert the basis upon which they had previously been grounded.
This seminar will explore the ways that texts have informed, reformed or undermined
the social capital of imagined communities (especially the colonial and post-colonial).
What political circumstances are aligned to canon formation in such communities?
How and why are canons violated, undermined and revised? Why is the relationship
between canon, community and identity conceived as an iterative process? How are a
community’s narratives and canon adjusted to incorporate subversive narratives? Why
are some counter-narratives incorporated and others rejected? Topics can include:
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Foundational fictions
Canon formation
Counter-narratives incorporated into canons
Counter-narratives that resist incorporation
Dynamism and the narration of community
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Transnational influences on imagined communities.
NYU is hosting ACLA 2014 over the weekend of March 20-23. Please submit paper
proposals (max. 250 words) through ACLA's website and select this seminar from the
drop-down list: http://www.acla.org/submit/. Deadline: November 1, 2013.
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Film Theory and Aesthetics
February 19-22, 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
Film Theory and Aesthetics 2014 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association
jenkinsj@u.arizona.edu
Proposals are now being sought for review in the Film Theory and Aesthetics Area.
Review begins immediately and continues until November 1, 2013. Listed below are
some suggestions for possible presentations; other topics in the area are also welcome:
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Precinema, Early, and Silent cinema aesthetics
Screen Cultures
Definitions of periodicity: aesthetic, chronologic, theoretical
Classical Film Theory and its Discontents
Nontheatrical, industrial, and educational film
Montage and Editing: Practice as Theory
History of Cinematography
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Visual Effects from Silent to CGI
Spectatorship and Scopophilia
Auteur Theory
Semiotics, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Emergent Theories
Evolution of Genre Film&Genre Theory
Theories of Third Cinema
Emerging theories of film and/or aesthetics in the digital age
Adaptation: Intersections of Film Theory and cultural or literary theory
After July 1, 2013, please upload an abstract of 250 words and a current curriculum
vitae to http://conference2014.southwestpca.org for review no later than November 1,
2013. Inquiries in advance of submissions are welcome, and may be sent to Jennifer L.
Jenkins at jenkinsj@email.arizona.edu. Further details regarding the conference
(listing of all panel areas, hotel, registration, etc.) can be found at
http://www.southwestpca.org All confirmed participants should be registered by
December 31, 2013.
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Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area,
SWPACA
February 19-22, 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA)
http://conference2014.southwestpca.org
Submission Deadline: November 1, 2013
SWPACA Children’s/Young Adult Literature and Culture Area
35th Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference
February 19-22, 2014
Albuquerque, NM
http://southwestpca.org/
Submission deadline: November 1, 2013
Submit proposals to: http://conference2014.southwestpca.org
Conference hotel:
Hyatt Regency Albuquerque
300 Tijeras Avenue NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
Further conference details are available at http://southwestpca.org/
This year, as we celebrate our 35th anniversary, we also introduce our new
organizational name: Southwest Popular/American Culture Association (SWPACA).
Please join us in Albuquerque to celebrate with us the start of a new chapter in our
organization.
The Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture area has taken as its theme
“The Monstrous in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture,” and solicits
proposals dealing with the concept of monsters and the monstrous from literal,
physical, metaphorical, psychological, spiritual, or ideological perspectives. In
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keeping with the conference’s overall theme of “Popular Culture and American
Studies: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow,” papers including some aspect of looking at
“the monstrous” across time will be read with special interest. We highly encourage
“thinking outside the box” with this theme. While papers addressing the conference or
area theme will be given preference, papers addressing other aspects in children’s and
young adult literature and culture will also be read with interest.
Scholars, researchers, professionals, teachers, graduate students and others interested
in this area are encouraged to submit an abstract. Graduate students are especially
encouraged and will be assisted in accessing any and all award opportunities the
conference and/or associations provide. Award categories can be found here:
http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/. Upon acceptance of a
proposal, I will send out information on which awards would be most suited to the
subject matter of the presentation.
We would like to encourage scholars and students outside of the United States to
submit proposals. However, all potential presenters need to be aware that our
conference rules state that participants must present their papers in person at the
conference. Given the more complex nature of international travel these days, we
encourage international proposals be submitted as early as possible so as to provide
enough time to make those travel arrangements.
All proposals need to be submitted using our conference submission database at
http://conference2014.southwestpca.org. This database is used to send out acceptance
notifications, organize panels, and put the conference program together. It is important
for all submitters to enter their contact information and presentation proposal
information into the database to avoid confusion.
This area covers a wide variety of possible mediums: traditional book/literature
culture, but also comics, graphic novels, film, television, music, video games, toys,
internet environment, fan fiction, advertising, marketing tie-ins to books and films,
just to name a few. Proposals on fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or cross-genre topics are
welcome. Interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome, as are presentations
that go beyond the traditional scholarly paper format.
In addition, please check out the organization’s new peer-reviewed, quarterly journal:
Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, which will
debut its inaugural issue at the 2014 conference. (Find more information at
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http://journaldialogue.org.)
Please submit proposals of 250 words and a brief bio (100 words) for individual
presentations, or a proposal for a full panel (3-4 papers on a panel – please submit
contact information, abstract, and brief bio for each person on the panel) to our
conference database at http://conference2014.southwestpca.org.
Proposal submission deadline: November 1, 2013
For questions or if you encounter problems with submitting proposals to the database,
please contact Diana Dominguez, Area Chair. Please put SWPACA in the subject line
so I can filter the messages effectively.
Contact info:
Diana Dominguez
Area Chair: Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture
gypsyscholar@rgv.rr.com
The University of Texas at Brownsville
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Textual Scholarship Across the Disciplines, STS 2014
March 20-22, 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
Society for Textual Scholarship
stsuw14@uw.edu
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Society for Textual Scholarship
International Interdisciplinary Conference
March 20-22, 2014
University of Washington, Seattle
“Textual Scholarship Across the Disciplines”
Program Chairs: Jeffrey Todd Knight and Geoffrey Turnovsky, University of
Washington
Deadline for Proposals: November 1, 2013
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KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
JOHANNA DRUCKER, UCLA
DAVID SCOTT KASTAN, Yale U
SHELDON POLLOCK, Columbia U
Featured sessions with GEORGE BORNSTEIN (U of Michigan), GEORGE
HUTCHINSON (Cornell U), and H. WAYNE STOREY (Indiana U)
=========================================
This conference will bring the Society for Textual Scholarship to UW-Seattle, home
of the Textual Studies Program, the first of its kind in the U.S. when it was founded in
1997. Situated between the Olympic and Cascade Mountains on the Puget Sound,
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Seattle is among the most scenic, vibrant, and bookish cities in America. Conference
participants will have an opportunity to explore the rich culture of the city, including
the Rem Koolhaas-designed Seattle Central Library, the Richard Hugo House, UW
Special Collections, and a thriving book arts and craft printing community.
We invite proposals on any aspect of textual scholarship, including the discovery,
enumeration, description, bibliographical analysis, editing, annotation, and mark-up
of texts from a broad spectrum of disciplines, including literature, history, musicology,
classical and biblical studies, philosophy, art history, legal history, the history of
science and technology, computer science, library and information science,
lexicography, epigraphy, paleography, codicology, cinema studies, new media studies,
game studies, theater and performance studies, linguistics, gender and sexuality
studies, race and ethnicity studies, indigenous studies, and textual and literary theory.
In honor of the STS’s first trip to the west coast, we especially encourage submissions
that traverse disciplinary territory and/or geographic space. Our choice of keynote
speakers reflects three key areas of disciplinary and cultural overlap – the digital
humanities, histories of the book, and globally comparative philologies – where
textual scholarship is closely implicated in current academic and popular debates.
Submissions may take the following forms:
1.
Papers. Papers (or papers with slideshow presentations) should be no more than
20 minutes in length, making a significant original contribution to scholarship.
Papers that are primarily reports or demonstrations of tools or projects are
discouraged.
2.
Panels. Panels may consist of either three associated papers or four to six
roundtable speakers. Roundtables should address topics of broad interest and
scope, with the goal of fostering lively debate with audience participation.
3.
Seminars. Seminars should propose a specific topic, issue, or text for intensive
collective exploration. Accepted seminar proposals will be announced on the
conference Web site (http://www.textual.org) at least two months prior to the
conference and attendees will then be required to enroll themselves with the
posted seminar leader(s). The seminar leader(s) will circulate readings and other
preparatory materials in advance of the conference. No papers shall be read at the
seminar session. Instead participants will engage with the circulated material in a
discussion under the guidance of the seminar leader(s). All who enroll are
22
expected to contribute to creating a mutually enriching experience.
4.
Workshops. Workshops should propose a specific problem, tool, or skill set for
which the workshop leader will provide expert guidance and instruction.
Examples might be an introduction to forensic computing or paleography.
Workshop proposals that are accepted will be announced on the conference Web
site (http://www.textual.org) and attendees will be required to enroll with the
workshop leader(s).
Proposals for all formats should include a title; abstract (250 words max.) of the
proposed paper, panel, seminar, or workshop; and name, email address, and
institutional affiliation for all participants. Format should be clearly indicated.
Seminar and workshop proposals in particular should take care to articulate the
imagined audience and any expectations of prior knowledge or preparation.
***All abstracts should indicate what if any technological support will be
required.***
Inquiries and proposals should be submitted electronically to stsuw14@uw.edu
For additional contact information:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jtknight/web/
http://frenchitalian.washington.edu/people/geoffrey-turnovsky
All participants in the STS 2014 conference must be members of STS. For
information about membership, please visit the society for Textual Scholarship
website http://textualsociety.org/membership-information/. For conference updates
and information, see the STS website at http://textualsociety.org.
23
In the Interstices: Liminal Spaces, Liminal Selves
February 28-March 1, 2014
Due: December 1, 2013
Coastal Plains Graduate Liberal Arts Conference
houstonlit@gmail.com
University of Houston, TX
Friday, Feb 28th and Saturday, Mar 1st, 2014
Website: http://www.coastalplainsconference.org
“The attributes of liminality or of liminal personae… are necessarily ambiguous, since
this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications
that normally locate states and positions in cultural space. Liminal entities are neither
here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by
law, custom, convention, and ceremon[y]…. Thus, liminality is frequently likened to
death, to being in the womb, to invisibility, to darkness, to bisexuality, to the
wilderness, and to an eclipse of the sun or moon.” -Victor Turner
Liminality is a state of being on the threshold, of being “both” and “neither,” of
hovering between two different planes of existence, of straddling the line between
inside and outside. Liminal people are tricksters, shape-shifters, border-crossers, part
of society and yet held apart. Yet, as Gloria Anzuldua states, “…we cross into each
other’s worlds all the time. We live in each other’s pockets, occupy each other’s
territories, live in close proximity and in intimacy with each other… We are mutually
complicitous – us and them, white and colored, straight and queer, Christian and Jew,
self and Other, oppressor and oppressed.” Contemporary identity relies on such
ambiguity and hybridity. Indeed, as Anzaldua concludes, “the future belongs to those
who cultivate cultural sensitivities to differences and who use these abilities to forge a
hybrid consciousness that transcends the ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ mentality.” We are thus
always already living in liminal spaces, constructing liminal selves, existing “betwixt”
and “between,” containing the “both” and the “neither.”
The Coastal Plains Graduate Liberal Arts Conference welcomes papers, panels,
24
presentations, and workshops on the theme of liminality, in the areas of language and
literature, rhetoric/composition, pedagogy, history, cultural studies, area studies, film,
art/art history, folklore, and other areas of humanities and liberal arts. We are seeking
work that enters the discussion of current scholarship and offers an original angle,
approach, or application.
Please send your 200-400 word proposal to houstonlit@gmail.com by Dec 1, 2013.
Include your name, university affiliation, type of presentation, and tech equipment
needs. Full panel proposals are welcome. If submitting an individual proposal, please
include a brief list of relevant keywords, key texts, and/or key theories you are
employing, so that we may organize panels in a more effective and coherent manner.
Possible topics might include:
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moments of change or transition in literary or historical periods
analysis of characters or texts that inhabit liminal spaces or perform liminal
identities
interdisciplinary or hybridized texts, theories, pedagogies, etc.
the rhetorics, languages, and cultures of liminal/hybridized groups along lines of
immigration, social class, race, and gender, etc.
area studies focused on interstitial places or communities
multi/bilingual spaces, pedagogies, etc.
adaptation and/or translation
liminality as an effect/symptom of globalization and transnationalism
multimodal, transformative, or genre-crossing works
culture vs. subculture boundaries
cultural/social borderlands including but not limited to issues of race, gender,
class, sexuality, religion, and politics
Publication:
If you are accepted to present at the conference, you will be invited to submit
completed papers of publishable academic depth based upon your presentation to the
graduate literary journal, Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature, for
consideration. [https://journals.tdl.org/plaza]
25
Anthropocene Feminism
April 10-12, 2014
Due: December 6, 2013
Center for 21st Century Studies
c21@uwm.edu
A conference at the Center for 21st Century Studies (C21) at UW-Milwaukee
April 10-12, 2014
C21’s conference Anthropocene Feminism will consider the ways in which feminism
has long been concerned with the anthropocene, and what current interest in the
anthropocene might mean for feminism, in its evolving histories, theories, and
practices. The conference seeks to highlight both why we need an anthropocene
feminism and why thinking the anthropocene must come from feminism.
We begin with two sets of questions. First, how has feminism anticipated the concept
of the anthropocene, and what might it yet have to offer: how can feminism help us to
historicize, challenge or refine the concept of the anthropocene? what does feminism
have to say to the claim that humans now act as a geological force in ways that are
independent of or indifferent to social, cultural, or political will or intent? And equally
important, is there (or should there be) an anthropocene feminism: does feminism
require a new formulation specific to the age of the anthropocene? how should
feminism in an anthropogenic age take up an altered relation to the nonhuman world?
We seek proposals for critical, historical, and theoretical papers or creative
presentations that address the questions posed by the concept of anthropocene
feminism. Topics we imagine proposals pursuing include but are not limited to:
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feminist genealogies or epistemologies of the anthropocene
queer nature, queer ecologies, queer anthropocene
ecosexualities or ecofeminism and feminism and dark ecologies
environmental racism and transnational feminist approaches
the anthropocene and the commons
new materialism
26

