Calls for Papers - All Types
Literature and the Arts
Discussion Group: Romanian Studies
We invite comparative presentation proposals exploring interconnections between literature, language, music, painting, photography and the other arts in Romanian, Hungarian, and World Literature. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 31 March 2013
The Sentimental Worlds of Ray Bradbury
Special Session
Topics include folktale, fairy tale, science fiction, children, and domesticity in the work of Ray Bradbury. . 300-word abstracts by 23 March 2013; Adam Lawrence (BradburyMLA@gmail.com) and Andrea Krafft (BradburyMLA@gmail.com)
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 18 March 2013
Tenure Denied: What Happens Next (A Roundtable Discussion)
Special Session
What happens to people after tenure denial? How do they reinvent, reorient themselves. Let's share stories. 250-word abstract and short bio by 21 March 2013; Annette Van (avan@centralmethodist.edu)
Posted 4 January 2013, last updated 14 March 2013
Literary Social Media, Past and Present
Discussion Group: Media and Literature
Relationships between social media (broadly conceived) and literary history, including networks of production / dissemination as mediated in any genre / period. 300 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Jeremy Douglass (jeremydouglass@english.ucsb.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 12 March 2013
Mincing Their Words: Spanish Women in the Kitchen
Special Session
How did nineteenth through twentyfirst-century authors present food and food preparation? What does this reveal about them and their readers? Abstract (300 words), CV by 18 March 2013; Michelle Sharp (michelle.m.sharp@gmail.com)
Posted 11 January 2013, last updated 11 March 2013
Nation, Authorship, and Visual Culture: Revisiting 19-Century Latin America
Special Session
Reshape recent readings of this period in relation to nation, authorship, and visual culture. A 7 pages paper in Spanish. by 17 March 2013; Alicia B. Rios (abrios@syr.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 9 March 2013
Mass versus Coterie II: The Rare Book
Division: Prose Fiction
How does the limited edition shape the making and consuming of prose fiction? Papers might consider audiences, forms, histories. Abstracts and brief CVs by 15 March 2013; Hester Blum (hester.blum@psu.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Merely Mnemonic? Reconsidering Middle English Medical Verse
Special Session
We invite papers on all aspects of Middle English medical verse, including poetics, sources, manuscript contexts, reading communities, and contemporary use. 250-word abstract and CV by 14 March 2013; Jake Walsh Morrissey (jake.walshmorrissey@mail.mcgill.ca)
Posted 8 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Candor, Deception, and Dissimulation
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
The contexts, uses, and reception of candor, its appearance, and/or its manipulation in Italian literary and theatrical works of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Title, 300-word abstract by 18 March 2013; Linda L. Carroll (lincar@tulane.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Drama Divisions Today
Division: Drama
What’s right or wrong about the present configurations of theater and performance studies, in the MLA and beyond? Critiques, cartographies, elegies welcome. 350 word Abstract by 15 March 2013; Tavia Nyong'o (tavia.nyongo@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
New Approaches to Vivifying Literature
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Roundtable examination of how today's scholars bring Medieval and Renaissance literature to modern students: technology, interdisciplinarity, works in translation and other strategies. Title, 300-word abstract by 18 March 2013; Linda L. Carroll (lincar@tulane.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Pilgrims and Pilgrimages
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Odeporic Middle Ages: Portraying Real and Quack Pilgrims, Adventurers, Merchants and Various Humanity on the Road. Santiago, Rome, Jerusalem, and Babylon as symbolic topoi. Title, 300-word abstract by 18 March 2013; Linda L. Carroll (lincar@tulane.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Costumbrismo en producción visual y escrita del siglo XIX latinoamericano
Special Session
Propuestas que aborden el costumbrismo como problema estético e ideológico en textos visuales y escritos posteriores a la independencia. Abstract 250 words by 22 March 2013; Felipe Martinez-Pinzon (felipemartinezpinzon@csi.cuny.edu) and Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik (Kari.Salkjelsvik@if.uib.no)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Conservadurismo y literatura en el siglo XIX hispanoamericano
Special Session
Exploraciones sobre las diferentes formas de articulación del pensamiento conservador en la literatura hispanoamericana decimonónica. Propuestas de 250 palabras (español o inglés) by 22 March 2013; Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik (kari.salkjelsvik@if.uib.no) and Felipe Martínez Pinzón (felipemartinezpinzon@csi.cuny.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Autobiographies of Applied Linguists
Division: Applied Linguistics
Emerging fields inevitably struggle with identity; with questions of membership; and with defining the parameters of research/theory. Session investigates the question “Who is an applied linguist?”. 150-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Sébastien Dubreil (sdubreil@utk.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Sign language use and development around the globe
Division: Applied Linguistics
Papers that analyze or problematize the use and/or development of signed languages. Abstract: 150 words by 11 March 2013; Sébastien Dubreil (sdubreil@utk.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Social pedagogies and second language development
Division: Applied Linguistics
Theoretical/empirical papers that examine the feasibility and effectiveness of pedagogical practices that bridge classroom-based language instruction and learning experiences rooted in students’ lives. 150-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Sébastien Dubreil (sdubreil@utk.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Travel and Seeing the Real Place
Special Session
How do authors represent the quest to experience the "authentic" in their journey? What threatens and complicates that experience? Abstracts of 250-500 words and C.V. by 15 March 2013; Alexandra Lauren Milsom (alexandramilsom@ucla.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 1 March 2013
Shifting Vulnerabilities: Writing after the Truth Commissions
Special Session
Papers examining the roles of Latin American cultural production (literature, film, journalism, etc) in processes of truth and reconciliation. Abstracts (around 300 words) by 10 March 2013; Michelle Hulme-Lippert (mhulmel@emory.edu) and Stephanie Pridgeon (spridge@emory.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 1 March 2013
Germanic Linguistics and Philology
Discussion Group: Germanic Philology
Papers addressing any aspect of Germanic Linguistics and Philology. All presenters must be registered MLA members by the time of the convention. 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Stephen Mark Carey (smcarey@morris.umn.edu)
Posted , last updated 27 February 2013
Making Sense of Big Data
Division: Comparative Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature
Papers would address issues in creating comparative literature data sets and/or methodologies for exploring them. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Laura C. Mandell (mandell@tamu.edu)
Posted 26 February 2013
Abject Comedy
Division: Film
Exploring abjection in screen comedy. Are comedies of embarrassment, excess, or awkwardness a new development toward the abject, or a continuation of comedy's traditional relationship to the body? 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Nicholas Sammond (nic.sammond@utoronto.ca) and Paul Young (paul.d.young@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted , last updated 25 February 2013
Integrating Ecocriticism in New and Established Curricula
Special Session
We invite papers on theory and best practices of introducing ecological themes and/or ecocritical discourse into literature and content-based language curricula. 200-300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Alexander E. Pichugin (pichugin@sas.upenn.edu)
Posted 25 February 2013
The Philosophical (Re)Turn?
Division: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century American Literature
After the cultural turn, the philosophical return? Assessments of (or perspectives from) the recent philosophical turn in literary studies: object-based ontology, animal studies, aesthetics, Peirce, Dewey, James. 200-word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Brad Evans (bevans@rci.rutgers.edu)
Posted 25 February 2013
Gender in Hebrew Literature and Culture
Discussion Group: Hebrew Literature
This panel invites papers on Israeli texts in order to understand gender politics, including queer and feminist readings, in Hebrew letters. Please submit 250 word abstract. by 17 March 2013; Rachel S. Harris (rsharris@illinois.edu)
Posted 25 February 2013
Italian Maladies
Division: Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
Narrative medicine, illness, vulnerability, biopolitics, disease, trauma, disability and representations of post-unification Italy. Multidisciplinary papers welcome. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Dana E. Renga ( renga.1@osu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 25 February 2013
Sports in French and Francophone Literature and Film
Special Session
How are athletic activities (traditional games, modern sports) portrayed in literature and film from the French-speaking world? 300-word abstract, 50-word biography by 15 March 2013; Roxanna Curto (roxanna-curto@uiowa.edu) and Rebecca Wines (RWines@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Chidren's Literature and The Common Core
Division: Children's Literature
Roundtable discussion of the consequences of common core standards to teaching children's literature at the university level. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jan Susina (jcsusina@ilstu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Psychoanalysis and Its Legacies
Allied Organization: Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association
Reflections on the impact of this Viennese methodology on culture, on the limitations of Freud's influence, or on the originary texts of psychoanalysis are welcome. Abstracts, short bio by 15 March 2013; Heidi Schlipphacke (hschlipp@odu.edu) and Imke Meyer (ixmeyer@brynmawr.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Linguistics Applied to Teach and Learn Middle-Eastern or Eastern Mediterranean Languages
Discussion Group: General Linguistics
Paper proposals sought showing linguistics applied for teaching and learning a Middle-Eastern or Eastern Mediterranean language in North America. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Terrence Potter (tmp28@georgetown.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Life Drives
Division: Comparative Studies in Romanticism and the Nineteenth Century
Papers on human and non-human forms of life in literary and scientific discourse, competing notions of wills to power and life, psychoanalysis and biopolitics. One page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michal Peled Ginsburg (m-ginsburg@northwestern.edu) and Barbara Spackman (spackman@berkeley.edu. )
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
When Chicago Was In Vogue: A "Second Awakening" in African American Art and Culture
Division: Black American Literature and Culture
New perspectives on the Chicago’s South Side as a milestone site for creative ferment among black artists. Abstract. by 15 March 2013; Sherita L. Johnson (sherita.johnson@usm.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Literary Study in the twenty-first century
Special Session
Vision for a new agenda related to new series, Oxford University Press from 2013. The Literary Agenda: individual voices in defence by 15 March 2013; Philip Davis (p.m.davis@liv.ac.uk)
Posted 22 February 2013
Queering "China": Transnational and Sinophone Perspectives
Special Session
Theorizing Chinese and/or Sinophone cultures through queer theory; queer Asia as methodology; Sinophone as queering Chineseness; critique of queer Eurocentrism. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Alvin Ka Hin Wong (alvinwong@humnet.ucla.edu) and Howard Chiang (H.H.Chiang@warwick.ac.uk)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Reception Study
Allied Organization: Reception Study Society
We invite papers/panels on any topic related to literary/film reception or book history. Join the Reception Study Society group on MLACommons, contribute to the conversation or email proposal. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Ildiko Olasz (olasz@nwmissouri.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Native Literary Chicago
Division: American Indian Literatures
This panel seeks papers on Chicago as an Indigenous space in Native literature, from early trade center to World’s Fair, relocation, and/or the present. Please send 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Channette Romero (cromero@uga.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Critical Indigenous Studies
Division: American Indian Literatures
This panel seeks papers that take a critical indigenous studies approach to the alliances and tensions between Chicana/os and American Indians as represented in both literary traditions. by 15 March 2013; Jim Cox (jhcox@austin.utexas.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Globalización 2.0 en la ciencia ficción latinoamericana
Special Session
Es posible pensar en una postglobalización? Cómo diferentes manifestaciones de lo posthumano y la cibercultura ofrecen otra visión de la globalización. Abstract de 300 palabras by 15 March 2013; Hernán Manuel García (hgarcia@wayne.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
17th and 18th century French Fairy Tales: novelties
Special Session
Representation and exploration of avant-garde elements such as technical, scientific or medical discourses, fashion innovations, food novelties, etc. In French or English, 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Berenice Le Marchand (blemarch@sfsu.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Law, Literature, and the Possibility of Justice
Special Session
Papers on the relationship between literature and law/justice in American/global contexts, including responses to critics of the law and literature movement. Abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Eric Ashley Hairston (ahairston@elon.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Teaching narrative theory in undergraduate foreign literature courses
Special Session
Inviting researchers to present approaches of teaching and applying narratology in undergraduate foreign literature courses. 300-word abstract, brief bio. by 20 March 2013; Ute Inselmann (uki@buffalo.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Country Music and Resistance
Special Session
How does country music (and country-influenced literature and film) construct narratives and subjectivities of resistance to mainstream, elite, and normative ideologies? 250-word abstract and vita or bio by 16 March 2013; Nicholas Gorrell (ngorrell@olemiss.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Muslim Utopia
Special Session
Seeking abstracts that explore Muslim fiction writers’ overt as well as covert engagement with the notion of ‘utopia’, both theological and material. 300-word abstract with brief bio by 15 March 2013; Mosarrap Khan (mhkhan@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Reading Between Musical Lines
Special Session
Exploring perspectives on how the presence of music intensifies the meaning and/or the form of narrative discourses reconfiguring the way we read. 250-300-word abstract, short bio by 22 March 2013; Andrea Perez Mukdsi (perezmukdsi@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Death of God in Nineteenth-Century America
Special Session
This session explores how American authors grapple with the time's spiritual crises by providing readers with post-secular possibilities. 300 word abstracts and one page CV by 15 March 2013; Daniel Boscaljon (daniel-boscaljon@uiowa.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Piracy and Illicit Knowledge
Special Session
Seeking short papers on book piracy, underground libraries, illicit knowledge. Digital humanities, computational, and sociological approaches welcome. 250-word abstracts due on March 18th. by 18 March 2013; Dennis Tenen (dt2406@columbia.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Subjects
Special Session
Papers exploring cultural and political effects of constructions of vulnerability/agency in literature, film, human rights, particularly in relation to child, family, place and populations. 250 word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Rosanne M. Kennedy (rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
Humanities in an Anthropocene Era
Special Session
This roundtable will consider the concept of the anthropocene. What challenges /opportunities does it pose for humanities scholarship? Interdisciplinary approaches welcome. 250 word abstract and short CV. by 12 March 2013; Rosanne M. Kennedy (rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
Addressing re-generation (1914-2014)
Special Session
Theoretical issues about the cultural uses of the concept generation; focusing on the construction of intellectual generations at the beginning of the twentieth-century in Iberia. 250-word abstract, brief bio by 15 March 2013; Aurelie Vialette (vialette.1@osu.edu) and Anna Hiller (hillanna@isu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
1930s Activist Literature
Special Session
Depression-era writers responded to vulnerabilities exposed by economic and environmental crisis with artistry intended to bring about change. Papers must address marginalized writers or forgotten works. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Marnie Sullivan (msullivan@mercyhurst.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Postnational Identities in Hispanic Literature
Special Session
As globalization is problematizing the question of identity, how do processes of hybridization/the emergence of postnational affiliations impact the works of Hispanic writers? 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Heike Scharm (heikescharm@usf.edu) and Natalia Matta Jara (natalia.matta@ttu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
In the Eye of the Press: Journalism and Tabloidism in Fiction (1830-1930s)
Special Session
Papers examining the roles and representations of journalism and tabloidism in fiction welcomed. Invite you to send abstracts (300-500 words). by 15 March 2013; Denise Mok (denise.mok@ubc.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Representations of Lawyers and the Legal Profession in Fiction (1880-1930)
Special Session
This session will offer engaging perspectives on the roles and representations of lawyers in fiction (1880-1930). Please send abstracts (300-500 words). by 15 March 2013; Denise Mok (denise.mok@ubc.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Thing Theory and Object-Oriented Studies in Medieval Contexts
Special Session
Seeking papers on any aspect of medieval things and objects, simulacra, automata, or mirabilia, whether textual or material. 300-word Abstract by 15 March 2013; Anthony Adams (ajadams@colby.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Lives/Vulnerable Lands
Special Session
Analyses of literature/film/lifewriting that considers vulnerability of particular lives and populations in relation to climate change/scarcity. Interdisciplinary approaches (anthropology, ecology, animalstudies, geography) welcome. 250 word abstract and short CV by 12 March 2013; Rosanne M. Kennedy (rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Generation of 1914 – The (Re)Evaluation of an Aesthetic (1914-2014)
Special Session
This panel reevaluates the aesthetics of the Generation of ’14, and its contribution to Spanish literature. 250-word abstract, plus brief bio-sketch by 15 March 2013; Anna Eva Hiller (hillanna@isu.edu) and Aurelie Vialette (vialette.1@osu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Conceptual Writing After Literature
Special Session
What is the status of conceptual writing after the "death of poetry" (Place) or the "event of literature" (Eagleton): that is, viewed in a critical-historical framework? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Jamie Hilder (jamiehilder@gmail.com) and Clint Burnham (clint_burnham@sfu.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Romanticism After the Critique of Lyric
Special Session
Is the "critique of lyric" a critique of the Romantic lyric? What can the study of Romantic poetry add to debates on the "lyric"? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Daniel Stout (dstout@olemiss.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
On the Road; the American Auto-Mobility Story
Special Session
The automobile in American literature. Cars liberate drivers; what's generated by the freedom to drive? 300 word abstracts, 3/15. Christina Mesa (xcamesa@stanford.edu). 300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Christina Mesa (xcamesa@stanford.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
At Peril: Lives on the Verge of Extinction
Special Session
Papers analysing and theorizing German 20th-century art, films and texts on human and animal precarious existences are welcome. Please submit 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Cecilia Novero (cecilia.novero@otago.ac.nz)
Posted 21 February 2013
Salman Rushdie in the 21st Century
Special Session
How do we reassess Rushdie's 21st century fiction (and nonfiction) while grappling with his previous output and changing political beliefs? 1-2 page abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Dr. Charlie Wesley (cwesley@daemen.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Anticolonialism Since the 18th Century
Special Session
Papers invited on: anticolonial & antislavery thought in Europe/Americas/(post)colonial spaces; emancipatory aims of Enlightenment thought and creative misreadings. Send 500-word abstracts to Sunil Agnani (sagnani1@uic.edu). 500-word abstract by 17 March 2013; Sunil Agnani (sagnani1@uic.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Special Session
Papers on life or works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who suffered multiple vulnerabilities as alcoholic, homosexual, depressive, scientist struggling to be a poet, and, ultimately, marginalized author. 400-500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Shelley Rees (srees@usao.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Lab Lit
Special Session
Panel welcomes explorations of the genre of lab lit, especially with emphasis on contemporary vulnerabilities of science and scientists. Please submit abstracts of 200-250 words by 15 March 2013; Deborah Bailin (dbailin@ucsusa.org)
Posted 21 February 2013
Forms of Devotion in Early Modern Poetry
Special Session
Panel exploring “forms”—aesthetic, doctrinal, physical, material—in 16th and 17th century devotional poetry. Abstracts of 250-300 words by 12 March 2013; Jessica Beckman (beckman1@stanford.edu) and Luke Barnhart (labarn@stanford.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
No U-Turn: Chinese Literature, Film and Arts in the 1980s and the 1990s
Special Session
We would like to revisit the last two decades in mainland China through literature, film and arts. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Hongjian Wang (hw001@uark.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Marx and Poetry
Division: Literary Criticism
How might reading poetry with and through Marx shape poetry criticism and Marxism? 500-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Kristin Ross (kr1@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literature and Liturgy
Special Session
Interpenetrations of ritual, liturgy, and literature in English: language, form, text, theology, power, allusion, community, identity, performance, reading, history, theory, order, agency, representation, allegory, aesthetics. 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Timothy Rosendale (trosenda@smu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literatures and Cultures of the Mediterranean: Approaches and Case Studies
Special Session
Exploring interdisciplinary theoretical/methodological approaches to conceptualizing Mediterranean literatures/cultures. Exploiting intellectually productive transhistorical/transdisciplinary fault-lines that constitute Mediterranean basin cross-cultural experience. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Yasser Elhariry (yasser.elhariry@dartmouth.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Manifesto Revisited
Division: Nonfiction Prose Studies, Excluding Biography and Autobiography
The manifesto as a unique nonfiction genre and vehicle for aesthetic and political intervention. Papers welcomed on all historical periods, national contexts and artistic movements. 500 Word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Amardeep Singh (amsp@lehigh.edu) and Roderick Cooke (rcooke@haverford.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Popular Narrative during the American Depression
Special Session
How do popular narratives respond to vulnerable times? Transnational, eco-critical, feminist, and other approaches to popular literature, serial fiction, film, comics, radio drama, etc. One-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michael Tavel Clarke (michael.t.clarke@ucalgary.ca) and Martha Patterson (mhpatterson@mckendree.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Interpretation in Law and the Humanities
Special Session
Can the cultural study of law shape practical jurisprudence? The interpretive traffic among legal, literary and cultural hermeneutics. 300-word abstracts and brief CV by March 15. by 15 March 2013; Matthew Titolo (matthew.titolo@mail.wvu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
James and Conrad: Art, Criticism, History
Allied Organization: Henry James Society
Topics might address these issues in fiction, non-fiction, or through historical interaction. Papers comparing critically neglected texts will be given priority. 300-500 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Kenneth W. Warren (kwarren@uchicago.edu) and Christopher GoGwilt ( gogwilt@fordham.edu.)
Posted 21 February 2013
African Literature and Modernism
Special Session
This panel considers colonial and postcolonial African literature in relation to transnational modernism, and the possible problems with a "modernist studies" approach to African texts. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Mark DiGiacomo (mjdigiacomo@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Shakespeare, Feminism, Psychoanalysis
Special Session
Feminism and feminist reactions to psychoanalysis informed much of the best Shakespeare criticism of the late 20th century. Can these critical modes be revived? 350 word abstract and CV by 18 March 2013; James Stone (jameswstone@aol.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Oulipo : Avant-garde Language
Division: Linguistic Approaches to Literature
Session fits theme “Vulnerable Worlds." Oulipo, the last international avant-garde (1961), manipulates language ("constraints," "combinatorics") to produce literature. Title/brief abstract. by 22 March 2013; Claudia Becker (cbecker@nccu.edu) and Jean-Jacques Thomas (jt96@buffalo.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
History of Style: Language’s Impact on Literature
Division: Linguistic Approaches to Literature
Session fits topic of “Vulnerable Discourses: Linguistic Manipulation of Literature,” specifically style’s influence on literature. Title/brief abstract. by 22 March 2013; Donald E. Hardy (donhardy@unr.edu) and Claudia Becker (cbecker@NCCU.EDU)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Law and Literature in the Postcolony
Special Session
This panel explores how literary works articulate and think through problems of law and legality unique to postcolonial states. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; David Babcock (babcock@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Electronic Literature after Flash
Special Session
Lightning talks on the death of Flash e-lit, the study and preservation of Flash works, and the rise in electronic literature of HTML5, Javascript, and apps. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Mark Sample (msample1@gmu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Jürgen Habermas’s Communicative Action & Writing
Special Session
This proposal seeks creative writers/scholars to reassess the literary, cultural, and sociopolitical import of Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action. 250-words abstracts by 4 March 2013. by 4 March 2013; Ruben Quesada (rmquesada@eiu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Bookshops: History of the Vanishing Present
Allied Organization: Reception Study Society
Literary, archival, ethnographic, and economic approaches to the question: What does it mean to read in a world with fewer bookshops? 250- to 500-word abstracts by 13 March 2013; Kinohi Nishikawa (kinohi.nishikawa.3@nd.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Texts Divided: Textual Scholarship and the American Civil War
Allied Organization: Society for Textual Scholarship
Papers on Civil War textuality—broadly considered--for Society for Textual Scholarship panel. Proposals welcome on texts produced during/well after the war. 300-word abstracts, CVs by 15 March 2013; Coleman Hutchison (coleman.hutchison@utexas.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vital Matters III: Things, Animals, Humans
Division: Philosophical Approaches to Literature
We welcome papers on writing livingness, with emphasis on biopolitics, animal studies, posthumanisms, or thing theory. 250-word abstract; cv. by 15 March 2013; Suzanne Guerlac (guerlacsuzanne@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Digital Queers or Queering the Digital
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Queering online presences; queer digital performances and objects; queering the codes; digitizing race and sexuality; queer contacts; queer approaches to new media. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Martha Nell Smith (mnsmith@umd.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vital Matters II: Lively Materialisms
Division: Philosophical Approaches to Literature
The animation of materialism, literary or nonliterary, including questions of vitality and vitalism, animate being, lively materialisms modern and ancient (Stoicism, Epicureanism, atomisms). Abstract, c.v. by 15 March 2013; Natania Meeker (nmeeker@usc.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literature of Innocence and Escape Between the World Wars
Special Session
Explorations of how the World Wars influenced writers who served and then went on to write children's stories or fantasy. 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Daniel Payne (Daniel.Payne@oneonta.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Digital Poetics
Special Session
Not digital humanities but digital poetics. What does digital literature and the emergent critical reading practices for approaching it illuminate about our vulnerable times? 500-word abstract and short vita by 15 March 2013; Jessica Pressman (jessicapressman0@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Alt-Academic Feminism II: "Theorizing Collaborative Action Beyond Classrooms"
Allied Organization: Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages
Community-based, integrative, and service-learning as recognized high-impact practices but also vulnerable programs; what are models/risks of framing activist work as teaching/research/service responsibilities? 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Jessica Ketcham Weber (jweber@cascadia.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Sephardic Memoir
Discussion Group: Sephardic Studies
How have Sephardic authors used the memoir to interpret their lives and the world around them? How have they varied over time? Send a 300 word abstract to bonwass@yahoo.com by 17 March 2013; Bonnie S. Wasserman (bonwass@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Future Directions in Byron Studies
Allied Organization: Byron Society of America
New research and methodologies applied to Byron's life/works, including: material culture studies, cosmopolitanism, empire, "spatial turn," digital humanities, and/or book history. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 22 March 2013; Halina Adams (halinaad@udel.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Innovative Session on Teaching Complex Prose
Special Session
How do you lead students to navigate syntactically-difficult narrative (Conrad, Faulkner, Woolf...)? Send your six-minute story about teaching one short but difficult textual passage. 950-word paper by 15 March 2013; Debra Romanick Baldwin (dbaldwin@udallas.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
The Half-life of the Cold War
Special Session
This panel explores representations of the Cold War in recent literature, film, television, and art. How does the Cold War haunt contemporary cultural production? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Theo Finigan (tfinigan@ualberta.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Human Rights Modes: Protest
Special Session
Public shame and literary form in works in any genre, period, or nationality that protest a state's ongoing violations of human rights, dignity, and/or freedoms. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michael S. Galchinsky (mgalchinsky@gsu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Theatre and Performance in the Age of Dryden
MLA Committee: Publications Committee
Current scholarship on any aspect of this topic will be considered. Abstracts of 250 words. by 4 March 2013; Deborah H. Holdstein (dholdstein@colum.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Alt-Academic Feminism III: Feminist Vulnerability on Post-Feminist Campuses
Allied Organization: Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages
Success, support, problems, or backlash in developing programs/curriculum, equity in policy (e.g., FMLA), personnel (e.g., representation/workload), and hiring (e.g., contingent labor). 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Michelle A. Massé (mmasse@lsu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Being Vulnerable, Negotiating Life and Hope
Special Session
Desperate times, desperate measures? Vulnerability/empowerment, market successes/failures for those hiring and (not)hired:two-body "problem," declining offers, A.B.D., race and class...Roundtable:8 minute testimonial presentations. abstract (100 words), mini-bio by 11 March 2013; Sarah Ohmer (ohmers@uindy.edu) and Luziris Piñeda (lpturi@rice.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Times in Academic Life
Discussion Group: Age Studies
Senior faculty are viewed as invulnerable, deadwood, on twilight cruises, or sage scholars/mentors. What does--and should--"senior" mean in academia? Can senior status increase workplace vulnerability? 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Michelle A. Massé (mmasse@lsu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Sex-Radical Feminist Revolution in Early-Modern Poetry Studies
Special Session
The politics of women's desire: queer theory, new historicism, and pro-sex feminism as renovating studies of Herrick, Donne, and Lanyer. 250 word abstracts 15 March by 15 March 2013; Harold Aram Veeser (veeserh@aol.com)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Deviant Chicago
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Sexual communities and practices in Chicago: migration, settlement, same-sex relations, interracial sociability, commercial sex; nightlife, music, subculture; labor, print culture, activism; progressivism, reform literature, urban ethnography. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Heather K. Love (loveh@english.upenn.edu) and Ellen McCracken (emccr@spanport.ucsb.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
How to Do Things with New Media in Medieval Studies
Special Session
A hybrid-roundtable-session on intersections of theory and praxis in our forays into the digital reconstruction of the pre-modern world. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Heather Blatt (mdvlmedia@gmail.com) and Mary Kate Hurley (mdvlmedia@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Fiction in the Digital Age
Special Session
Exploring ways in which contemporary works of fiction are influenced by new media and digital technology. Vulnerability, resilience and ingenuity of writers. 300-word abstracts and CV by 15 March 2013; Lara Vapnyar (lv25@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Deviant Chicago
Division: Popular Culture
Sexual communities and practices in Chicago: migration, settlement, same-sex relations, interracial sociability, commercial sex; nightlife, music, subculture; labor, print culture, activism; progressivism, reform literature, urban ethnography. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Ellen McCracken (emccr@spanport.ucsb.edu) and Heather K. Love (loveh@english.upenn.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Ethics of Vulnerability
Special Session
Vulnerability (hospitality, weakness, kenosis) has risen to prominence in interdisciplinary ethics. What are the benefits and risks of such an ethics in literature and theory? 200-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Cynthia Wallace (cwallace@stmcollege.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Radical Curators, Vulnerable Genres: Lost Histories of Collecting, Editing, Bibliography
Special Session
Engaging institutional genres and textual practices as intellectual history of gender, race and archives. CV and 250-word abstracts by March 15. by 15 March 2013; Jane Carr (jgc219@nyu.edu) and Laura Helton (laura.helton@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Pacifism and the Avant-Garde 1900-1950
Special Session
This panel explores Modernism's engagement with pacifist movements, philosophies, and thinkers. 250-word abstracts and CV by 15 March 2013; J. Ashley Foster (jashfoster@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Cultures of the Global South
Division: Postcolonial Studies in Literature and Culture
Collaboration with Sociological Approaches to Literature; papers foregrounding lifeworlds in the historically disadvantaged "industrializing" global South, and cultural engagements with precarity,loss, resilience, survival. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Bishnupriya Ghosh (bghosh@english.ucsb.edu) and Gina Dent (ginadent@ucsc.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Evaluating the Course Evaluation Process
Special Session
This session examines the course evaluation process, particularly its relationship to pedagogy: alternate means of evaluation, effects on instruction, perceptions of students and instructors, etc. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Joseph Price (joe.price@ttu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Embodied Mind
Division: Eighteenth-Century French Literature
How was the relationship between mind and body understood in the eighteenth century? In what literary forms were the mind and its processes embodied? One-page abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Joanna Stalnaker (jrs2052@columbia.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Testimonial Literature: The Role of Narrative in National Truth Commissions
Special Session
Panel explores the role of testimony in restorative justice processes in relation to truth, justice, recognition, individual and national healing. 1-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Terri Gordon (gordont@newschool.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Sublime Emotion and Cognitive Neuroscience
Special Session
Papers exploring the sublime emotion and question of disinterestedness in context of cognitive neuroscience and affect theory. Abstracts of 500 words and 2 page curriculum vitae by 17 March 2013; Jana Maria Giles (giles@ulm.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Precarity and Poetry in the 21st Century
Special Session
Papers on poetry in relation to the casualization of labor, burden of debt, and felt sense of vulnerability in our precarious times. 500-word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Charles Legere (cdlegere@pitt.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Postcolonial Trauma
Special Session
This panel explores how postcolonial contexts challenge the current rubric of trauma in fostering transcultural connections, and how they inaugurate new theoretical perspectives on trauma. 300 word abstract with CV by 15 March 2013; Jennifer Yusin (jyusin@drexel.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Posthumanism and the Premodern
Special Session
Papers addressing the animal or bestial, the in- or non-human, the machine, the cyborg; in relation to embodiment, cognition, perception, affect, ecology, and technology. abstracts of 250 words by 15 March 2013; Jennie Votava (jmv289@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
New Perspectives on Sentimental Fiction
Special Session
Innovative readings of sentimental fiction - historical, intertextual, theoretical; including challenges to the genre definition. Abstract (150 words), CV by 15 March 2013; Sanda Munjic (sanda.munjic@utoronto.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Transnational Comics
Division: Literature and Other Arts
Comics and graphic narratives present visual and textual testaments to global interaction. This panel invites papers exploring their cultural exchange. 250 word abstracts and short bios by 15 March 2013; Anke K. Finger (anke.finger@uconn.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literary Crossroads: African-American Literature and Christianity
Allied Organization: Conference on Christianity and Literature
Papers exploring the complex intersection between African-American literature and Christianity, ranging from discussions of slavery and Christianity/Bible to current engagements about race, religion, politics. 300-word abstracts. by 4 March 2013; Katherine Bassard (kcbassar@vcu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Rape of the Lock at 300
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
(Why) do we still read and teach Rape of the Lock? How can innovative theoretical approaches reframe/revise/resituate the text? Reconsiderations, critical interventions, media presentations. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Catherine Elizabeth Ingrassia (cingrass@vcu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Literature and Architecture
Division: Literature and Other Arts
This panel explores literature and architecture in view of recent spatial, pictorial, affective, sensorial, and phenomenological turns in aesthetics and cultural studies. Abstracts (250 w) and short bios by 15 March 2013; Anke K. Finger (anke.finger@uconn.edu) and Lisa Siraganian (lsiragan@mail.smu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Evaluating Digital Scholarship: Candidate Case Studies
MLA Committee: Committee on Information Technology
Electronic roundtable session. Candidates will share experiences with submitting digital scholarship for tenure and promotion. Digital work samples, framing strategies, evaluation criteria, challenges and recommendations. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Victoria E. Szabo (ves4@duke.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Queer Youth
Special Session
This panel features scholarship focused on the intersections of childhood and queer identities in literature, popular culture, and film. Send abstracts/bios to kproehl@clemson.edu. Abstracts, 250 words, Short Bio, 150 words by 15 March 2013; Kristen Proehl (kproehl@clemson.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Is the Post- in Post-Humanism the Same as the Post- in Post-Socialism?