quantum entanglements and agential realism
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feminist science/environmental ethics and aesthetics and science studies in the
anthropocene
anthropocene feminism after capitalism
cyborg futures, geo-engineering, speculative ecologies and feminism after the
non-human turn
anthropocene utopianism/dystopianism and their antecedents
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Please send your abstract (up to 250 words) and a brief (1-page) CV by Friday,
December 6 to Richard Grusin, Director, Center for 21st Century Studies,
c21@uwm.edu.
Details about the CFP can be found on the conference website:
http://c21uwm.com/anthropocene/
Confirmed plenary speakers for the conference are Stacy Alaimo (University of Texas
at Arlington), Claire Colebrook (Penn State), Myra J. Hird (Queen’s University),
Natalie Jeremijenko (NYU), Elizabeth A. Povinelli (Columbia), Juliana Spahr (Mills
College), and Marina Zurkow (NYU).
27
Craft Critique Culture: (Mis)Leading
April 4-5, 2014
Due: December 6, 2013
Annmarie Steffes/Miriam Janechek (University of Iowa)
studorg-c3conf@uiowa.edu
14th Annual Craft Critique Culture Graduate Student Conference: Mis(Leading)
Craft Critique Culture is an interdisciplinary conference focusing on the intersections
among critical and creative approaches to writing both within and beyond the
academy. We invite the submission of critical, theoretical, and original creative work
in a variety of media and across the humanities, sciences, and legal disciplines. In the
past, submissions have included not only traditional scholarly papers but also film,
video, music, writing, visual art and artists’ books, and performance.
Call For Presentations:
This conference is interested in where the stories we tell lead, or how we attempt to
lead an audience toward a particular destination. We welcome papers from all
disciplines which are interested in the moment where cultural artifacts either
intentionally lead us astray or we ourselves lead these artifacts down paths never
intended. These cultural artifacts include myths, written texts, visual arts, political
discourse, public policy, and physical spaces to name a few. This conference will not
only investigate how leading/misleading can be a place of critique, but also a place of
understanding. By investigating cultural artifacts, we can more fully consider how we
craft narratives, how we both as authors and audience perform, and how we
communicate these experiences. Ultimately, this conference aims to open a space for
discourse about otherwise misleading cultural experiences.
Presentations, papers, reports, performances, work-in-progress, workshops and
pre-formed panels are invited on issues related to any of the following themes:

Alternative words and themes to consider: propaganda, misreading,
misinformation, misinterpretation, misplaced, illusion, manipulation
28
Suggested topics:
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Investment in encouraging or preventing misleading in art, text, education,
politics, science, historical narratives, scientific methods, behavioral
investigation, theater arts
Local, national, and global rhetoric/texts/interaction
Performance as leading/misleading: audience interpretation, authorial intent
and/or practice, physical space
Performativity awareness in theater, arts, politics, education
Narratives of childhood that lead to educational practice, public policy, political
discourse, and/or textual interpretation
How media, specifically digital discourse, misleads or affects information
dissemination
How we navigate translations, both across media and/or language
How environments and/or biology lead us to understand ourselves/families/local
community/culture; childhood studies, educational practice, political discourse,
textual studies, historical narratives, behavioral science, nature vs. nurture
How science leads cultural practice, political discourse, personal identity,
narrative of family and/or self
How discourses lead and/or mislead depending on age, sex, race, religious belief,
gender, class, and/or physical experience
How space leads; maps, digital interface
How public discourse affects politics, education, public spaces, and/or the
individual
How misleading leads to being misplaced, or a feeling of
belonging/displacement
How individuals and people are led across physical space, and how those people
interpret this movement, particularly people of Diasporas
Authorial intent and/or reader response: art, theater, texts
Deliberate manipulation of audience: performance art, theater, politics,
educational practice, art, myths, magic, fantasy, science fiction, genre generally
How cultural myths, ideology, and/or religious beliefs lead to identity
How religious beliefs and/or practice lead to individual identity and/or/versus
group identity
How texts lead: book arts, marginalia, the book as artifact, narrative studies
How theory and/or critical thinking affects interpretation and/or understanding
How cultural institutions develop, foster, and/or lead us to personal identity
29
and/or affiliation
What to send:
300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday, December 6, 2013. Please email all
submissions to studorg-c3conf@uiowa.edu. Abstracts must include: a) author(s), b)
affiliation as you would like it to appear in program, c) email address, d) title.
Accepted papers will be notified by January 31, 2014. We acknowledge receipt and
answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a
week, please resend your proposal.
For further details about the conference, please visit:
uiowa.orgsync.com/org/ccc/home
30
Southern Humanities Council Conference
January 30-February 2, 2014
Due: December 15, 2013
Southern Humanities Council Conference
shcouncil@gmail.com
Call for Papers
Southern Humanities Council Conference
January 30-February 2, 2014
Crowne Plaza Richmond Downtown
Richmond, Virginia
“Memories, Histories, Fantasies”
The 2014 Southern Humanities Council Conference invites proposals for papers on
the theme “Memories, Histories, Fantasies.” The topic is interdisciplinary and invites
proposals from all disciplines and areas of study, as well as creative pieces including
but not limited to performance, music, art, and literature. (Please note that the name of
our organization simply reflects its having been founded in the U.S. south; no
presenter is expected to present anything “southern,” though southern topics are also
welcomed. Conference attendees come from all over the United States and Canada.)
Send proposals of 300-500 words to Mark Ledbetter at shcouncil@gmail.com or if
sending by U.S. Postal Service, Mark Ledbetter, Executive Director, SHC, P.O. Box
2546, The College of St. Rose, 432 Western Avenue, Albany, NY 12203. If possible,
send all proposals by email. Proposals are due by December 15, 2013.Topics are not
limited to but may address any of the following areas, and may integrate the theme in
trans-disciplinary or interdisciplinary ways, that is, the paper may address memories
or histories or fantasies from particular perspectives OR a paper may address the
integration of two or more dimensions of the theme.
31
Possible Topics: Memories, Histories, Fantasies and/or
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Literature
Art
Art History
Psychology
Poetry
Sociology
Childhood
Performance
Disability
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Love
Senses and Memory
History/Historical Memory
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Pleasure/Desire
Sense of Self
Gender
Race/Ethnicity
Sex/Sexuality
Social Class
Religion/Spirituality
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Truth/Truths
Virtues/Vices
Culture/Memory in Culture
Animal/Animals
Music/Music History
Cinema
Culture
Education/Educative
Geography/ies
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Philosophy
History of Ideas/The Idea of History
Folk History
Past/Future
Imagination
Human/Animal/Machine
The Symbolic
New Media
32
“Intersections” Conference - Spring 2014
March 8, 2014
Due: December 23, 2013
Associated Graduate Students of English, CSUN
agse.csunorthridge@gmail.com
AGSE Spring 2014 Conference CFP
“Intersections”
“I, like other queer people, am two in one body, both male and female. I am the
embodiment of the hieros gamos: the coming together of opposite qualities within” Gloria Anzaldúa
The Associated Graduate Students of English (AGSE) at California State University,
Northridge is now accepting proposals for our annual spring conference. We are
interested in critical papers/panels and creative pieces that investigate intersections.
Both similar to but also quite distinct from the border and the crossroad, the
intersection is a powerful and provocative space for theoretical queries and figurative
imaginings. The body is a locus where varying identities or ideologies intersect. Texts
may serve as intersections for seemingly disparate genres. Geographical intersections
are paradoxical spaces that embody the characteristics of different cultures that are
both distinct yet united. What can we gain from a greater understanding of these locus
points? What are the implications of these meetings? What might we discover about
power relations, identities, and ideologies? Explorations may include but are not
limited to: bodies as sites of intersection, geographical intersections, liminality,
interstitial texts/genres, cultural/racial/ethnic intersections, intersections of social
injustice, historical periods/events that mark times of intersection, intersections of
political policies and ideologies, transitions and hybridity, intersections of classes.
We welcome graduate and undergraduate papers/panel proposals and creative works
from a range of disciplines including but not limited to:
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Literature
33
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Rhetoric and Composition
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Creative Writing
Pedagogy
History
Philosophy
Linguistics
Comparative Literature
Queer Studies
Gender and Women’s Studies
Chicano Studies
Pan-African Studies
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Asian American Studies
Ethnic Studies
Art History
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Film and Screen Studies
Animal Studies
Disability Studies
Popular Culture
Our conference is proud to feature keynote speaker, Dr. Joseph Allen Boone,
Professor of English, Gender Studies, and Comparative Literature at the University of
Southern California and author of The Homoerotics of Orientalism (2014) and
Libidinal Currents: Sexuality and the Shaping of Modernism (1998).
Proposals for individual papers and creative works should be a maximum of 250
words. Panel proposals should be no more than 500 words. Please email submissions
as Word (.doc or .docx) attachments to agse.csunorthridge@gmail.com
Abstract submission deadline: December 23, 2013
Conference date and place: March 8, 2014 at California State University, Northridge.
34
William Dean Howells Society Panels, ALA 2014
May 22-25, 2014
Due: January 31, 2014
William Dean Howells Society
daniel.mrozowski@trincoll.edu
The William Dean Howells Society welcomes submissions for two panels at the 2014
American Literature Association conference in Washington D.C. on May 22 – 25.
Panel 1: New Approaches to Teaching William Dean Howells
We are seeking panelists for a potential roundtable on teaching the works of William
Dean Howells. We hope to introduce new voices and techniques to the discussion of
his most popular works, The Rise of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes,
while also considering fresh strategies for the inclusion of Howells in American
literature or American studies courses. We are especially interested in accounts of the
teaching of his lesser-known works. Other areas may include Howells in his cultural
context, from marriage to real estate to anti-imperialism; Howells and American
literary realism; Howells and ethics; Howells as editor; or Howells and literary
criticism, including critical race studies, cultural Marxism, queer theory, etc.
Panel 2: Open Topic
We are looking for insightful, original papers that address any aspect of Howells’s
work.
Please submit your 200-250 word abstract and a current CV (or any questions) to Dan
Mrozowski at Daniel.mrozowski@trincoll.edu by January 31, 2014
Daniel Mrozowski
Department of English
Trinity College
115 Vernon St.
35
Hartford, CT 06106
612-670-5016
36
Conferences in Europe
59th Annual Conference of the British Association for
American Studies (BAAS)
April 10-13, 2014
Due: November 1, 2013
University of Birmingham / British Association of American Studies
baas2014@contacts.bham.ac.uk
The 59th annual conference of the British Association for American Studies (BAAS)
will be hosted by the School of English, Drama, and American & Canadian Studies at
the University of Birmingham 10-13 April, 2014.
There is no overarching theme for the conference; we welcome papers and panel
proposals on any subject related to American Studies. We are also very keen to
encourage panel proposals from associations linked to BAAS, such as the APG,
BGEAH, BrANCH, and HOTCUS as well as proposals for roundtable discussions
and innovative panel presentations.
Proposals for 20-minute presentations should be a maximum of 250 words and
include a title. Proposals by two or more people sharing a common theme are warmly
invited. Panel and roundtable proposals should include a lead contact, an overall title
and up to 250 words on each contribution.
All proposals should be submitted to baas2014@contacts.bham.ac.uk by 1 November
2013.
We are delighted to announce our plenary speakers:

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Alphonse Fletcher University Professor at Harvard
University, and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African
American Research.
37
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Iwan Morgan. Professor of US Studies and Head of US Programmes at the
Institute of the Americas at UCL.
Janice Radway. Walter Dill Scott Professor of Communication Studies and
Professor of American studies and gender studies within the Weinberg College of
Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University.
The conference will begin on the afternoon of Thursday 10th April and will close after
lunch on Sunday 13th April.
38
Travel, Technology and War: Word and
Image/Engagement and Denial
August 11-15, 2014
Due: November 15, 2013
International Association of Word and Image Studies
jtmarquardt@eiu.edu
Please consider submitting an abstract for consideration in the following session at the
IAWIS/AIERTI international conference at the University of Dundee (Scotland),
August 11-15, 2014. More information is available at the website:
http://www.scottishwordimage.org/conferences/iawis2014
Submit abstracts via email to indicating the title of the session and supply full contact
information. Deadline: Friday, 15 November 2013
Travel, Technology and War: Word and Image/Engagement and Denial
Responding to the centennial of the 'Great War' commencing this year, this session
solicits papers on the letters, journals, sketches and photographs that form travel
observations during times of war. From the powerful appearance of military
technology that drives war to the quiet byways where tourists can pretend no conflict
is occurring, personal narratives and visual documentation describe scenes both at
odds with the realities of political conflict and only too vibrantly conveying the
horrors of destruction. In fact, much of the technology that makes war possible also
drives tourism-planes and trains, bridges, cameras and binoculars, printed media,
trucks transporting food and supplies, and so forth. As spectators, some travelers seek
to visit hotspots and record the science of war while others avoid areas of danger,
preferring to employ their immunity as citizens of neutral countries in order to explore
the underlying culture. All of their narratives and images are valid documentation of
the times.
How have different individuals' travel experiences and depictions shaped our
understanding of the technology of war? How did imaginative and documentary
39
observations during wartime travel drive literary and visual expression, political
convictions, or technological inventions? This session will explore the elements of
exploration and discovery in travelers' written and visual accounts of their tours
across countries while at war and how those vivid images portray the contemporary
use of technology to simultaneously drive both tourism and destruction.
Organiser: Janet T. Marquardt (Eastern Illinois University, USA)
40
11th International Conference on Women’s Studies
April 8-10, 2014
Due: November 30, 2013
Departments of English Studies -- Universidad Complutense, Madrid
jornadamujer@filol.ucm.es
CFP: 11TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WOMEN'S STUDIES //
JORNADAS INTERNACIONALES DE ESTUDIOS DE LA MUJER
"GENDER STUDIES: TRANSATLANTIC VISIONS/ ESTUDIOS DE GÉNERO:
VISIONES TRANSATLÁNTICAS". Facultad de Filología, Universidad
Complutense.
8, 9 y 10 April, 2014
The Departments of English Studies I and II (Linguistics and Literature) wish to
announce their 11th International Conference on Women’s Studies, and invite you to
submit papers on the topics listed below. The Organizing Committee for this
conference, featuring national and international speakers, will publish texts selected
after peer review for the Women's Studies collection, Vol. IX.
Organizing Committee: Isabel Durán, Noelia Hernando, Carmen Méndez, JoAnne
Neff, Ana Laura Rodríguez
Themes (suggested, but not limited to):
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Gender, power and inequality: historical connections in a globalized world
Transatlantic approaches to gender and social justice
Old sexism in new guises: Reinterpreting sexism from a transatlantic perspective
Women and the fight against poverty across frontiers
Transnationalism vs. Globalization: Discourses on transnational and transcultural
selves
New gender studies and new literary and artistic genres
Crises and crashes in a gendered world
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Gender, sex, race and class: a reassessment
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Societal gender norms and individual practices
Transnational revisions of gendered discourses and symbolic violence
Gender and literature: transatlantic visions and comparative studies.
Submission guidelines. Send by e-mail to: jornadamujer@filol.ucm.es
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Abstract of 400 to 500 words plus brief bio. Use the templates provided at
http://portal.ucm.es/web/filologia_inglesa_i/jornadas-internacionales-de-la-mujer
Deadline: November 30th 2013.
Send the Spanish or English template depending on the language used in your
paper/ panel/ round table.
Formats for sessions: a) 20-minute individual paper; b) Chaired panels with three
participants; c) Round tables
Conference Fees:
• Before March 1st, 2014: 15€ for students- 55 € for Faculty / professionals
• After this date: 25€ for students - 70 € for Faculty / professionals
42
Haunted Landscapes: Nature, Super-Nature and the
Environment
March 8, 2014
Due: December 8, 2013
Falmouth University and the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment,
UK and Ireland.
ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk
Keynote Speaker: Professor Ronald Hutton (Bristol University)
Venue: Falmouth University, Cornwall, Date: 8th March 2014
Falmouth University and ASLE UKI are pleased to be holding a one day symposium
on the subject of ‘haunted landscapes’. From places and spaces haunted by spectres,
memory or history to conceptions of landscape as palimpsest, holy wells and ancient
sites, literature, art and film have always explored concepts of the supernatural and
the landscape and environment. Landscapes can be haunted by echoes and memories
of colonization, violence done and irrevocable acts committed. Places may be marked
indelibly by the past and by the people who populated and shaped the environment in
many different ways. Layers of memory and action can be embedded in the landscape
alongside the layering of history in stone. Encounters with the landscape reverberate
through the ages and through the rocks, trees, hills and streams that are still present
today. Ghosts can shade the atmosphere of a place and some things never leave. The
environment bears witness to the super-natural and that which seems paranormal may
eventually become a natural part of the environment.
Papers examining any aspect of the super-natural and the environment are welcomed
from all disciplines. Subjects can include (but are not bound by):
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Ghosts and the landscape
The Weird and the land
The idea of ‘super’ in the super-natural
Landscape and memory
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Landscape as palimpsest
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Haunted places
Actions and emotions embedded in the landscape
The past echoing back through the landscape
The landscape and the Uncanny
Nature and haunting
Animals, super-nature and the environment
Death, life and rebirth and the environment
Abstracts of 300-500 for 20 minute papers are to be submitted by December 8th to:
ruth.heholt@falmouth.ac.uk and niamh.downing@falmouth.ac.uk. We are also happy
to answer any questions.
44
Be Merry and Wise: Children’s Literature from
Chapbooks to the Digital Age Conference
March 28-29, 2014
Due: December 9, 2013
The Irish Society for the Study of Children's Literature (ISSCL)
anne.markey@nuim.ie
Children’s literature has always existed on a continuum between entertainment and
instruction. Proposals are invited on the overall theme and associated topics in the
context of both Irish and international literature for children, and also in relation to
print and other media. Papers in both the Irish language and English language will be
most welcome. Cuirfear fáilte roimh chainteanna as Gaeilge agus as Béarla.
Possible topics include but are not confined to:

Textbooks and children’s literature;








Children’s literature in the classroom;
Digital humanities and the study of children’s literature;
Safety and cautionary tales;
Youth culture and the media;
Retelling and repackaging;
The power of the visual;
Drama and performance;
The history of publishing for children.
Proposals of 300 words maximum should be sent to Dr. Anne Markey, ISSCL
President. Email: Anne.Markey@nuim.ie by Monday 9th December 2013.
Please use “ISSCL Proposal” in the subject line of your email.
45
Modernism and the Moral Life
May 30, 2014
Due: January 10, 2014
University of Manchester
morallife@gmx.co.uk
Modernism and the Moral Life
Manchester, 30 May 2014
No engagement with modernist works can fail to be struck be their ethical intensity.
Often considered solely in terms of a radical break with aesthetic norms and existing
socio-cultural institutions and relationships, modernism also demonstrates a marked
preoccupation with questions of how to live, the nature of the good, the status of the
subject and the social bond, and the relation between ethics, aesthetics and politics.
While recent years have seen a renewed interest in the relationship between
modernism and ethics, much of the work in this field has tended to (i) conceive of
ethics simply in terms of an openness to ‘otherness’, or (ii) suggest that modernism
signals an ‘overcoming’ of the ethical as such. While important work has been carried
out from these perspectives, this conference invites participants to radically rethink
the ways in which it is possible to understand the relation between modernism and the
moral life. We invite papers that investigate the multiple ways in which the struggle to
lead a human life is undertaken and articulated within modernist cultural production.
At the same time, we are interested in the ethical and political investments—whether
declared or presupposed—of modernism’s ongoing critical reception. Of particular
interest, therefore, are papers which reflect upon their own historical moment and
connections with current political, economic and ecological debates.
The conference is designed as an opportunity for rigorous interdisciplinary exchange
between the spheres of critical theory, cultural studies, philosophy, politics, literature,
sociology, history, theology, the visual arts, architecture and music. We invite
proposals for papers from scholars whose work looks to analyse the connections
between aesthetics, ethics and politics in any and all of these fields. Topics of interest
include, but are not limited to:
46

the relation between style, form and ethics in modernist cultural production










the extent to which ‘life’ entails or excludes the ‘moral’ in modernist thought
theory and/as ethics
ethics and langauge
modernism and revolution
utopia
gender, ethics and critique
modernism, vision and ethics
violence and war
after ‘otherness’
The limits of liberal humanist approaches to literature and ethics