Allied Organization: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Cultural phenomena from the Second World and its successor territories that question the “anthropological machine” of modern humanism. 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jonathan Brooks Platt (jbplatt@pitt.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
(Post-)Racial Vulnerabilities
Special Session
Papers exploring black vulnerability in the so-called “post-racial” moment, including affective, sexual/gender, socioeconomic precariousness inherent in the “post-racial.”. 300 word abstract, 1 page CV by 11 March 2013; Candice M. Jenkins (candice.jenkins@earthlink.net) and Stefanie K. Dunning (skdunno@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Cities and Cultural Mobility
Division: Postcolonial Studies in Literature and Culture
Population dispersals and re-aggregations were significant effects of colonialism; papers exploring urban space-making, cultural mobilities and their links to political projects in postcolonial texts. 250-word abstracts c.v. by 10 March 2013; Ato Quayson (a.quayson@utoronto.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Tragedy of the Commons?
Division: Sociological Approaches to Literature
Historicizing the affective appeal of the idea of a commons, commonality and/or communism in 20-21C. Reconsidering the 'tragedy of the commons' in terms of drama, performance. 350-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jonathan Flatley (jonathanflatley@wayne.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Streets of Bronzeville: Gwendolyn Brooks
Division: Women's Studies in Language and Literature
Seeking new approaches to the novels and poetics of Gwendolyn Brooks. Particular attention given to proposals that incorporate digital media. Title, 300 word abstract; by 10 March 2013; Angelita D. Reyes (angelita.reyes@asu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Postcolonial Intimacies
Special Session
This panel approaches materiality and locality by focussing on close relationships in particular places as they are represented as part of a world literary space. 300 word abstracts with CV by 15 March 2013; Veronica Barnsley (ronniesfrog@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Videogames and Mental Health
Special Session
How can videogames represent mental health issues in ways that films/literature/biographies cannot? What are the ethical/rhetorical effects of playing as a character with mental health issues? 250-word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Toby Smethurst (toby.smethurst@ugent.be)
Posted 21 February 2013
Reading new India
Special Session
Writers pander to the demands of the market thereby reshaping India. How has globalization changed the face of India and IWE? 500-word abstract and a short bio. by 15 March 2013; Cristina Maria Gamez-Fernandez (cristina.gamez@uco.es) and Om P. Dwivedi (om_dwivedi2003@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Balkan Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Literature, Film, and Music
Special Session
Is Balkan “always the other," and for whom? How has Balkan self-consciousness or the Balkan image altered, if at all, since 2000? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Mihaela Harper (mharper@bilkent.edu.tr)
Posted 21 February 2013
Latin American Kitsch 2000
Special Session
Does kitsch exist in Latin America? Have theorizations of kitsch there evolved since milleneum, in the face of globalization and new social media? 250-word abstract and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Nicholas Cifuentes-Goodbody (ngoodbody@qf.org.qa)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Work of Literary Pastoral in Vulnerable Times
Special Session
How have contemporary novelists re-envisioned the pastoral mode in order to produce what Shoshana Felman has termed "literature in action"? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Judith Ailsa Seaboyer (j.seaboyer@uq.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerability, Dependence, and Risk in Caribbean Literature
Special Session
How does 20th/21st century Caribbean literature grapple with political, economic, environmental, social, or affective vulnerabilities? Abstracts (200 words) and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Kristine Wilson (wilson67@purdue.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Southern Childhoods
Discussion Group: Southern Literature
The Southern Literature Discussion Group is organizing a panel on representations of southern childhood. We welcome proposals on texts in any historical period and medium. 300-word abstracts and vitas by 15 March 2013; Coleman Hutchison (coleman.hutchison@mail.utexas.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Russian Periodical Studies
Division: Slavic and East European Literatures
Periodicals, a marker of aesthetic and social change, offer a glimpse into the modes of cultural production. This panel addresses their prominent role in Russia's literary landscape. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; David L. Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Culture and Activism in the 2011-13 Russian Protest Movements
Division: Slavic and East European Literatures
Papers may discuss specific figures (Pussy Riot, Akunin, Sobchak) or broader questions of theory, practice, media, divergences from pre-2011 activism, etc. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kevin M. F. Platt (kmfplatt@sas.upenn.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Digitizing Slavic Studies
Division: Slavic and East European Literatures
The panel invites papers examining the engagement of Slavic arts and humanities with technology, media, and computational methods. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova (svk@ku.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Texts
Special Session
Approaches to the material vulnerabilities of texts in any medium as methodological and/or theoretical problems in the digital humanities and scholarship on electronic literature. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; John David Zuern (zuern@hawaii.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Socialist Culture in the Age of Disco
Allied Organization: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Papers on any aspect of 1970s culture in socialist East Europe and/or the USSR: literature, television, visual culture, mass media, etc. 200-word abstracts by 22 March 2013; Rebecca Stanton (rstanton@barnard.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Making Community in Vulnerable Medieval Times
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Roundtable to discuss how people made community in medieval Iberia. Submit proposal for a brief presentation. by 15 March 2013; Jean Dangler (jdangler@tulane.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Representing Passion Narratives in Varied Linguistic Registers in the Iberian Peninsula: Mirroring or Conflicting Versions of Affective Piety?
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Invites cross-linguistic, cross-disciplinary approaches to medieval Iberian Passion texts. Abstract and a brief c.v. by 15 March 2013; Montserrat Piera (mpiera01@temple.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Reciprocal Gaze between Romania and Spain
Allied Organization: Romanian Studies Association of America
Images of Spain in the works of Romanian-speaking writers, and/or of Romania in the works of Spanish-speaking authors. Emphasis on cross-cultural aspects. Half page abstracts. by 10 March 2013; Rodica Ieta (rodica.ieta@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Work and Workers in 18th-century France
Special Session
Conceptualizations, representations, critiques. Practices, norms, values. Types of sociability, conflicts, vulnerabilities. All approaches welcomed. Papers in French or English. 300-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Laurence Mall (lmall@illinois.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Gendered spaces and aging in contemporary Spanish literature and film
Special Session
Representations of spaces occupied or traversed by the aging; perceptions of safety, opportunities for travel, work, and play. 300-word abstract, short bio. by 15 March 2013; Amy L. Sellin (sellin_a@fortlewis.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Life/Death through Deleuze and Derrida
Special Session
This session will discuss both philosophers' texts in relation to literary, psychoanalytic or artistic works that dwell on the limits between life and death. Abstract 300 words by 15 March 2013; James Martell (jmartel4@nd.edu) and Erik Larsen (alarsen1@nd.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Sex, aging in contemporary Spanish writing
Special Session
Effect of aging on creativity and expressions of the body; vulnerability and invisibility of the aging body and the creative impulse. 300-word abstract, short bio. by 15 March 2013; AMY SELLIN (sellin_a@fortlewis.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Nabokov and the Future of the Humanities
Allied Organization: International Vladimir Nabokov Society
Seeking papers that explore ways Nabokov’s works can help reinvigorate the humanities’ role within university curricula and the culture at large. 300-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Stephen H. Blackwell (sblackwe@utk.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
"Nabokov and Indeterminacy"
Allied Organization: International Vladimir Nabokov Society
Guaranteed session. Criticism has debated conflicting solutions for Pale Fire, Sebastian Knight, and Lolita. The panel invites papers treating open-ended interpretations of any Nabokov works. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Priscilla Meyer (pmeyer@wesleyan.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Contagious Disorder(s)
Special Session
(Interdisciplinary) papers approaching bodies that are particularly vulnerable to disorder, social/cultural attitudes toward disability and disabled individuals, in (twentieth-century) literature. 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Claire Barber (cbarber3@illinois.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Everyday Unrecognized Sexual Violence in South Asia
Discussion Group: South Asian Languages and Literatures
We invite critiques on representations of sexual violence against marginalized groups in South Asian literature, film, and/ or media. 200 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Namrata Mitra (nmitra@jcu.edu))
Posted 20 February 2013
Modernist Melodrama
Special Session
Traditional melodrama operates around the figurability and legibility of emotion. How do modernist texts alter or engage this convention? 200 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Rochelle Rives (rchllrives@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Alt-Academic Feminism I: "Teaching Outside the Classroom through Digital Humanities."
Allied Organization: Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages
Amid Fembot Collective, Black Girls Code, MOOCs, “brogrammers,” new collaborations—how women teach, learn, connect via DH. 250-word proposal for a roundtable presentation. by 15 March 2013; Teresa Mangum (teresa-mangum@uiowa.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
The Wisdom of Translation
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
This session will explore the role of medieval Iberia as a center for linguistic, literary, and cultural translation. Please send abstracts by the deadline. by 20 March 2013; Ryan Giles (rdgiles@indiana)
Posted 20 February 2013
Marketing the Humanities
Special Session
Seeking critical analysis of how humanities have or have not been marketed, currently and previously; discussions of PR problems, specific audiences, marketing vs. advocating welcome. 250-300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Paige Morgan (paigecm@uw.edu) and Rachel Arteaga (rarteaga@uw.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Trans-Mediterranean Literature and Film
Division: Francophone Literatures and Cultures
Seeking papers that theorize a Trans-Mediterranean culture. Suggested topics include colonialism, cosmopolitanism, circuits of migration, and multinational/multilingual literature and cinema. Brief abstract and CV. by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Literature, Culture and Film of the Indian Ocean
Division: Francophone Literatures and Cultures
New developments, genres, modes of expression, performance, and intellectual inquiry in today’s cultural production from the Indian Ocean. 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Valérie Orlando (vorlando@umd.edu )
Posted 20 February 2013
Performance in Francophone Cultures
Division: Francophone Literatures and Cultures
Pioneering cultural models in performance—collaborative, experimental, and innovative genres such as dance, hip-hop, music, poetry, RAP, slam, spoken word, and theater. 250 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Dominic Thomas (dominict@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Modernism and Personality
Special Session
How did modernists theorize personality or engage personality discourse as it emerged in academic and popular psychology, popular periodicals, and self-help? 250-word abstract and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Heather Arvidson (arvidson@uw.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Visual Artifacts in Modern Latin America
Special Session
An exploration of the opacity of visual archives and their relationship to material culture, visual technologies, and the politics of looking. abstract (400 word max.) by 15 March 2013; Alejandra Uslenghi (a-uslenghi@northwestern.edu) and Javier Guerrero (jg17@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
New Currents in Medieval Hispanic Studies
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
New work, issues or approaches in medieval Hispanic or Iberian studies. Abstract, CV by 15 March 2013; Benjamin M. Liu (benjamin.liu@ucr.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
The Unconscious in Translation
Division: Psychological Approaches to Literature
The unconscious structured like a foreign language? Papers welcome on topics relating psychoanalysis to translation, rhetoric, performativity, cultural differences, global vs. collective unconscious. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ben Sifuentes-Jauregui (bjauregui@amst.rutgers.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Public Memory in an Age of Digital Privacy
Special Session
Public memorials/sites of memory interacting with/challenging the performance of personal memory on social networks, memoirs, and sites of private memory. 300-word abstract, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Joseph Donica (jdonica@wileyc.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
James and Conrad: Art, Criticism, History
Allied Organization: Joseph Conrad Society of America
Topics might address fiction, non-fiction, or historical interaction. Comparative papers discussing critically neglected texts will be given priority. 300-500 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Christopher GoGwilt (gogwilt@fordham.edu) and Kenneth Warren (kwarren@uchicago.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Sixteenth-Century French Women and their Transnational World
Special Session
This session invites papers on French Renaissance women's cross-border forms of communication and networking in literature and/or the arts. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Anne Larsen (alarsen@hope.edu) and Julie Campbell (jdcampbell@eiu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Jewish Monsters
Discussion Group: Jewish American Literature
Notions of monstrosity or the monstrous in Jewish tradition and in representations of Jews. Potential issues: containment/contagion, normality, pathology, inclusion/exclusion, ritual, heresy, health/disease. Abstract of 250 words or less by 15 March 2013; Garrett Eisler (gbe2@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Jewish Monsters
Discussion Group: Jewish Cultural Studies
Notions of monstrosity or the monstrous in Jewish tradition and in representations of Jews. Potential issues: containment/contagion, health/disease, inclusion/exclusion, ritual, heresy, normality, pathology. Abstract of 250 words or less by 15 March 2013; Garrett Eisler (gbe2@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Capitalism III: Rebellions and Riots
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Uprisings, riots, and other forms of rebellion in relation to transnational capital. Reflections on cultural articulations of popular insurgency, religious resistance, organized labor welcome. 250 word abstracts by 20 March 2013; Gabriela Nouzeilles (gnouzeil@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Capitalism II: Body and Labor
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Aesthetic and ideological dimensions of literary and visual constructions of the body in different regimes of labor (e.g. slavery, indentured and wage-labor, peonaje). 250 word abstract by 20 March 2013; Agnes Lugo (lugortiz@uchicago.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Capitalism I: Commodities and Mass Culture
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Responses to commodification and the rise of mass culture in nineteenth-century Latin America. Studies of literature, visual and material culture, exhibition spaces welcome. 250 word abstracts by 20 March 2013; Natalia Brizuela (brizuela@berkeley.edu) and Gabriela Nouzeilles (gnouzeil@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Enduring Noise: Sound and Sexual Difference
Special Session
Gendered sound in literature, theory, culture. Possible topics include: (queer) feminism and sonic temporalities; duration, rhythm, frequency, flows; spatializing sound (enveloping, penetrating, extimate, etc.). 300-word abstracts. by 10 March 2013; Aliza Shvarts (aliza.shvarts@gmail.com) and Amalle Dublon (amalle.dublon@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Language Games and Normative Publics
Special Session
Would Marx permit a pragmatist philosophy of language? Papers on materiality and meaning; Marx, Wittgenstein, and pragmatism; language, class, and the Pittsburgh School. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Steven Wexler (steven.wexler@csun.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Changing Minds: Boethius and Philosophical Exercise
Special Session
Aspects of medieval and early modern reception of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Focus on ethical teaching, the subject as agent and product of philosophical exercise. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ian Cornelius (ian.cornelius@yale.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Discourse, Food, and Social Justice
Division: Language and Society
Language at the intersection of food and society: justice, foodways, labor, ethics. How does discourse shape and/or subvert the role of food in sociopolitical practice? 2-pp. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Andrea Adolph (aea13@psu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Modern Vision and the Nineteenth-Century Americas (collaborative session)
Division: Film
Visual technologies and the historical advancement of capitalism in the Americas. Objects of the period or retrospective treatments. Collaboration w/LA-Lit-1900. Abstract (400 words) by 15 March 2013; Joshua Lund (JKL7@pitt.edu) and Salome Aguilera Skvirsky (skvirsky@uic.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
What's Material about Vulnerability?
Special Session
Seeking new perspectives on materialist theory and study of vulnerability in American culture, nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature; racial, economic, sexual vulnerabilities; vulnerability and property. Abstracts, 250-300 words by 15 March 2013; Joanna Fax (jmf4@rice.edu) and Kimberly Macellaro (kam5@rice.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
French National Identity at Moments of Crisis
Special Session
Representations of French identity during war, regime change, social upheaval, etc. Any time period or medium welcome. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Melissa Deininger (mdein@iastate.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Indigenous Literatures in the Twenty-First Century: Performance, Text, and Reception
Special Session
We seek papers that discuss the diffusion and reception of indigenous literatures and narrative performance in the Americas (North/South). 200-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Ramsey Tracy (Ramsey.Tracy@trincoll.edu) and Adam Coon (adamw.coon@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Traffic
Division: Twentieth-Century American Literature
The everyday circulation of people, information, capital, and commodities. Literary and methodological reflections on flows and exchange; web traffic, data streams, and congestion. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Mark Goble (mgoble@ber by 15 March 2013; Mark Goble (mgoble@berkeley.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
War/Scar: Representing U.S. Torture and Imperial Violence since 1945
Special Session
How have literary and cultural productions represented instances of U.S. imperial violence and torture of "enemyˮ bodies since 1945? Abstracts (300-word) by 15 March 2013; Katharina Motyl (katharinamotyl@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
MOOCs, Boutique Subjects, and Marginal Approaches
Allied Organization: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
What happens to marginal approaches (feminist, queer, disability, racial) and boutique subjects (medieval studies) in the MOOC paradigm? please submit an abstract for this roundtable disc by 20 March 2013; Dorothy Kim (dokim@vassar.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Language and Culture of the Low Countries
Discussion Group: Netherlandic Language and Literature
Open topic on the language/culture of the Low Countries. Presentations treating the presidential theme Vulnerable Times especially welcome. Abtracts up to 500 words by 17 March 2013; Wijnie De Groot (wed23@columbia.edu) and Thomas F. Shannon (tshannon@berkeley.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Making Community in Vulnerable Medieval Times
Special Session
Roundtable to discuss how people made community in medieval Iberia. See blog on La corónica website: http://www2.ku.edu/~lacoronica/cgi-bin/wordpress/. Submit proposal for a brief presentation. by 15 March 2013; Jean Dangler (jdangler@tulane.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
First Person Vulnerable
Special Session
Papers addressing first person and hybrid accounts of pain, including bodily/mental/psychic/chronic. Vulnerable states/embodiment in memoir/poetry/lyric essay/graphic memoir. 200 word abstracts/proposals. by 15 March 2013; Leigh Gilmore (leighgilmore@mac.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Materialist Aesthetics
Division: Sociological Approaches to Literature
Rethinking/revisiting materialism as a concern for politicized notions of aesthetics; Marxism; embodiment; Spinoza; new materialisms; aesthetic form in visual or written texts. 300 word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Zahid Chaudhary (zrc@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Allegory - reflection between ornament and sign
Special Session
Seeking papers exploring allegory as a mode of meaning-making dependent on counter-mimetic constellations of lines and letters, which challenge conventional models of relationality. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Andrea Wald (awald@uchicago.edu) and Luisa Banki (Luisa.Banki@uni-konstanz.de)
Posted 20 February 2013
Cultures of the Global South
Division: Sociological Approaches to Literature
Foregrounding lifeworlds in the historically disadvantaged "industrializing" global South, and cultural engagements with precarity, loss, resilience, survival. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Gina Dent (ginadent@ucsc.edu) and Bishnupriya Ghosh (bghosh@english.ucsb.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Dreiser and Money
Special Session
Financial systems and their epistemologies in Theodore Dreiser’s work, including the "Trilogy of Desire" and other fiction and nonfiction. 250 word abstracts and one-page CVs by 18 March 2013; Gary Totten (gary.totten@ndsu.edu) and Jude Davies (jude.davies@winchester.ac.uk)
Posted 20 February 2013
Comparative Translation Strategies and the Market for Foreign Literature
Special Session
This panel explores the relationship between translation strategy and saleability in major translation markets and in smaller ones like the U.S. 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Jennifer Croft (jenniferlcroft@gmail.com) and Corine Tachtiris (tachtco@umich.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Postcolonial Environmental Criticism: Development, Modernity, and the Environment
Special Session
This panel examines the intersections of postcolonialism and environmentalism in contemporary British and Anglophone literature. Please send an abstract of 300-400 words. by 20 March 2013; Arun Pokhrel (arun.pokhrel@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Discursive Responses to the Politics of Domestic Seclusion
Special Session
Last decades of 19th-Century and beginnings of the 20th Latin American texts, about discursive responses to the politics of domestic seclusion. 250 words abstract by 15 March 2013; Adriana Pacheco (apacheco@utexas.edu) and Rocio del Aguila (rociodelaguila@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
The Price of Culture in Latin America
Special Session
This panel interrogates the slippery concept of autonomy (literary/intellectual), and the tensions between cultural production and money since 1900. 250-word abstracts and brief bios by 15 March 2013; Claudia Cabello-Hutt (c_cabell@uncg.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Hungarian Film at Home and Beyond
Discussion Group: Hungarian Literature
We invite presentation proposals (250 words) discussing any aspects of Hungarian film, acting, directing, and cinematography in Hungary and beyond. Comparative perspectives welcomed. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Women and the Literature/Language of Human Rights
Division: Women's Studies in Language and Literature
Possible topics: the language/practice of the Beijing Platform for Action or CEDAW; human rights (trafficking, FGM, immigration, forced early marriage); development and NGOs. Abstracts by 10 March 2013; Susan G. O'Malley (susanomalley4@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Form and Formalisms in Literature and Science
Special Session
Roundtable discussion of how approaches like STS, disciplinary history, cognitive theory, etc. intersect with literary studies’ renewed focus on form. 250-300 words and brief cv by 5 March 2013; John Savarese (jsavarese@utexas.edu) and Debapriya Sarkar (dsarkar@eden.rutgers.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Latina/o Chicago
Special Session
Seeking papers about Latina/o writers from Chicago or the Midwest and papers about Latina/o literary works set in Chicago and the Midwest. 250-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; William Orchard (worchard@colby.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Formal Education
Special Session
How do literary and cultural productions relate to theories and practices of aesthetic education? Proposals welcome on representations and theories of form in pedagogy, broadly conceived. 250-word abstract and cv by 15 March 2013; Lisa Siraganian (lsiragan@smu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Open Session
Allied Organization: American Boccaccio Association
We welcome proposals related to the study of Boccaccio's life and/or works. 300-word proposals and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Elsa Filosa (elsa.filosa@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Boccaccio & Petrarch
Allied Organization: American Boccaccio Association
We welcome papers that deal with Boccaccio & Petrarch's friendship and with any kind of relations between their works: intertextualities, analogies, and reciprocal influence. 300-word proposals and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Elsa Filosa (elsa.filosa@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Lecturae Boccaccii
Allied Organization: American Boccaccio Association
An ongoing MLA tradition, the Lecturae are intelligent readings of one Decameronian novella. This panel seeks enlightening interpretations of any one of Boccaccio's 100 tales. 300-word proposals and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Elsa Filosa (elsa.filosa@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Memory, History, and Cultural Discourses in Spain
Special Session
Papers on the relationship between memory and politics, nationalist movements and the past, the collective unconsciousness through cultural products, and ethics of memory. 500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Alfredo J. Sosa-Velasco (sosavelasca1@southernct.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Literature and the Arts
Discussion Group: Hungarian Literature
We invite comparative presentation proposals (250 words) exploring interconnections between literature, language, music, painting, photography and the other arts in Hungarian, Romanian, and World Literature. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
World Travelers: Travel Writing in Hungary and Beyond
Discussion Group: Hungarian Literature
We invite presentation proposals (250 words) exploring Hungarian travel writing; travel writing about Hungary; the construction of alterity, exile, and exoticism in travel writing. by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu) and Zsuzsanna Varga (Zsuzsanna.Varga@glasgow.ac.uk)
Posted 20 February 2013
Literary Crossroads: African-American Literature and Christianity
Division: Literature and Religion
Papers exploring the complex intersection between African-American literature and Christianity, ranging from discussions of slavery and Christianity/Bible to current engagements about race, religion, politics. 300-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Katherine Bassard (kcbassar@vcu.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Essaying Masculinity
Special Session
How does Montaigne try out/question/reify masculinity? What is the role of intertextuality? Of the essay as genre? Abstracts electronically to Todd Reeser. by 15 March 2013; Todd W. Reeser (reeser@pitt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Drama Divisions Tomorrow
Division: Drama
How should the Drama Division transform to address emerging debates and shape the future of theater and performance studies? Manifestos, prognoses, proposals welcome. 350 word Abstract by 15 March 2013; Tavia Nyong'o (tavia.nyongo@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Singularity and Transnational Poetics
Special Session
If ‘singularity’ conveys singular-plural, relational, differential existences of bodies (of text), what are the concept's potentials for new comparative literatures and readings of transnational poetics? abstracts (400 words) by 15 March 2013; Birgit Kaiser (b.m.kaiser@uu.nl)
Posted 20 February 2013
DH from the Ground Up
Discussion Group: Computer Studies in Language and Literature
See http://computerstudies.commons.mla.org/ for additional information. Email 150-word abstracts to aearhart@tamu.edu by 15 March 2013; Amy Earhart (aearhart@tamu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Criminal Justice and the Literary Imagination
Discussion Group: Law as Literature
Connections between criminal justice and imaginative writing. How do texts represent, affirm, and/or challenge legal conceptions of crime or punishment? 500-word abstracts and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Jay Paul Gates (jgates@jjay.cuny.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Vulnerable Readers
Special Session
Mid-century American novels and the reading practices they engender. How do experiments in genre instruct readers in attending to the vulnerabilities of social life after WWII? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jenny M. James (jamesja@plu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Unveiling Herself: Women in the Works of Arab Women Filmmakers
Special Session
What happens when Arab women leave a position of ideological invisibility to step both before and behind the camera? 250-300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Susan Blood (sblood@albany.edu) and Nabila El Guennouni (nelguennouni@albany.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Developing and Funding Online Teaching Platforms
Special Session
Given differently-resourced departments, how best to create and maintain Open Source teaching platforms? Those experienced with grant-funded, direct-budget, or unfunded single-maintainer systems are encouraged. 350-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Scott Henkle (shenkle@hotmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Forgotten Sources, Alternative Archives
Special Session
Documenting and explaining more elusive sources of well-known literary works; expanding what it means to read for sources and/or the traditional sense of “archive." 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Sean O'Toole (sean.otoole@baruch.cuny.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Rustbelt Migrations: Ethnicities and (De)Industrialization
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Literature of immigrants (Europe, Asia) and internal migrant populations (Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians) connected to urban spaces, racial formation, and global capitalism. Brief abstract and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Richard T. Rodríguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu) and Lingyan Yang (Lingyan@iup.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Literary Sociologies of Race and Ethnicity
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Theorists and sociologists such as Randolph Bourne, Robert E. Park, Alain Locke, Charles S. Johnson in relation to 20th-century American poetry, fiction, and drama. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Richard T. Rodríguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
20th/21st Century Antisemitisms
Special Session
Papers theorizing antisemitism in law/policy debates, literature, film, television, etc. What approaches/theories are needed to contend with antisemitism in the 21st Century? Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Lara A. Trubowitz (laratrubowitz@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
“Feminism and Nationalism”: The Case of South Asian Women
Special Session
Seeking proposals (roundtable) on the creation of the nation-state and the role of women in South Asia. an abstract of 250 words by 15 March 2013; Umme Al-wazedi (ummeal-wazedi@augustana.edu) and Feroza Jussawalla (imohf@aol.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Charlemagne at the Crossroads of Europe: Negotiating Intersections
Allied Organization: Société Rencesvals, American-Canadian Branch
Papers addressing reflections in the romance epic of Charlemagne negotiating intersections (Church/Empire, Pan-European politics, war/peace). Abstract (250 words), brief CV. by 14 March 2013; Paula E. Leverage (leverage@purdue.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Digital Pedagogy Going Global
Special Session
This panel focuses on the pedagogical benefits of cross-cultural online collaborative projects in teaching literature, writing, linguistics, and modern languages. 300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Zsuzsanna Palmer (zpalm001@odu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Biodiversity and Extinction
Division: Literature and Science
Submissions sought for panel on literary/cultural approaches to species, biodiversity, endangered species, conservation, extinction, and environmental memory. 250-word abstract and CV by March 15, 2013, to Ursula Heise: uheise@humnet.ucla.edu. by 15 March 2013; Ursula K. Heise (uheise@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Randall Jarrell at 100
Division: Children's Literature
This panel seeks papers celebrating Randall Jarrell, children’s author, teacher, poet, critic, novelist, essayist; his collaborations, translations and influence. Send title, 500-word abstract and 2-page CV. by 15 March 2013; Tali Noimann (cnoimann@bmcc.cuny.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
World War I in Film and Literature
Division: European Literary Relations
The military self-destruction of Europe that took place between 1914 and 1918 has been portrayed and analyzed in film and literature. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Paul Lutzeler (jahrbuch@wustl.edu ) and katerina clark (katerina.clark@yale.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Constantinople/Istanbul: East/West
Division: European Literary Relations
Literary and visual representations of the ancient and modern city in European texts. Send abstracts by 15 March. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Bella Brodzki (to: bbrodzki@slc.edu.) and katerina clark (katerina.clark@yale.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Literature and Philosophy: New Perspectives
Special Session
We seek papers exploring new interconnections between (European or analytical) philosophy and modern literature. 250-page abstracts to henry.pickford@colorado.edu by 15 March 2013; Henry Pickford (henry.pickford@colorado.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Author vs. Form vs. Concept: The Clash of Paradigms in the Study of Twentieth-Century Literature
Division: Comparative Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Shifting history, consequences, and/or possible future of critical paradigms. 5-7 minute roundtable presentations, comparativist and/or Americanist. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ramon Saldivar (saldivar@stanford.edu) and Robert Parker (rparker1@illinois.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Diaries of the Young Girl: The Craft of Female Selfhood
Division: Children's Literature
Girls’ diaries from diverse perspectives: feminism, the bildungsroman, constructions of adolescence, ethnicity, gender, cultural theory, and new diary forms. Send 500-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; June Cummins (jcummins@mail.sdsu.edu) and Rocio Davis (rdavis@cityu.edu.hk )
Posted 19 February 2013
Teaching Racist Texts: Roundtable on Pedagogy
Special Session
What problems/issues are at stake when teaching racist literature? What are our pedagogical strategies for teaching students how to talk and write about racism? 100-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Brigitte Fielder (brigitte.fielder@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
Revisiting Popular Culture in Early Modern Spain
Special Session
New perspectives on the cultural practices of the popular classes in 15th- to 18th-century Spain. One-page abstract by 8 March 2013; Miguel Martinez (martinezm@uchicago.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Vulnerable Times and the Rise of Fascism: Radical Writers on the Front of the Spanish Civil War
Special Session
This panel explores testimonies of writers who volunteered in the Spanish Civil War. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; J. Ashley Foster (jashfoster@yahoo.com) and Evelyn Scaramella (evelyn.scaramella@manhattan.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Author vs. Form vs. Concept: The Clash of Paradigms in the Study of Twentieth-Century Literature
Division: Twentieth-Century American Literature
Shifting history, consequences, and/or possible future of critical paradigms. 5-7 minute roundtable presentations, comparativist and/or Americanist. Abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Robert Dale Parker (rparker1@illinois.edu) and Ramón Saldívar (saldivar@stanford.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Modernism and the Body
Special Session
How does modernist literature approach and appropriate the body? Topics: non-normative bodies (pregnant, disabled, “othered,” “queer”), or ordinary bodies. Abstracts (max. 350 words) by 15 March 2013; Erin Kingsley (erin.kingsley@colorado.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Medieval Women and Poverty
Allied Organization: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
We are interested in examining medieval women and charity, limited resources in households and religious organizations, models of poverty, poor books and readers. Paper session, please submit abstracts by 20 March 2013; Dorothy Kim (dokim@vassar.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Have we ever been secular?