perfectionism, authenticity, sincerity, bullshit, narcissism, hedonism, elitism,
virtue, duty, commitment, loss of sensitivity, happiness, loneliness, anxiety,
inequality, humanism and anti-humanism in the discourses of modernism
Proposals for twenty-minute papers should be directed to the convenors, Ben Ware
and Iain Bailey, at morallife@gmx.co.uk, by 10 January 2014. Participants will be
notified by 20 January. Additional information is posted at our conference website,
modernismmorallife.wordpress.com
47
Non-Traditional Slaveholding in the Atlantic World
July 11-12, 2014
Due: January 15, 2014
Senate House, London
C.M.Armstrong@mmu.ac.uk
Non-Traditional
Slaveholding in the
Atlantic World
July 11-12 2014
Senate House, London
Call for Papers
Plenary Speakers: Seymour Drescher (University of Pittsburgh) Brent Weisman
(University of South Florida)
Studies of slaveholding in the Atlantic World traditionally imagine a particular type of
slave holder – a wealthy landowning white man who has extensive political and
cultural power, his status in the community defined by or at least enhanced by his
slaveholding. He has a set of attitudes towards his slaves and their economic and
cultural work that he shares with others of his class. This conference sets out to
challenge these preconceptions by bringing together scholars working on different
re-gions of the Atlantic world to discuss a hitherto neglected area of the study of
African American slav-ery: non-traditional slaveholding.
We welcome proposals that consider slaveholding by poor whites, women, free blacks,
Native Amer-icans and Jewish Americans in every area of the Atlantic. The
conference is designed to be explicitly comparative, encouraging scholars to discuss
significant issues such as: what counts as ‘slavery’ in this context? How widespread
was the phenomenon of slaveholding among the non-white popula-tion? Are
non-traditional slave holders distinct from white slave holders in their attitudes and
be-haviour towards the institution and towards their slaves? To what extent did
regional specificities, historical contexts and particular legal frameworks encourage
48
slaveholding among non-traditional slave owners and influence the nature of the
bondage? Do slave culture and slave agency emerge dif-ferently from a study of
non-traditional slaveholders? Is the line between slavery and freedom more blurred?
What are the epistemological consequences of acknowledging slave ownership by
non-traditional slaveholders? How does it alter our understanding of ‘the colour line’?
Please send proposals of no more than 300 words (for papers or panels) and a brief
CV to nontraditionalslaveholders@gmail.com by 15 January 2014. We welcome
papers that cover any region of the Atlantic and proposals for round table discussions
as well as formal academic papers.
Conference Organisers: Lawrence Aje (University of Montpellier), Catherine
Armstrong (Manchester Metropolitan University), and Lydia Plath (Canterbury Christ
Church University).
49
1914-1944: Clashing Anniversaries or
Multi-Directional Memories
June 13, 2014
Due: January 31, 2014
Ross Wilson, University of Chichester
r.wilson@chi.ac.uk
1914-1944: Clashing Anniversaries or Multi-Directional Memories
A one day conference on the competition and negotiation of the past
Date
June 13, 2014
Venue
Cloisters Room, University of Chichester
This one-day conference is inspired by the relationship between the two significant
commemorative events of 2014; the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914
and the D-Day landings of June 1944. Both dates serve as important markers in the
history and memory of Britain and Europe and their coincidence provides an
intriguing context to examine issues of culture, politics and power within the activities
of remembrance in wider society. Despite the consequence attached to these two dates,
with the limitations of time and finances placed on institutions, the ever-shifting
political interest in commemoration and the weariness of a public saturated with
memory, there is a fear that these significant moments will be set against one another,
rather than placed in contrast and comparison.
This conference will address these concerns but it will also directly consider why
certain events are accorded significance and value over others and how that might
shape values, habits and ideals. For example, with the advent of the First World War
anniversaries, will the remembrance of the Second World War diminish or perhaps be
relegated to the periphery? In these circumstances, what effect will this have on
politics, culture and society in contemporary Britain and Europe?
50
The concept of ‘simultaneous anniversaries’ is forwarded to describe this potentially
highly productive arena for research, as we seek to evaluate these two events and the
possible ways in which new practices of memory may alter or challenge established
structures of commemoration. The conference also proposes to be a starting point for
discussion of comparable anniversary clashes, collisions and alignments, including
the First World War and the 1916 Easter Uprising; the anniversaries of 1917 as a year
of war and revolution; as well as other less well known commemorative intersections,
overlaps and clashes.
Call for papers
Abstracts of 250 words are sought from researchers who will assess the ways in which
simultaneous but different ‘memory events’ can be examined together. Contributors
might consider the relationship between the remembrance of 1914 and 1944 in
particular locales or contexts, the experience of participants, the representation of
these events for national and regional cultures and the role of memory in those
societies who honour and maintain the significance of these moments in public life.
Contributors might also want to broaden out their work to explore comparable
multi-dimensional, competing or aligning anniversaries and commemorations. All
researchers with an approach from the humanities disciplines are encouraged to
submit. It is envisaged that papers delivered at the conference could form part of a
future edited volume or a special edition of a peer-reviewed journal. Abstracts should
be in broad agreement with the conference themes:





The practices of memory
The role of anniversaries
The challenge of competing memories
Local and regional connections and/or tensions with national commemorations
Examples of Multi-Dimensional memory or clashing commemorations





Ideology and the making of historical memory
Post-colonial sidelights on national memory/forgetting
Political Theorization of competing claims to historical events
Politics and identity within Britain and Europe
The lessons of sociological or psychoanalytical approaches to collective memory
for scenarios such as 1914/1944
Simultaneous commemoration of different samples of history

51
The deadline for abstracts is January 31 2014 and the authors of successful proposals
will be notified in early March.
Please send abstracts to Ross Wilson (r.wilson@chi.ac.uk).
Contact
If you have any questions or would like to discuss the conference, its aims and
objectives, please contact the conference organisers:
Hugo Frey – h.frey@chi.ac.uk
Alisa Miller – a.miller@chi.ac.uk
Ross Wilson – r.wilson@chi.ac.uk
52
Thinking with John Berger
September 4-5, 2014
Due: February 1, 2014
Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK
jwallace@cardiffmet.ac.uk
Thinking with John Berger
A 2-day conference at Cardiff Metropolitan University
Cardiff, Wales, UK
4-5 September 2014
Keynote speakers:
Professor Bruce Robbins (Columbia University)
Professor Peter de Bolla (University of Cambridge)
Call for papers
John Berger presents a uniquely diverse model of critical artistic and intellectual work.
He is, variously, artist (and a philosopher of drawing); art critic/theorist; ‘art
geographer’ (Edward Soja); novelist (although preferring to call himself a storyteller);
poet and dramatist; film-maker; photographic collaborator; theorist of migration;
political activist in the domains of anti-capitalism and human rights.
This conference
This conference at Cardiff Metropolitan University places a focus on the
transformative potential of Berger’s work for educational practice. Berger may be said
to have kept a distance from the institutional lecture hall, seminar room or studio; yet
his work, through an interdisciplinarity seemingly without boundaries, continues to
impact upon a number of academic fields. In dedicating himself to‘the job of thinker
and artist’ (Sally Potter), Berger seems also consistently to have orientated himself
towards the future and to practice: he is, in the words of Sukhdev Sandhu, ‘in the best
sense, a teacherly writer and performer’ -- a teacherly method characterised, that is,
by the principles of collaboration and equality.
53
The conference therefore takes an exploratory approach to the question of how we
might, as educators, use, discuss, learn from and continue to develop Berger’s thought.
In what ways might that thought help to transform curricula, pedagogy, and our work
as writers, artists and teachers? How pertinent is it, for example, to the growing
internationalisation of the academy and to questions of global educational citizenship?
Or how relevant as a critical resource within the context of a new, corporate and
marketised environment in education? Might Berger’s ‘radical humanism’ (Tilda
Swinton) help to carve out alternative futures?
The conference will be held at the University’s Llandaff campus, close to historic
Llandaff village and cathedral, and a 30-minute walk through parkland to Cardiff city
centre. It is organised by Cardiff School of Education, with the collaboration of
Cardiff School of Art and Design, and will coincide with the opening of a new centre
for CSAD at the Llandaff campus.
Call for Papers
Proposals for 20-minute papers are invited. The conference is open to contributors
from all subject areas and disciplines, though it is anticipated that it will be of
principal appeal to those interested in Berger’s impact upon the following fields:
literary studies; visual arts; art history; philosophy; creative writing; film production
and education; performance; drawing; photography; cultural geography; critical and
cultural theory. Topics for papers will be organised into panels, which might include
or resemble, but are definitely not restricted to, the following:




Criticism beyond a hermeneutics of suspicion
Storytelling and fiction in the C21
Aesthetics and materialism
Intellectual work today








‘Planetarity’, global citizenship, cosmopolitics
Pedagogy in art history
Developments in photography and education
Combinations of theory and practice in writing
Consequences and cultures of the ‘new poverty’ (John Berger)
Spatial theory and ‘art geography’
Radical cinema
Spinoza and a new vitalism
54

Drawing and writing
Proposals should be no more than 300 words in length, and should be sent to the
conference email address: bergerconference@cardiffmet.ac.uk
Deadline for proposals: 1 February 2014
Queries and correspondence regarding the conference should be addressed to
Professor Jeff Wallace at jwallace@cardiffmet.ac.uk, or call 00 44(0)29 2041 7102.
A conference website, with information regarding fees, accommodation and logistics,
will be up and running soon. In the meantime, queries on these issues should be
addressed to Katerina Ray, Huw Jones or Donna O’Flaherty, conference
administrators, at bergerconference@cardiffmet.ac.uk (tel 00 44 (0)29 2020 5754 or
00 44 (0) 29 2041 7078/6577)
55
Exeter Postgraduate Medical Humanities Conference
July 24-25, 2014
Due: March 28, 2014
University of Exeter
pgmedhums@exeter.ac.uk
Call for papers: Postgraduate Medical Humanities Conference
The Centre for Medical History at the University of Exeter will be holding an
interdisciplinary medical humanities conference for postgraduate researchers on the
24th and 25th July 2014.
This conference aims to bring together researchers from a variety of disciplines in a
manner that reflects the broad scope of exciting research being carried out in the field
of the medical humanities at present. As such we welcome abstracts on any aspect of
the medical humanities from postgraduates working in all disciplines, including but
not restricted to English Literature, History, Film, Classics and Art History.
The conference will provide a forum for postgraduate scholars to exchange ideas and
share their research in a friendly and engaging environment. The event will also allow
delegates to discuss their work with senior academics in the field including keynote
speakers and other members of the Exeter Centre for Medical History.
Keynote Speakers
Professor Anne Borsay, Swansea University
Dr Angelique Richardson, University of Exeter
The event will close with a roundtable session drawing together the themes arising
from the conference and reflecting on future directions of research in the medical
humanities.
We invite applicants to submit abstracts of up to 300 words for 20 minute papers
(previously unpublished), sent to pgmedhums@exeter.ac.uk by Friday 28th March
2014 with the “subject” of the email as ‘PGMH conference abstract’.
56
Once the deadline has passed a panel will review the abstracts anonymously and
applicants will receive a decision and feedback on their submissions. If your paper is
not selected we very much hope you will still be able to attend the conference and
participate in the discussion.
We hope to be able to offer a small number of travel bursaries which will be
announced closer to the event.
57
Journals and Collections of Essays
the quint: an interdisciplinary quarterly from the
north
Due: December 15, 2013
the quint: an interdisciplinary quarterly from the north
jbutler@ucn.ca
the quint’s twenty first issue is issuing a call for theoretically informed and
historically grounded submissions of scholarly interest—as well as creative writing,
original art, interviews, and reviews of books. The deadline for this call is 15th
December 2013—but please note that we accept manu/digi-scripts at any time.
quint guidelines
All contributions accompanied by a short biography will be forwarded to a member of
the editorial board. Manuscripts must not be previously published or submitted for
publication elsewhere while being reviewed by the quint’s editors or outside readers.
Hard copies of manuscripts should be sent to Dr. John Butler or Dr. Sue Matheson at
the quint, University College of the North, P.O. Box 3000, The Pas, Manitoba, Canada,
R9A 1M7. We are happy to receive your artwork in digital format, PDF preferred.
Email copies of manuscripts, Word or RTF preferred, should be sent to either
jbutler@ucn.ca or smatheson@ucn.ca.
Essays should range between 15 and 25 pages of double-spaced text, including all
images and source citations. Longer and shorter submissions also will be considered.
Bibliographic citation should be the standard disciplinary format.
Copyright is retained by the individual authors of manuscripts and artists of works
accepted for publication in the quint.
58
Fractured Ecologies: Call for Contributions to an
Edited Collection on Environmental Criticism and
Radical Experimental Writing
Due: January 1, 2014
Chad Weidner
c.weidner@ucr.nl
Since the 1990s, ecocriticism has influenced the ways we study literature, but
fractures remain. If environmental scholars are to continue to challenge conventional
approaches to literary study, inventive methods must be continually developed and
improved. British scholar Harriet Tarlo has made a call for environmental engagement
with experimental writing, and reminds us that “very few eco-critics engage with
innovative or experimental writing.” Franca Bellarsi agrees, and emphasizes the real
need to research “green ethics in different avant-garde practices.” And while there has
been some preliminary ecocritical work on what can be called experimental
nature-writing, so far the most radical writing forms have largely been overlooked.
Wild avant-garde writing is a limit case of sorts, and the difficulties in studying such
forms are impossible to really avoid. But the lack of ecological perspectives on
experimental writing justifies and demands more attention. Moreover, conventional
academic publishing outlets have promoted a rather homogenous and monocultural
understanding of scholarship that excludes inventive fringe observations. Therefore,
Fractured Ecologies welcomes rigorous and irreverent papers that address radical
experimental writing and other borderline manifestations in an environmental context.
The fundamental question that Fractured Ecologies will attempt to address is: How
does radical experimental writing contribute to the ways we think about ecology?
Suggested topics may include but are not limited to discussions of ecology in a wide
sense and:





Aleatory writing
Altar Poetry
Assemblage
ASCII art
Bizzaro fiction
59

Comic jam

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
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





Caligram
Chance procedures
Concrete poetry
Cut-up/fold-in
Dada writing
Dictionaraoke
Digital poetry
Exquisite Corpse
Fax art
Fluxus poetry



Found text
Fragments and remnants
Glorious plagiarism







Graffiti and wildstyle
Guerrilla semiotics
Haptic poetry
Imagism
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry
Mechanical narrative agency
Pictography