Division: Late-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
Papers revisiting customary narratives about Enlightenment and secularization; exemplifying 18th-century studies after the “theological turn”; etc. 500-word proposals by e-mail by 22 March 2013; Deidre Lynch (deidre.lynch@utoronto.ca)
Posted 19 February 2013
World War
Division: Late-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
In the wake of the 250th anniversary of the Seven Years War, we invite submissions upon concepts, effects, and literature of global war. 500 word abstract by March 22nd by 22 March 2013; William Warner (warner@english.ucsb.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Antebellum Affects: Literature & Theory
Special Session
Theories of affect and antebellum American literature, including sentiment’s historical mutations, literary assemblages, nationalism as social bond, and racial/gender epistemes in flux. Brief CV. 250– word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Richard A. Garner (ragarner@buffalo.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Renaissance Cosmopolitanism
Division: Sixteenth-Century French Literature
Poetics, politics and/or philosophies of being at home all over the world, as seen from the world of sixteenth-century France. Title and abstract for a 20-minute presentation by 15 March 2013; Andrea Marie Frisch (afrisch@umd.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Extreme Politics in Popular Culture
Special Session
Papers on post-W.W. II popular cultural representations of neofascism, white supremacist groups, and/or the ultra right-wing. All media/all approaches welcome. Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Lara A. Trubowitz (laratrubowitz@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
The Victorian Photographic Imaginary
Special Session
Papers on any aspect of the relationship between Victorian literature and photography. Topics may include genre, theater, intermediality, proto-photography, spiritualism, mourning, identity, or empire. 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Jesse Hoffman (jessehoffman@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
The New Weird
Special Session
Papers on authors/artists (any language) associated with the New Weird in fiction, film, or other media. Political, aesthetic, narratological, historical topics all welcome. Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; David Wittenberg (david-wittenberg@uiowa.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
The Data is the Scholarship
MLA Committee: Committee on Scholarly Editions
How can data models represent theories of scholarly textual editing? Where in the data does textual scholarship inhere? Practical and theoretical explorations invited; see http://scholarlyeditions.commons.mla.org/2013/02/15/convention-2014-call-for-papers/. 250-word proposal by 10 March 2013; Julia H. Flanders (julia_flanders@brown.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Size and Scale in Literature and Culture
Special Session
Papers on bigness, smallness, proportion, the sublime, or other topics related to size and scale in literature and culture. Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; David Wittenberg (david-wittenberg@uiowa.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Roots of Ecocriticism: the 1970's and 1980's
Special Session
papers on earliest initiatives toward ecocriticism both as scholarly theory and practice and in the classroom; particular interest in first-person accounts. queries or 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Frederick O. Waage (renwag@charter.net) and Michelle Balaev (michellebalaev@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
War Media
Special Session
Spectacles of combat; the cinema of endless war; the facts, fictions and fables of battlefield reportage; drone optics; the militarization of social media; the military-industrial-entertainment complex. abstracts or papers by 15 March 2013; Jan Mieszkowski (mieszkow@reed.edu) and Ross Etherton (etherton@colorado.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Rethinking the Place of the Novel in the History of Genre
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
What can other genres teach us about the early English novel? Seeking papers that revise our novel-centric literary histories. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Wolfram Michael Schmidgen (wschmidg@artsci.wustl.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
The 21st-Century Library: Discovery Services vs. Subject Specialists
MLA Committee: Advisory Committee on the _MLA International Bibliography_
This panel considers the role of the literature subject specialist in an era which appears to promote the use of Google-style one-box-fits-all searches. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; James Raymond Kelly (jrkelly@library.umass.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
"Does It Explode?" Discursive Redlining in CLYBOURNE PARK
Allied Organization: American Theatre and Drama Society
How does Bruce Norris' play revise/revisit the Youngers' neighborhood in Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN? Abstracts of 250 words, plus brief CV by 8 March 2013; Donald P. Gagnon (gagnond@wcsu.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
New Directions in American Multiethnic Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Theories and Criticisms
Allied Organization: MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
We welcome both theoretical conceptualizations and application of them to analyzing multiethnic (women's) literature. Brief abstract and 1-page CV. by 20 March 2013; Lingyan Yang (lingyan@iup.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Rustbelt Migrations: Ethnicities and (De)Industrialization
Allied Organization: MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
Literature of immigrants (from Europe, Asia, etc.) and internal migrants (Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians) connected to urban spaces, racial formation, and global capitalism. Abstract and 1-page CV. by 15 March 2013; Lingyan Yang (lingyan@iup.edu) and Richard T. Rodriguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Medieval German Literature and Mystical Theology
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers addressing the intersection of literature and mystical theology. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013 by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
The Lyrical 'I'
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers exploring the figure and function of the 'I' in medieval German poetry. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013 by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Medieval 'World Literature'?
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers addressing questions of what moves, what doesn't move, what circulates, and what doesn't circulate among medieval literatures of different languages. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Continental Arthur
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers discussing the role of Arthurian motives in literature on the continent, especially the Low Countries, German-speaking lands, and Scandinavia. Co-sponsor: Arthurian Literature Discussion group. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Feel the Pain: Medieval Trauma
Division: Middle English Language and Literature, Excluding Chaucer
Round Table Possible topics: hagiography, romance, psychoanalysis, affect, bodies, torture, witnessing, empathy, animals, medicine, pedagogy, or critical narratives as traumatic. 500-word abstract and cv by 8 March 2013; Erin Labbie (labbie@bgsu.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Medieval England and the History of the Book
Division: Middle English Language and Literature, Excluding Chaucer
session will address the materiality of written culture: codicology, paleography, manuscript illumination, and the transmission of texts and textual traditions. 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Marilynn Desmond (mdesmon@binghamton.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Melville and Matter
Allied Organization: Melville Society
Echoing themes of vulnerability and resilience, we seek readings of Melville vis-a-vis what has been called the “new materialism” and the “new vitalism.”. 300-500 word proposal and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Tim Marr (marr@unc.edu) and Joseph Fruscione (josephk@email.gwu.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
The Quixotic in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction
Special Session
This panel will focus on the representation of the quixotic in twentieth-century women's fictions. by 15 March 2013; Gina Tomasulo (jeanrhys_4@hotmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
Approaches to Feminist Orientalism
Special Session
The session will assess, complicate, and extend the important intersectional concept of “feminist orientalism.” Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. Send abstracts of 300 words to Samara Cahill by 15 March 2013; Samara Cahill (sacahill@ntu.edu.sg)
Posted 19 February 2013
Accenting Punctuation
Special Session
Punctuation--as used by a specific literary figure, in certain genres, or topics related to linguistics. Abstracts of 100 to 300 words by 5 March 2013; Albert E. Krahn (krahn@punctuation.org)
Posted 19 February 2013
Continental Arthur
Discussion Group: Arthurian Literature
Seeking papers discussing the role of Arthurian motives in literature on the continent, especially the Low Countries, German-speaking lands, and Scandinavia. Co-sponsor: Arthurian Literature Discussion group. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013; Niklaus Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu) and Randy Schiff (rpschiff@buffalo.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Infrastructuralism
Special Session
Themes of infrastructure - its environmental sustainability, its social and economic desirability, its political vulnerability - in literary representation from any period and tradition. See more at http://infrastructuralism.commons.mla.org/. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michael Rubenstein (michael.d.rubenstein@gmail.com)
Posted 18 February 2013
Between Vulnerability and Resilience: Representations of the Veil in Literature
Special Session
This roundtable will explore the re-emergence of the veil and its literary and cultural representations. 250-word abstracts and vitae by 15 March 2013; Afrin Zeenat (azeenat@uark.edu) and Umme Al-Wazedi (ummeal-wazedi@augustana.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Asian American Literary Criticism Today
Division: Asian American Literature
Open call for papers on Asian American literature. 1 pg abstract, 2 pg CV by 8 March 2013; Paul Lai (pylai@stkate.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Aiiieeeee! and Asian American Literature, 40 Years Later
Division: Asian American Literature
Debating the legacy of Aiiieeeee!, the first major anthology of Asian American literature, forty years after its publication in 1974. 1-page abstract, c.v. by 15 March 2013; Timothy Yu (tpyu@wisc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Asian Americans and the Undead
Division: Asian American Literature
Considerations of the undead (including but not limited to zombies, vampires, ghosts) in relation to Asian American cultural production or subject formation. 250 word abstract 2 page CV by 8 March 2013; Julia Lee (jxlee@utexas.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 18 February 2013
"Disability, Prosthesis, and Medieval Literature"
Special Session
This panel explores how medieval literature makes use of disability and/or prosthesis as theme, metaphor, and/or plot device. Please send 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Tory V. Pearman (pearmatv@muohio.edu) and Joshua Eyler (jeyler42@gmail.com)
Posted 18 February 2013
Vulnerable Times in the Archive: Forgotten Modernist Literary Magazines
Special Session
Texts or individuals excluded from the recent Oxford critical volumes (by Brooker & Thacker) are particularly welcome. 250 word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Belinda Wheeler (bwheeler@paine.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Harlem’s Transnational Modernisms: Recovering the Black Archive Beyond the Nation
Special Session
Presentations on canonical or non-canonical Harlem writers addressing black transnationalism. 250-word-abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Belinda Wheeler (bwheeler@paine.edu) and Joseph Donica (jdonica@wileyc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Organic Mechanisms: Whitehead, Literature, and Science
Division: Literature and Science
New approaches to literature and science informed by the resurgent philosophy of nature, metaphysics, and cosmological speculations of Alfred North Whitehead. One-page CV and 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Steven J. Meyer (sjmeyer@wustl.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Reading Postmodern Space
Special Session
How do postmodern literary and theoretical texts map and navigate, construct and alter, inhabit and evacuate space? 250 word abstracts – brief biography. by 15 March 2013; Karen Jacobs (karen.jacobs@colorado.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
The Online Seminar Table
Special Session
How can we use technology to create intimate seminars that collapse geographical distance, connecting far-flung students and institutions in meaningful new intellectual relationships? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Meg Lamont (melamont@stanford.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
In the Meme Time
Division: Popular Culture
“Meme” accounts for phenomena such as “Gangnam Style” dance. Papers that pressure the “popular” through the technical, theoretical and performative logic of the meme. CVs and short abstracts by 8 March 2013; John Mowitt (mowit001@umn.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Chaucer and the New Aesthetics
Division: Chaucer
Rethinking aesthetics, including affect and the sensorium; material culture; the descriptive turn; form and symptom. Abstracts by 15 March 2013 to Mark Miller (jmmiller@uchicago.edu). abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Mark Miller (jmmiller@uchicago.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Middle English Keywords
Division: Chaucer
This roundtable asks: What are the critical terms through which we currently think about Chaucer and medieval literature? Single-word titles with abstracts by 15 March to Kellie Robertson (krobert@umd.edu). by 15 March 2013; Kellie Robertson (krobert@umd.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Where is French Theory Today?
Division: Twentieth-Century French Literature
“French Theory” in a global context (e.g. migration studies, social media, Occupy movements); how other cultures, emergent scholarship, new political practices reconfigure theory. 250-word abstract, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Danielle Marx-Scouras (marx-scouras.1@osu.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 18 February 2013
Dickinson, Poe, and 19-Century Aesthetic Practices
Allied Organization: Poe Studies Association
Papers comparing the work of Dickinson and Poe by locating them within a 19th-century cultural trend or literary practice. 250-word abstract and resume. by 15 March 2013; Eliza Richards (ecr@email.unc.edu) and Paul Lewis (paul.lewis@bc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Dickinson, Poe, and 19c Aesthetic Practices
Allied Organization: Emily Dickinson International Society
Papers comparing the work of Dickinson and Poe by locating them within a 19th-century cultural trend or literary practice. 250-word abstract and cv by 15 March 2013; Eliza Richards (eliza_richards@unc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Zionisms Past, Present, and Future
Discussion Group: Jewish Cultural Studies
The Zionist imagination in global literatures and cultures. Potential topics: pre- or proto-Zionist texts, Christian Zionism, post-Zionism, Israel and its others. Abstract, 250 words maximum by 10 March 2013; Garrett Eisler (gbe2@nyu.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Forms of Freedom: Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought
Special Session
This session will explore the ways that poetry responds to the rise of liberalism during the long nineteenth century. Abstracts of 250 words by 15 March 2013; Anna Barton (a.j.barton@sheffield.ac.uk)
Posted 18 February 2013
Cid Corman and American Poetry
Special Session
Looking for papers that examine the work of the Japan-based expatriate American poet Cid Corman and his influence upon, and contribution to, American poetry. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Gregory Dunne (gdunne@sky.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp)
Posted 18 February 2013
Deleuze and the States of Film Analysis
Division: Film
Relate Deleuze’s philosophy to film analysis. How do 'movement-image' and 'time-image' help understand role of cinema, film, visual images, 20th century and beyond? Abstract, bio by 10 March 2013; Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio (serena.anderlini@gmail.com) and Paul Young (paul.d.young@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 18 February 2013
Picturing the 1914 "jeune-fille"
Special Session
What does the French literature, art and culture of the years 1890-1920 tell us about the blooming young girls ? One-page abstract & bio by 14 March 2013 by 14 March 2013; Virginie Pouzet-Duzer (virginie.pouzet-duzer@pomona.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Vulnerable Children in Contemporary Narratives
Special Session
How is the vulnerability of children depicted or resisted within contemporary narratives? Abstracts addressing post-WWII narratives of all types are welcome. 300-word abstract and a brief CV by 15 March 2013; Mark Heimermann (heimerm5@uwm.edu) and Eric Herhuth (eherhuth@uwm.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Rethinking Lydia Sigourney
Special Session
For a critical reassessment, papers on any approach to her writings, including psychoanalytical, cultural studies, globalization or transnational, canon formation, comparative, disability studies, or other. Abstract and 2-page CV. by 10 March 2013; Elizabeth Petrino (epetrino@fairfield.edu) and Mary Lou Kete (mkete@uvm.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Textual Carnivals Revisited
Division: the Teaching of Writing
20 years after Susan Miller’s Textual Carnivals, Are we still “the sad woman in the basement?” This panel will explore the gendered politics of rhetoric and composition. Proposal, 250words. by 1 March 2013; Victor J. Vitanza (sophist@clemson.edu) and Jacqueline Rhodes (jrhodes@csusb.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Duras at 100
Special Session
Papers on her work and on authors of her generation that confront personal, social, historical cataclysms: colonies, death, exile, WWII, through innocent eyes. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Meaghan Emery (meaghan.emery@uvm.edu) and Jennifer Willging (willging.1@osu.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Old English Law and Literature
Discussion Group: Law as Literature
How do these fields illuminate social and political developments, or conceptions of self and the community? Why is interdisciplinarity important? 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu) and Jay Paul Gates (jgates@jjay.cuny.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Media, Justice and Revolution in the Middle East
Discussion Group: Law as Literature
How are media being used in the contemporary Middle East to challenge unjust governance and demand/define just governance? 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jay Paul Gates (jgates@jjay.cuny.edu) and Amy Motlagh (amotlagh@aucegypt.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Representing Passion Narratives in Medieval Iberian Languages: Mirroring or Conflicting Versions of Affective Piety?
Discussion Group: Catalan Language and Literature
Papers devoted to the cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic study of Iberian Passion texts. A 250-word abstract and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Montserrat Piera (mpiera01@temple.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
The Vulnerability of Catalan Studies as a Discipline
Discussion Group: Catalan Language and Literature
Papers that analyze challenges that Catalan Studies as a professional discipline has experienced (past and present). 400-word abstract and 2-page CV by 15 March 2013; Montserrat Piera (mpiera01@temple.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Torture and Popular Culture
Division: Popular Culture
Papers on the representation of torture in popular culture, especially in recent work like Zero Dark Thirty. Is there a benefit and what is the effect? CVs/ Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Hillary L. Chute (chute@uchicago.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Global Pirandello
Allied Organization: Pirandello Society of America
Pirandello in and of the world: topics such as cosmopolitanism and global geographies, including legacies, influences, audiences, adaptations. Interdisciplinary/comparative approaches encouraged. 250-word abstract, with title and brief biography. by 15 March 2013; Jana O'Keefe Bazzoni (jana.okeefebazzoni@baruch.cuny.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Modern Consciousness: Pirandellian Obsessions
Allied Organization: Pirandello Society of America
Topics including psychology, spirituality, sexuality and other aspects of modern consciousness in Pirandello and contemporaries; interdisciplinary/comparative approaches encouraged. 250-word abstract, with title and brief biography. by 15 March 2013; Jana O'Keefe Bazzoni (jana.okeefebazzoni@baruch.cuny.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
The Perpetrator's Viewpoint
Special Session
Fiction focalizing and describing the perpetrator - from Dostoevsky to Littell - faces epistemological, narratological, and ethical challenges. This panel investigates examples of perpetrator literature. 400-word abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Levin Arnsperger (larnspe@emory.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Teaching Contemporary Arab Women Writers: Remapping the Canon
Special Session
Explores contemporary works by Arab women as they relate to teaching new/existing courses on women’s writing and culture. Abstracts of 300 words or less by 15 March 2013; Lynne Dahmen (ldahmen@purdue.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Gypsies in the American Cultural Imagination
Special Session
This session will include representations of Gypsies (Romani) in American Literature, Music, Film, and/or Television. Abstracts of no more than 500 words. by 15 March 2013; David Shane Wallace (dshanew@gmail.com)
Posted 17 February 2013
New German Discourses About Conservatism: Forms and Expressions in Contemporary German Literature
Special Session
Panel critically explores discourses about conservatism in contemporary German literary production and reception. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Arnim Alex Seelig (arnim.seelig@mail.mcgill.ca)
Posted 28 January 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Assessing Early Modern Queer Studies
Division: Literature of the English Renaissance, Excluding Shakespeare
Roundtable exploring current debates and new trends. 8-10 minute position papers. Newer voices especially welcome. Send 250 word abstract, cv to Graham Hammill (ghammill@buffalo.edu) by March 22. by 22 March 2013; Graham Hammill (ghammill@buffalo.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Destruction and Revitalization
Discussion Group: Bibliography and Textual Studies
We seek proposals for papers that involve questions of textual and cultural destruction and revitalization, in any period or context. 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Matt Cohen (matt.cohen@mail.utexas.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Early American Networks of Writing and the Politics of Writing Instruction
Discussion Group: Bibliography and Textual Studies
Seeking new research on the politics of early American rhetoric and writing instruction networks. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Shevaun Watson (watsonse@uwec.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Transatlantic Maghreb
Special Session
Explores engagement of American writers with North Africa and how this informed their own cultural identity. Papers on missionary activity, travel, fiction, and their representations of Maghrebi culture. 300 words; by 17 March 2013; Ahmed Idrissi Alami (aidrissi@purdue.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Of Love Possessed: Biopolitics as/of Love
Special Session
Is love an “ontological event...producing the common” (Hardt and Negri) or a spiritual resolution of material contradictions? Papers on love, private property, and the common. Abstracts by 17 March 2013; Jennifer M. Cotter (cotterj@william.jewell.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Cognitive Approaches to Film
Division: Cognitive Approaches to Literature
Theory; new interpretations; unexpected angles. We invite papers at the intersection of cognitive studies and the moving image. Send 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Julien Jacques Simon (jjsimon@iue.edu) and Lisa Zunshine (lisa.zunshine@gmail.com)
Posted 16 February 2013
Cognitive Historicist Approaches to Literature
Division: Cognitive Approaches to Literature
Papers examining literary works (across cultural traditions) in relation to the ideas about the mind circulating when the works were produced. Send 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Julien Jacques Simon (jjsimon@iue.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
How Inequality Has Displaced Class
Special Session
"Exploitation," Hardt and Negri claim, is "expropriation of the common" because capitalist accumulation has become "external" to production. Papers on class and inequality in the contemporary. Abstracts by 6 March 2013; Robert Wilkie (rwilkie@uwlax.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Gendered Age & Authority in Popular Media
Discussion Group: Age Studies
Collaborative session on shifting popular-media representations of women across the age spectrum in public roles. Proposals (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Elizabeth Gregory (egregory@uh.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
The Graphic Nineteenth Century
Division: Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Submissions addressing the combination of word and image in the nineteenth century, from proto “graphic novels” to graphic work popularized in periodicals. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Augusta Rohrbach (augustarohrbach@gmail.edu) and Hillary Chute (chute@uchicago.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Literature and Media in the Nineteenth-Century US
Division: Nineteenth-Century American Literature
How have media history and media theory transformed the study of nineteenth-century American literature? Roundtable on new approaches; statements posted in advance. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Meredith McGill (mlmcgill@rci.rutgers.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Slavery in the 21st-Century American Cultural Imagination
Special Session
This panel seeks critical assessments of recent representations (filmic, literary, etc.) of racial slavery in US culture. Send 250-word abstracts and a brief CV. by 15 March 2013; Gregory Laski (gmlaski@gmail.com)
Posted 14 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Beat Poets and L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. Poetics
Special Session
Beat Studies Association: subjects open. Welcome proposals on Beat literature and L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. poets/poetics. 300-word proposal and 300-word biography. “doc” or “pdf”. 300-word abstracts; 300-word professional bio. by 10 March 2013; Ronna Catherine Johnson (ronna.johnson@tufts.edu) and Deborah Geis (dgeis@depauw.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Political Animals: Nature, Culture, Race in Early America
Division: Colonial Latin American Literatures
Colonizers believed the 'natures' of nations obeyed geography. How did contact among Europeans, Indians, Africans, and their descendants test this belief? CV, abstract by 15 March 2013; Nicolás Wey-Gómez (nwey@caltech.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Modern Vision and the Nineteenth-Century Americas
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Visual technologies and the historical advancement of capitalism in the Americas. Objects of the period or retrospective treatments. Collaboration with Film Division. Abstract (400 word max). by 15 March 2013; Joshua K. Lund (JKL7@pitt.edu) and Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky (skvirsky@uic.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Negotiating Impermanence in medieval Germanic text and words
Special Session
Papers concerning linguistic or literary transience and the awareness thereof in medieval Germanic languages and literature are requested. Abstracts of 300 words or less by 13 March 2013; Adrienne Damiani (damia004@berkeley.edu) and Adam Oberlin (oberl024@umn.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
South Asians in North America
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Inter-ethnic readings of history, culture, representation, theory - including and beyond race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, emphasizing transnational connections and global divides. Abstracts and short CVs by 15 March 2013; Amritjit Singh (singha@ohio.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013, last updated 15 February 2013
Dickinson and Visuality
Allied Organization: Emily Dickinson International Society
Emily Dickinson’s engagements with vision in any of its senses. Visual cultures, technologies, arts, performances, spectacles. 19c optics. Blindness, hallucination, observation. Ekphrasis, word and image. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Eliza Richards (eliza_richards@unc.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Early American Networks of Writing and the Politics of Writing Instruction
Division: the History and Theory of Rhetoric and Composition
Seeking new research on the politics of early American rhetoric and writing instruction networks. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Shevaun E. Watson (watsonse@uwec.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Newer New or Coming After? Americanist Literary Criticism at the Present Moment
Special Session
This panel seeks papers that reflect on the work of the New Americanists. Abstracts (300-500 words) and brief cv by 15 March 2013; Jed Dobson (james.e.dobson@dartmouth.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Red Chicago: Leftist Chicago Writers 19th Century to the Present
Special Session
Leftist Chicago writers 19th-21st centuries; representation of socialist/ communist/ anarchist midwest movements; working-class, feminist, and racial/ethnic radicalisms; revolutionary aesthetics. 200-300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Melissa Macero (melissa.macero001@umb.edu) and Barbara Foley (bfoley@andromeda.rutgers.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Post-war Town: Constructing Urban Identity
Special Session
Urban space is defined by urban memory. But whose memory is it? Have WWII and Holocaust left place for any substantial identity? 250-word abstract, 100-word bio by 22 March 2013; Pawel Wolski (wolski@brandeis.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Making Digital Counterpublics
Special Session
How can humanities classroom and research practices use digital tools and platforms to facilitate counterpublic formation for marginalized populations, activist organizations, and community outreach? 300 Word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; David Parry (dparry@utdallas.edu) and Kim Knight (kknight08@gmail.com)
Posted 15 February 2013
Raising the Bar: Academic Rigor in the Language Classroom
Division: the Teaching of Language
This session examines frameworks and approaches for teaching foreign language through intellectually challenging content. One-page abstract/20-minute paper by 15 March 2013; Fernando Rubio (fernando.rubio@utah.edu) and Heather Willis-Allen (hwallen@wisc.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Linguistic Foundations for Teaching in the Post-Methods Era
Division: the Teaching of Language
Discusses how foundations in Linguistics (L1 and L2 acquisition theory, phonology, phonetics, syntax) may inform teacher education or L2 instruction. One-page abstract, 20-minute paper by 15 March 2013; Fernando Rubio (fernando.rubio@utah.edu) and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp (j.tharp@utah.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
The Genres of Margaret Fuller's Writing
Allied Organization: Margaret Fuller Society
Translation. Travel. Essay. Conversation. Dialogue. Utopian vision. Mysticism. Poetry. Fiction. Sermon. Book review. History. Hybrid forms. Links to other writers. 1-2 page abstract plus short vita by 18 March 2013; Jeffrey Allen Steele (jsteele@wisc.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
CORPORA: Textual, Sexual, Non-Human Bodies
Allied Organization: Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature
Topics including: gender/sexuality, body politic, bodies of text, real/imagined bodies, angelic/monstrous bodies...papers addressing contemporary theoretical debates. Selected papers may be published. 1-page abstract; 1-page CV by 11 March 2013; Elio C. Brancaforte (ebranca@tulane.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Heresy: Arius to Rushdie
Division: Literature and Religion
We seek a range of papers from different periods, languages, religious traditions. 300-500 word abstracts or 8-page papers by 15 March 2013; Stephen M. Fallon (sfallon@nd.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Defining the Moment, Defining the Momentum
Discussion Group: Part-Time Faculty Members
Perspectives on the language used to describe employment status. Short, focused presentations that examine distinct frameworks of definition, institutional integration, and resistance. Short roundtable presentation ideas. by 15 March 2013; Margaret Hanzimanolis (hanzimanolism@fhda.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Golden Age to Our Age: Re-reading 19th Century Aesthetics
Special Session
Seeking to explore twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature's reworking of nineteenth-century aesthetics, politics and culture. 250 word abstract and brief bio to c.blinder@gold. by 15 March 2013; Caroline Blinder (c.blinder@gold.ac.uk)
Posted 15 February 2013
Representing Evil: The Holocaust, Slavery, and Beyond
Special Session
15-20 min. papers on American film/literature representations of "evil" and/or the pathological perpetrator as explanations for the Holocaust and slavery. http://www.daniellechristmas.com. 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Danielle Christmas (dchris20@uic.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
"The Controversy over Attribution of De Doctrina Christiana to Milton."
Special Session
This session welcomes papers by partisans in the controversy over Milton's reputed authorship of De Doctrina Christiana. Send abstracts or complete papers. by 15 March 2013; Hugh Wilson (wilsonh@gram.edu) and Paul Sellin (psellin@ucla.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Language Change and Literature
Division: Language Change
How does language change matter to literature (and vice versa)? How might change inform recent theoretical perspectives (e.g., historical, cognitive, digital, ethical, rhetorical, or descriptive approaches)? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Chris Palmer (cpalme20@kennesaw.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Diversity and Change
Division: Language Change
What role does “diversity” play in understanding language change? Papers will explore perspectives on linguistic diversity, e.g. language maintenance, decline, and loss; language policy; and/or social variation. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Chris Palmer (cpalme20@kennesaw.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Debt and Indebtedness
Division: English Literature Other Than British and American
Financial (states, individuals), ecological, cultural, literary (intertextuality, anxieties of influence): how do these different forms of indebted relations intersect? 400 word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Jennifer Wenzel (jawenzel@umich.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Almost Human
Special Session
This panel explores the roles that human replicas (puppets, mannequins, robots) play in Spanish theater in different periods. How do such figures affect the theatrical experience? Please send 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Miguel Angel Balsa Marín (mb823@cornell.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Non-Christian Identities in the Italian Context
Division: Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Nineteenth-Century Italian Literature
This session welcomes papers that address Atheist, Jewish, Libertine, Muslim, and Protestant identities as expressed and negotiated in Christian and non-Christian texts. Please submit 1-page abstract. by 15 March 2013; Nathalie Hester (nhester@uoregon.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
What is reading poetry worth, in the Age of Knowledge?