Psychography
Round-robin texts
Runes
Sound poetry
Surrealist writing
Visual poetry
Words in Freedom
This project is under contract with an independent academic publisher. Contributors
will receive a free copy of the book. Please send paper abstracts of 500 words and a
working title to Chad Weidner at c.weidner@ucr.nl before 1 January 2014. Final
essays will be between 7,000-9,000 words in length and should conform to the MLA
documentation style. Final papers will be due before 1 July 2014. Please email with
questions.
Dr. Chad Weidner
Assistant Professor, English and Film
60
UCR Utrecht University
Lange Noordstraat 1
4331 CB Middelburg
The Netherlands
61
Special Issue on Irish Studies and Digital Humanities
Due: January 15, 2014
Breac: A Digital Journal of Irish Studies
breac.djis@gmail.com
In 2012, Stanley Fish posed the question: does the digital humanities offer new and
better ways to realize traditional humanities goals? Or does the digital humanities
completely change our understanding of what a humanities goal (and work in the
humanities) might be? Practitioners within both the digital humanites and the
humanities community more generally have offered many responses to Fish's musings,
but as Margaret Kelleher has observed, there is yet little investigation regarding the
opportunities and implications afforded the study of Irish history, literature, and
culture by electronic advances.
Addressing this seeming absence of engagement, issue 3 of Breac seeks to foreground
the intersections between the digital humanities and work in the field of Irish Studies.
What type of innovative resources, tools and methodologies have been produced by
and for scholars working in the field? What challenges have those working on digital
projects encountered? How does the design, development and use of digital tools
relate to and/or advance traditional practices in Irish Studies? Positing the question in
reverse, how can debates and practices in Irish Studies work in the digital humanities?
What new challenges can Irish Studies bring to the digital humanities?
The guest editors of this issue of Breac Matthew Wilkens and Sonia Howell invite
submissions addressing the results of digital humanities projects as well as
commentaries on the intersections and possibilities for future collaborations between
Irish Studies and the digital humanities. Capitalizing on Breac's digital form, we
welcome submissions which can be best facilitated by an online journal.In keeping
with Breac's commitment to linguistic diversity, we also welcome submissions in
languages other than English. Other topics of interest include, but are by no means
limited to:



Data mining
Geospatial analysis
Data visualization
62

Scholarly editing




New media
Digital literature or poetry
Digital humanities and the Irish language
Digital humanities and world literature
The issue will include essays from Hans Walter Gabler (editor-in-chief of the Critical
and Synoptic Edition of James Joyce's Ulysses) on conceiving a dynamic digital
research site for James Joyce's Ulysses, Matthew Jockers (author of Macroanalysis
and co-founder of the Stanford Literary Lab) on macroanalysis and Irish Studies, and
Padraig Ó Macháin (Director of Irish Script on Screen) on how the digital revolution
has affected Irish Studies and Irish-language scholarship. It will also feature a review
of Franco Moretti's Distant Reading by Joe Cleary (author of Literature, Partition and
the Nation-State: Culture and Conflict in Ireland, Israel and Palestine).
Typical articles for submission vary in length from 3,000-8,000 words, but the editors
are happy to consider pieces that are shorter or longer. Deadline for submission of
manuscripts is January 15, 2014. Full submission instructions are available at
http://breac.nd.edu/submissions/. Questions are welcome and should be sent to
breac.djis@gmail.com.
We are also pleased to announce the launch of the Reviews page later this fall.
Reviews will be a page dedicated to reviewing recent publications as well as
showcasing recent projects and works in progress in the field. The page will operate
on a rolling basis and an accompanying forum discussion will center around the most
recent material. To that end, Reviews provides a space where researchers and students
can discuss current trends and new scholarship, as well as invite commentary and
receive feedback from Breac subscribers. Submissions for the Reviews page should
be 500-1500 words and may include screen shots, URLs, and other forms of media.
About Breac
Breac is a peer-reviewed, open-access, paperless journal that publishes critical and
creative work relating to Ireland and Irish Studies. Previous contributors include
Roddy Doyle, Margaret Kelleher, David Lloyd, Paige Reynolds, Brian Singleton, and
Colm Tóibín. Among the journal's many features is a forum section that seeks to
cultivate a global conversation around the published articles among its readers,
students, and scholars. It also periodically streams live and recorded events through
63
the website's BreaCam. Subscribing to the journal is entirely free; we encourage you
to visit the website at breac.nd.edu.
64
Late Capitalism and Mere Genre
Due: January 15, 2014
Benjamin J. Robertson, University of Colorado, Boulder
benjamin.j.robertson@colorado.edu
I seek proposals for essays that explore the relationship between late capitalist
culture/economics and texts which, in one manner or another, are “merely” generic.
According to Fredric Jameson and others, late capitalism is characterized by new
forms of business and financial organization, developments in media and the
relationships amongst media, and planned obsolescence. By “merely generic,” I refer
to those texts in any medium that seem less interested in pushing generic boundaries
than in maintaining or perhaps hyperbolizing them (such as books by Robert Jordan
and David Eddings) and/or belong to an obvious genre, but turn away from that
broader genre in order to develop their own environments and/or conventions on
massive scales (such as the expanded Stars Wars Universe). These texts may be:
swiftly produced, developed in explicit and careful relation to others in their series or
world, targeted at an existing audience already familiar with the genre, and crafted for
easy consumption and quick obsolescence.
How do such merely generic texts define the cultural landscape of the
postmodern/contemporary world? How does this cultural landscape condition them?
Possible topics include:

The audience for merely generic texts. Can anyone enjoy them, or are they only
consumable by those who have an established, if not hypertrophied, relationship
to the broader genre in question?

The development of groups of texts that predate the advent of late capitalism, but
transform in some way afterwards or otherwise provide antecedents for more
contemporary works, such as The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew Mysteries.
Proprietary universes—such as the Stars Wars, Star Trek, or Dragonlance
universes—and questions of authorship.
Fan fiction and other non-canonical or heterodox narratives set within
established universes.
Problems of continuity in the mega-text.



65






The relationship between such merely generic texts and gaming, whether
tabletop RPGs, first-person shooters, MMORGs, or other types of gaming.
The economic or cultural conditions that govern the production of merely
generic texts, such as the nigh-injunction that, after Tolkien, works of heroic
fantasy should be published as trilogies.
Mass-produced series of books for children, such as Goosebumps and
Animorphs. How do these texts prepare youngsters for subsequent late capitalist
consumption?
The shift, especially in film, from generic concerns to the logic of the tentpole
and/or the franchise.
The development of the massive multimedia text in which the same storylines
develop in print, in films, on television, etc. simultaneously.
The residue of genre in a post-generic world. With increased specializiation and
fragmentation in daily life, does genre make any sense as a cultural form? Does
genre become, or return to being, one niche product amongst others?
Obviously, numerous other avenues of inquiry exist and many of those mentioned
here dovetail with one another. Please inquire at the email address below with
suggestions or ideas.
Although I will consider a range of approaches, I am especially interested in essays
that situate groups of texts or series in an historical moment or cultural frame. I am
less interested in thematic and formal readings of individual texts.
Please send proposals of approximately 500 words as attachments
(.doc, .docx, .pdf, .rtf, or .odt) to benjamin.j.robertson@colorado.edu by 15 January
2014. Again, also feel free to contact me with questions or other concerns.
66
Studies in American Culture
Due: April 1, 2014
STUDIES IN AMERICAN CULTURE
mcdonaldrl@vmi.edu
Studies in American Culture
Call for Submissions
Studies in American Culture welcomes the submission of essays on all aspects of
American culture, including studies of the literature, language, visual arts, and history
of the United States, and from all scholarly and critical approaches.
The Editorial Board will consider any essay that explores an interesting dimension of
American culture, but we are particularly eager to see submissions that approach their
subjects from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Our diverse readership includes academics and non-academics from a variety of
disciplines and backgrounds.
Authors of essays accepted for publication must be members or must join our parent
organization, the American Culture Association in the South.
Submissions for the October 2014 issue (37.1) must arrive by April 1, 2014.
Robert L. McDonald, Editor
Studies in American Culture
Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies
Virginia Military Institute
Lexington, Virginia 24450
mcdonaldrl@vmi.edu
For submission requirements, see the editorial page of this issue or visit our website:
www.vmi.edu/SiAC.
67
Queries are encouraged.
68