Special Session
This panel explores the specific heuristic nature of the contemporary Italian poetic language. Send abstract and bio not later than March 15. by 15 March 2013; Enrico Minardi (eminardi@asu.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
African Literature/Performance and New Media
Division: African Literatures
Paper proposals considering how new media technologies are shaping the production, circulation and reading of creative texts by Africans are invited. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Moradewun Adejunmobi (madejunmobi@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
The Work of Alfonso Ruiz de Aguirre
Special Session
Abstracts dealing any aspect of any of the works of Alfonso Ruiz de Aguirre. 300 word abstract and abbreviated CV (2 pages max. by 15 March 2013; Tania De Miguel Magro (tania.demiguelmagro@mail.wvu.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Cinema of Guantanamo: Torture, Temporality, Complicity
Special Session
How do recent films normalize or critique torture, rewrite history or reconcile audiences to America's treatment of its racial/ethnic 'enemies'? 500w abstract by 15 March 2013; Lance Duerfahrd (lduerfah@purdue.edu) and Megha Anwer (manwer@purdue.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Spanish/Latin American Children and Adolescent Literature
Special Session
This panel invites papers that analyze children and adolescent literature written in Spanish from any approach. Please submit 300 w. abstracts and a brief CV. by 15 March 2013; Maria Fernandez-Lamarque (maria.lamarque@tamuc.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Contesting the Radical Enlightenment
Division: Eighteenth-Century French Literature
This session will be devoted to a reevaluation and critique of the concept of Radical Enlightenment. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ourida Mostefai (mostefai@bc.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Crise du français, impact de la francophonie ?
Allied Organization: Conseil International d'Etudes Francophones
Consulter http://cief.org/congres/appelMLA2014.pdf pour une description détaillée de la session. Envoyer un précis de 350 mots. by 15 March 2013; Oana Panaïté (opanaite@indiana.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Montaigne and Shakespeare
Division: Shakespeare
Intertextual relations including such issues as translation, rhetoric, skepticism, and the coming of modernity. Submit abstract by 15 March to Leonard Barkan (lbarkan@princeton.edu) and Bradin Cormack (bcormack@uchicago.edu). One-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Bradin Cormack (bcormack@uchicago.edu) and Leonard Barkan (lbarkan@princeton.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Women on Work, Women's Work
Division: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Literary and cultural approaches to work; material labor and the work of culture and language in the writings of George Sand and nineteenth-century women writers. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Pratima Prasad (Pratima.Prasad@umb.edu) and David Bell (dfbell@duke.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
O'Neill and the City
Allied Organization: Eugene O'Neill Society
O’Neill's relationship to urban life, as depicted in his plays, in contexts that influenced his writing, or in productions, including major revivals. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jefferey Kennedy (jtkennedy@asu.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Embedded Music: Sung Song in Narrative and Theatre
Special Session
Embedded songs influence on audience: e.g., ballads in novels, leitmotifs in soap operas, songs in non-musical theater. 15-20 min papers, performances, or informal presen by 15 March 2013; Jeffrey Weiner (jeffreyweiner@berkeley.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Comparing Theories of Trauma
Special Session
From antiquity to the present, panel will compare theories of trauma on the subject in literature. Theological, psychological, and other perspectives. Papers should be 15-20 minutes in length. by 15 March 2013; Jeffrey Weiner (jeffreyweiner@berkeley.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Roundtable on the Renaissance Mediterranean
Division: Sixteenth-Century French Literature
Current research on the early modern Mediterranean. Comparativist proposals, focus on the Mediterranean as a concept and analytic paradigm particularly welcome. Title and Abstract for 10-minute presentation by 15 March 2013; Andrea Marie Frisch (afrisch@umd.edu) and Marcus Keller (mkeller@illinois.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Meeting Where Students Are: Faculty-Library Collaborations and Undergraduate Research
Discussion Group: Libraries and Research in Languages and Literatures
Seeking best-practices, methods, activities or lessons-learned using research as a medium for collaborative teaching and learning involving faculty and librarians. http://wp.me/p29LID-1x. 300-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Bob Kieft (kieft@oxy.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Metafiction Revisited
Special Session
What are some contemporary and post-postmodern manifestations of metafiction? How has it evolved and changed since the 80's which is considered its hallmark? 250-word abstract by 11 March 2013; Lissi Athanasiou Krikelis (lissi.krikelis@gmail.com)
Posted 14 February 2013
Michael Haneke: Vulnerable Minds, Bodies, Spectators
Special Session
Human vulnerabilities to modernity, emotion, violence, age, etc. in Haneke’s films. How Haneke engages/exploits/critiques spectators' own vulnerabilities. Individual and comparative analyses welcomed. Abstracts, 250-500 words by 15 March 2013; Donald F. Larsson (donald.larsson@mnsu.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
ATDS panels at MLA
Allied Organization: American Theatre and Drama Society
ATDS invites proposals for papers on performance, theatre, and/or drama, engaging the MLA theme, "Vulnerable Times." Email 300-word abstract as Word attachment, 1-page by 10 March 2013; Peter Reed (preed@olemiss.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Revolutionary Afterlives: Creative Conversation about Two Books, One Year Later
Special Session
Session juxtaposes new books on French Revolution by Julia Douthwaite and Katherine Astbury. Conversation, debate between authors, respondents. 2-page CV, 300-word abstract by 1 March 2013; Julia V. Douthwaite (julia.v.douthwaite.1@nd.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Explorations in Celtic Languages and Literatures
Discussion Group: Celtic Languages and Literatures
Any aspect of Celtic languages, literatures, or cultures - including history, archaeology, linguistics, music, religion, folklore, art history, anthropology, or gender studies. 250-word electronic abstracts by 15 March 2013; Charlene M. Eska (ceska@vt.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Montaigne and Shakespeare
Division: Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature
Intertextual relations including issues of rhetoric, of translation and cultural exchange, of philosophical skepticism, and of selfhood at the edge of modernity. One-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Leonard Barkan (lbarkan@princeton.edu) and Bradin Cormack (bcormack@uchicago.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Comparative Renaissance Festivity
Division: Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature
Papers on religious and secular festival, festive custom, festive drama, literary representations of festivity, comparative European and new world festivity. One-page abstracts by 20 March 2013; Susanne Wofford (susanne.wofford@nyu.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Renaissance Rhetoric
Division: Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature
All aspects and topics of Renaissance rhetoric in a comparatist context, with an emphasis on epideictic rhetoric or the rhetoric of praise and blame. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Eric MacPhail (macphai@indiana.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Asia in Germany
Division: Eighteenth- and Early-Nineteenth-Century German Literature
How does engagement with Asia precede the concept of world literature? Romantic interest in Sanskrit, representations of China after chinoiserie, adaption of Islamic genres, Asia in fantastic tales/opera. by 11 March 2013; Daniel Purdy (dlp14@psu.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Harriet Monroe, Poetry Magazine, and Chicago Modernism
Special Session
We invite papers on the central role these figures and sites played in shaping poetic modernism. 250-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Erin J. Kappeler (erin.kappeler@tufts.edu) and Sarah Ehlers (sarah.ehlers@usd.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Modes of Learning in the Early Modern Iberian Worlds
Special Session
Forms of pedagogy and apprenticeship in communities beyond the University — academic, artistic, religious — and their textual forms of expression. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Nicole Hughes (nth2106@columbia.edu) and Noel Blanco Mourelle (nb2491@columbia.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Literary Works in Multiple Versions
Allied Organization: Association for Documentary Editing
This panel investigates the implications of multiple versions of a text, particularly for scholarly editors. Proposals of 500 words or less plus bio by 15 March 2013; Carol DeBoer-Langworthy (cdbl@brown.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Dialects of English Worldwide
Discussion Group: Present-Day English Language
The Discussion Group on Present-Day English seeks proposals on English language topics including: "Dialect" or "Variety?" Teaching multilingual/multidialectal speakers Dialect prejudice Dialect features in understudied areas. Abstracts of 500 words by 13 March 2013; Elizabeth Bell Canon (canon_eb@yahoo.com) and Jennifer Santos (jennifer.m.santos@gmail.com)
Posted 13 February 2013
Desire for Narrative in Law and Literature
Special Session
This roundtable (detailed cfp: http://bit.ly/lawandlitcfp) will explore legal and literary aesthetics and narrative, particularly as construed historically, pedagogically, or formally. Bio and 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Robin Wharton (robin.wharton@lcc.gatech.edu) and Derek Miller (dkmiller@stanford.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Diapora in Middle Eastern Literatures
Special Session
Proposals that focus on diaspora in Anglophone Middle Eastern Literatures and discuss broader issues such as gender, ethnicity, language and narrative. 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Eda Dedebas Dundar (eda.dedebas@gmail.com)
Posted 13 February 2013
Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Profession
Division: Old English Language and Literature
Roundtable on Anglo-Saxon curricula and studies in the profession. Short papers on teaching, administration, research, and the role of popular media (blogs, Facebook, etc.). 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Old English Law and Literature
Division: Old English Language and Literature
How do legal and literary texts illuminate social and political developments, or conceptions of self and the community? Why is interdisciplinarity important? 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Wonder in Anglo-Saxon England
Division: Old English Language and Literature
Wonder as an emotional, physical or intellectual response; textual and material catalysts for wonder; boredom or malaise as wonder’s opposite. 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Cultures of Reading in Anglo-Saxon England
Division: Old English Language and Literature
Forms of meditative, ascetic, and active reading; representations of reading/ readers; close reading and its others; connections to contemporary reading praxis. 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
New Oceanic Studies of the Colonial Americas
Division: Colonial Latin American Literatures
How have oceanic studies reframed approaches to early Anglo and Iberian colonialisms? Papers exploring oceans in the cross-currents of our fields welcome. One-page CV, abstract by 15 March 2013; Stephanie Louise Kirk (skirk@wustl.edu) and Kathleen Donegan (kdonegan@berkeley.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Encyclopedism
Division: Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature
The many facets of the encyclopedic urge in the 13th-15th centuries. Any and all approaches are welcome. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; David F. Hult (dhult@berkeley.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Medieval Literature, Digital Humanities
Division: Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature
Methods, tools, new directions: any and all approaches considered. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Geraldine Heng (heng@austin.utexas.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Retheorizing the "Vernacular"
Special Session
Inviting fresh critical considerations of local, subaltern, and other non-canonical processes that are antithetical to classical, cosmopolitan, and national formations in language, literature, culture. 350-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Aparna Dharwadker (adharwadker@wisc.edu) and Vinay Dharwadker (vdharwadker@wisc.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Beyond the Proto-Monograph: New Models for the Dissertation
Special Session
Focus on how the dissertation should/is changing in response to the digital turn, doctoral reform, or various 'crises.' Pechakucha style presentations. 250-300 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Daniel Powell (djpowell@uvic.ca)
Posted 12 February 2013
Romanticism and Systems
Allied Organization: North American Society for the Study of Romanticism
Any aspect of the relationship between Romanticism and systems (aesthetic, biological, linguistic, political etc.). 500 word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Mark Canuel (mcanuel@uic.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
The image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain
Special Session
This panel explores fictionalized representations of Queen Elizabeth I and their impact on the Spanish collective imagination at the time. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Esther Fernández (ef336@cornell.edu) and Eduardo Olid (EOlid@muhlenberg.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Teaching and Hospitality
Special Session
This roundtable explores how hospitality as a metaphor for teaching informs particular pedagogical decisions (e.g. teaching as "host" or "guest, food, safety, physical space, etc.). Abstracts of 200-300 words by 12 March 2013; Jacob Stratman (jstratman@jbu.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Virginia Woolf, book history & arts
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Woolf and letterpress, bookbinding, book arts; depictions of the material book or printing process in Woolf; or bibliographical or manuscript-based studies. lhankins@cornellcollege.edu and barnhiselg@duq.edu. 300-word abstract by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Virginia Woolf, book history & arts
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Woolf and letterpress, bookbinding, book arts; depictions of the material book or printing process in Woolf; or bibliographical or manuscript-based studies. lhankins@cornellcollege.edu and barnhiselg@duq.edu. 300-word abstract by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Woolf and London's Colonial Writers
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Literary, political, social, and spatial connections between Virginia Woolf and London-affiliated writers from the British colonies. Elizabeth F. Evans elizabeth.evans@nd.edu. (subject to MLA approval). 300 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Woolf, Wittgenstein, and Ordinary Language
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Woolf's and Wittgenstein’s philosophies of ordinary language, their tangential relationship to the “Apostles” and/or Bloomsbury. Organizers: Madelyn Detloff detlofmm@miamioh.edu and Gaile Pohlhaus Jr. pohlhag@miamioh.edu. 300 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
WWI and the Poetics of Slavic Memory
Discussion Group: Slavic Literatures and Cultures
The significance of the outbreak of WWI cannot be overestimated. This panel confronts the variety of cultural and aesthetic approaches to memorializing this moment. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; David L. Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Soviet Cinema and Western Film Theory
Discussion Group: Slavic Literatures and Cultures
This panel examines how Soviet films influenced film theory philosophy in the West, and how those theories have subsequently changed our view of Soviet cinema. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; David L. Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Visualizing Vulnerability
Special Session
How does Caribbean visual culture bear upon imaginings of social, historical or political vulnerability? 150 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Guillermina De Ferrari (gdeferrari@wisc.edu) and Jacqueline Loss (jacqueline.loss@uconn.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Job Success despite these Vulnerable Times
Special Session
Papers discussing successful academic and non-academic job searches, particularly offering tips for recent PhDs, are especially welcome. 250-word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Belinda Wheeler (bwheeler@paine.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
The Avant-Garde at War
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of Dada and Surrealism
Papers welcome on the exigency and fate of radical aesthetics in times of war: e.g. anti-colonial, world war, revolutions, Hungary 1956, May 1968, 9/11, Persian Gulf. 1-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jonathan P. Eburne (jpe11@psu.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Epic, Tragedy, and Community
Special Session
How do the memorializing practices instituted in epic and tragedy from any period or region contribute to constituting communities and negotiating ethical relations? 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Jennifer R. Ballengee (jballeng@towson.edu) and Erin Fehskens (efehskens@towson.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Dada, Surrealism, and the Poetics of Outsider Art
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of Dada and Surrealism
Papers invited that explore the interrelationships between Dada, Surrealism and self-taught / visionary / marginal thinkers, writers, and artists. 1-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kate Conley (kconley@wm.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Roundtable: Book History and Digital Humanities
Allied Organization: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
The relationships between book history and digital humanities. Short presentations on new scholarship in book history and DH, archival materials, learning DH skills, etc. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Lise Jaillant (ljaill01@interchange.ubc.ca)
Posted 12 February 2013
Technology and Teaching Vulnerable Languages in Vulnerable Times
MLA Committee: Committee on Community Colleges
How technology creates new possibilities for teaching Native American, Native Latin American, and/or many other minority languages. Internet, YouTube, distance/learning, MOOCs. Abstracts 250 words by 1 March 2013; Arturo Davila-Sanchez (adavila@peralta.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 12 February 2013
Spenser's "Darke" Materials
Allied Organization: International Spenser Society
As Amphion moved stones with songs to build Thebes, Spenser shaped matter into poetry. This panel examines Spenser’s imbrication of materials (tools, remains) and immaterial forces (language, memory). abstracts by 15 March 2013; Tiffany Jo Werth (twerth@sfu.ca) and Rebeca Helfer (rhelfer@uci.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Nature
Division: the English Romantic Period
of/ and/ or Romanticism: the un-green, post-green, ever-green; grafts, transplants, hybrids; histories, economies; scale, pace; local/ total/ micro; de-naturing, re-naturing; (without) life; the “all in all”/ “now no more.”. 300-word proposals by 11 March 2013; Miranda Jane Burgess (mirandab@mail.ubc.ca)
Posted 11 February 2013
"How to Read Now"
Division: Twentieth-Century American Literature
Can hermeneutics of suspicion and "surface readings" join forces? Can ideological interpretations be reparative? Reflections on recent divides in reading 20th-century U.S. texts. 1-2 page abstracts and CVs. by 15 March 2013; William J. Maxwell (wmaxwell@wustl.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Italian Difference
Division: Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
The Italian historical-theoretical disposition to impurity, profanation, and contamination in Novecento and contemporary literature and/with other media. Multidisciplinary papers welcome. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 20 March 2013. abstracts by 20 March 2013; Manuela Marchesini (mmarchesini@tamu.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Re-Thinking Divismo: Italy and Modern Celebrity Culture
Division: Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
Celebrity studies analyzing identities, politics, theatre, literature, cinema, media from Duse and D’Annunzio to Berlusconi and Benigni. 250 word abstract, bio by 15 March 2013; John Welle (John.P.Welle.1@nd.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Scandal and Early American Literature
Division: American Literature to 1800
Innovative approaches to the interdynamic between scandal and EAL and culture: scandals in literature, literature as scandal; scandal and authorship, genre, economy, sex, etc. CV and abstract by 15 March 2013; Sean X. Goudie (sxgoudie@psu.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Scientific Americans: Exploring Science in Early American Literature
Division: American Literature to 1800
New perspectives on the place of scientific inquiry in early American literature, and/or the literary qualities of scientific writing. One-page CV and abstract. by 15 March 2013; Kathleen Donegan (kdonegan@berkeley.edu) and Sean X. Goudie (sxgoudie@psu.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
New Oceanic Studies of the Colonial Americas
Division: American Literature to 1800
How have oceanic studies reframed approaches to early Anglo and Iberian colonialisms? Papers exploring oceans in the cross-currents of our fields welcome. One-page CV, abstract by 15 March 2013; Kathleen Donegan (kdonegan@berkeley.edu) and Stephanie Kirk (stephanielouisekirk@gmail.com)
Posted 11 February 2013
Fine Arts and Comics
Discussion Group: Comics and Graphic Narratives
Papers on the historical relationship, and interconnection between the form of comics and the art world. Chicago connections, e.g. The Hairy Who, welcome. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Hillary L. Chute (chute@uchicago.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Collaboration in Comics
Discussion Group: Comics and Graphic Narratives
The verbal-visual form of comics offers unique opportunities for collaboration. We invite critical perspectives on the advantages, constraints, and effects of collaboration in comics. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Charles Hatfield (charles.hatfield@csun.edu )
Posted 11 February 2013
Transnational Comics
Discussion Group: Comics and Graphic Narratives
Comics have long been the visual and textual testament to global interaction. We invite papers that explore the transnational contexts that comics offer, imitate, and critique. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Nhora Serrano (Nhora.Serrano@csulb.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Emotion in Cervantes
Allied Organization: Cervantes Society of America
Emotion, including the plural sense of emotions, affects, sentiments, passions, in Cervantes’ writings. How emotion is represented in texts, elicited in readers, articulated through language or character. 200-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Steven Hutchinson (shutchin@wisc.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
East European Women's Tales of Relocation
Discussion Group: Romanian Studies
Recent changes in narrative patterns in oral/written/visual, conventional/unconventional postcommunist tales of East European women’s migration and mobility in the global age. short bio and abstract by 15 March 2013; Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru (sabina.draga@americanstudies.ro)
Posted 11 February 2013
Yiddish Connections
Discussion Group: Yiddish Literature
We seek papers connecting Yiddish with other cultures, literatures, or traditions through acts of imagination and resistance. Varied approaches (text analysis, literary history, and translation) welcome. Abstracts. <300 words by 15 March 2013; Kathryn Ann Hellerstein (khellers@sas.upenn.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Jewish American or Jewish Americas?
Discussion Group: Jewish American Literature
Papers examining/expanding the location of “America” in Jewish American literary study to include the Caribbean, Central/South America, or Canada. Abstracts (<300 words) by 15 March 2013; Laurence D. Roth (roth@susqu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Literature and/as Ethnography
Division: Twentieth-Century French Literature
Papers will explore the ethnographic impulse in 20th/21st-century French literature. Topics may include the exotic and the everyday; ethnographic narrative and fiction; description and participation. 250-word abstracts, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Alison S. James (asj@uchicago.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Francophone African Writers and Anthropology
Division: Twentieth-Century French Literature
This collaborative session will explore the engagement of French-speaking African writers with anthropology in the 20th-century. 300-word abstract, short CV by 15 March 2013; Vincent Debaene (vd2169@columbia.edu) and Justin Izzo (justin_izzo@brown.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Francophone African Writers and Anthropology
Division: African Literatures
This session will explore the engagement of French-speaking African writers with anthropology in the 20th-century. 300-word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Justin Izzo (justin_izzo@brown.edu) and Vincent Debaene (vd2169@columbia.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Expatriation, Authorship, and Reception in African Literatures
Division: African Literatures
Forms and themes of expatriation and location in African literatures. Who/what is an African author? Examinations of relationships between expatriation and literary form. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi (tunjitunji@yahoo.com) and Joya Uraizee (uraizeej@slu.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
The State in African Literatures
Division: African Literatures
Papers on representations of the state (both the real and the desired) and biopolitics in African literatures; Alain Lawo-Sukam (lawosukam@tamu.edu) and Neil Kortenaar (kortenaar@utsc.utoronto.ca). 250-WORD ABSTRACTS by 8 March 2013; Neil Koortenaar (kortenaar@utsc.utoronto.ca) and Alain Lawo-Sukam (lawosukam@tamu.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Beyond Huck and Puddn'head: Mark Twain and Race
Allied Organization: Mark Twain Circle of America
three paper panel. 300 word abstracts examining Twain and race in wor by 15 March 2013; John Bird (birdj@winthrop.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Mark Twain's Style(s)
Allied Organization: Mark Twain Circle of America
A three-paper session analyzing Mark Twain's style. 300 word abstracts analyzing aspects of Mark Twain by 15 March 2013; John Bird (birdj@winthrop.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Postcolonial Graphic Memoirs
Division: Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing
Please submit abstracts examining graphic texts dealing with self-construction/representation and questions of diasporic identification, decolonization, empire and transnational belonging. 200-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Linda Rugg (rugg@berkeley.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
2014's 1914: Great War
Division: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature
Emergent approaches to World War One stressing revisionism motivated by recent events and theoretical developments. Abstracts (300 words) to Jesse Matz (matzj@kenyon.edu) by March 1. 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jesse E. Matz (matzj@kenyon.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Alternative Sexualities in 19th-century Realist Fiction
Allied Organization: International Association of Galdós Scholars
What are the questions arising from the study of non-normative sexualities in the fiction of Benito Pérez Galdós and his contemporaries? 250 word abstracts by 3 March 2013; Collin McKinney (cm038@bucknell.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
The Policy Era
Special Session
This panel attends to the relationship between postwar American foreign policy and the aesthetic problems facing American novelists involved with these initiatives. Submit 250 word abstracts by March 15. by 15 March 2013; Merve Emre (merve.emre@yale.edu) and Maggie Doherty (doherty4@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Made in Germany: Nation Branding through Feminist Literature and Film
Allied Organization: Women in German
This panel considers how German feminist texts support, challenge, and/or undermine the creation and marketing of a German national brand. 250-word abstract by 1 March 2013; Julie K Allen (jkallen@wisc.edu) and Jamele Watkins (jamele@german.umass.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Fifty Shades of Brecht
Allied Organization: Women in German
Brecht's (mis-)treatment of female collaborators is notorious. Panel considers why women sacrificed so much to work with Brecht and what benefit they derived from this collaboration. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Julie K Allen (jkallen@wisc.edu) and Kristopher Imbrigotta (imbrigotta@wisc.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Medicine, Literature, and Gender
Special Session
We invite proposals that consider the relationship between gender and medicine in 19th- and early 20th-century literature (British or American). Abstract of 300 words and one-page CV by 15 March 2013; Danielle Coriale (dcoriale@unc.edu) and Anne Stiles (astiles1@slu.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Why Rancière is important? Rethinking the Political in light of Contemporary Global Revolution
Special Session
This session invites papers discussing themes of vulnerability, resistance and social change in Jacques Rancière’s work. 500 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Haythem Guesmi (h.guesmi@umontreal.ca)
Posted 10 February 2013
Coming Out as ‘Alt Ac’
Special Session
How open can students be about wanting non-tenure track careers? Roundtable on the personal and professional consequences of “coming out” as Alt Ac. 200 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Stacy Hartman (stacyh1@stanford.edu) and Bridget Whearty (bwhearty@stanford.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Dickens and the Environment
Allied Organization: Dickens Society
How might we characterize modes of nineteenth-century environmental thinking, and how did Dickens intervene? How might we understand his contribution to a nineteenth-century environmental imaginary? 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Michael Rectenwald (Dickens.universe.environment@gmail.com) and Allen MacDuffie (Dickens.universe.environment@gmail.com)
Posted 10 February 2013
Puerto Rican Crime Narratives
Discussion Group: Puerto Rican Literature and Culture
We seek papers examining any aspect of Puerto Rican crime narratives (noir, hard-boiled, true crime, etc), on any genre (fiction, film, graphic novels, and/or popular music). 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jason Cortés (jasoncor@andromeda.rutgers.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Shakespearean Hierarchies: History and Natural History
Division: Shakespeare
sovereignty; legitimacy; subordination; natural law; chain of being; order and disorder; proportion; perfection; properties; categories; kinds; rank; class; dominion; offices; genre; mediation; accommodation. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Mary L. Floyd-Wilson (floydwil@email.unc.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Eastern European and US American Cultures
Special Session
Seeking papers on connections between Eastern European and US literatures, cultures, or media post-1989; 300-word abstract and brief CV. by 15 March 2013; Claudia Sadowski-Smith (Claudia.Sadowski-Smith@asu.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw)
Posted 10 February 2013
Queer Wharton
Allied Organization: Edith Wharton Society
Homosexuality and homosociality in Wharton; queer authors, intertexts, and aesthetics in Wharton’s writing; Wharton’s relationships with gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals; queering Wharton’s nonfiction writing. 250-word abstracts and c.v.s by 15 March 2013; Meredith Lynn Goldsmith (mgoldsmith@ursinus.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013
Literary Communism: Community without Community
Special Session
Papers on the dialectics of class and difference in Nancy's "literary communism" as the transformative writing that inserts difference into community and Agamben's "the coming community." Abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Stephen C. Tumino (stephen.tumino@kbcc.cuny.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013
Contemporary Central American Cultural Production
Special Session
DEADLINE EXTENDED! This session will adopt a fresh approach to contemporary Central American literature, film and music. We welcome papers from all disciplines. Abstracts (300 words) by 15 February 2013; Jennifer Carolina Gómez Menjívar (jgomezme@d.umn.edu)
Posted 11 December 2012, last updated 8 February 2013
Beyond Autobiography, Ethnography, and Profiling: Tabish Khair and Postcolonial Narrative Today
Special Session
The narrative interventions into history found in Tabish Khair’s novels (and/or in those of Rushdie, Hamid, etc.). 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jim Hicks (jhicks@complit.umass.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion Fifty Years Later
Special Session
The 50th anniversary calls for a renewed evaluation of this product of the early sixties. Abstract or 2500 word paper by 15 March 2013; C. Herbert Gilliland (gillilan@usna.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Reading Pragmatically in Vulnerable Times
Special Session
How might pragmatic critical methods (exemplified by Peirce, Dewey, James, Rorty, Poirier) help us to live in an uncertain “universe of chance”? 300-word abstract and one-page CV by 15 March 2013; Kate Stanley (kate.stanley@uwo.ca)
Posted 8 February 2013
Medieval Revival in France
Special Session
This panel investigates how the Middle Ages were remembered, imagined and reinvented in the arts and literature of fin-de-siècle or early XX century France. 500-word abstract, paper title. by 15 March 2013; Stephen P. McCormick (smccormi@mailbox.sc.edu) and Leah K. S. Holz (Leah.Holz@colorado.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Singing Out in the American Literary Experience
Discussion Group: Folklore and Literature
Proposals are sought concerning the use of folk song (blues, jazz, country, etc.) within American Literature of any genre or period. 350 word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Mark Allan Jackson (mark.jackson@mtsu.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
La política de género: Reflexiones culturales en el capitalismo de la España contemporánea
Special Session
La redefinición de géneros sexuales desde la perspectiva literaria y fílmica. Brief abstract (500 words max) and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Ana-Maria Medina (amedin40@mscd.edu) and Jen Brady (Jennifer.Brady@du.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Transatlantic Ireland
Discussion Group: Anglo-Irish Literature
Proposals (250 words) are invited on the transatlantic in any period(s) of Irish literature; possible topics include migration, travel, circulation of texts, and geography/geopolitics. Proposals (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Julia M. Wright (julia.wright@dal.ca)
Posted 8 February 2013
Illness and Disability Memoir as Embodied Knowledge
MLA Committee: Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession
Life writing about illness/disability as a form of theoretical knowledge. New ways of conceiving relationship of memoir to embodiment, environment, and community. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Rachel Adams (rea15@columbia.edu) and Helen Deutsch (hdeutsch@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 8 February 2013
Stupid Dickens
Allied Organization: Dickens Society
Moving beyond pronouncements that Dickens produced one-dimensional characters appealing to our non-intellectual selves. Consider intelligence/stupidity in terms of provincialism/urbanity; cognition/affect; race, class, genre. 250 word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Rae Greiner (drgreine@indiana.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
JEAN-LUC GODARD: HISTORY, THEORY, CINEMA
Special Session
This panel will reassess the historical and theoretical implications of Godard’s films and media productions since 1990. 450-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Richard Neupert (neupert@uga.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Faulkner and Disability
Allied Organization: William Faulkner Society
Suggested topics: representation of disability, constructions of ableism, applications of disability studies to Faulkner's work, the intersection of modernism and disability, or other related areas. 500 word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Deborah L. Clarke (deborah.clarke@asu.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Faulkner and Women Writers
Allied Organization: William Faulkner Society
Proposals on Faulkner’s relation to women writers, including but not limited to: specific writers, techniques associated with women writers, reception theory, cultural context. 500 word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Deborah L. Clarke (deborah.clarke@asu.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Representations of Muslim Female Sexuality in Early Modern English Travel Narratives
Special Session
Any theoretical paradigm is encouraged, especially feminist or post-colonial theory. Please submit abstracts of 250-500 words. by 18 March 2013; William Reginald Rampone (wrampone@scsu.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Books and the Law
Allied Organization: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
Readers, writers, publishers, printers, booksellers, and the law: copyright, sedition/blasphemy, legal texts, censorship, the law in literature, labor law in print shops, etc. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Greg Barnhisel (barnhiselg@duq.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Book History and Woolf
Allied Organization: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
Virginia Woolf, book history & arts. Woolf and letterpress, bookbinding, book arts; depictions of the material book or printing process in Woolf; bibliographical or manuscript-based studies. 300-word abstract by 8 March 2013; Greg Barnhisel (barnhiselg@duq.edu) and Leslie Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Revisiting the US Queer of Color Canon
Special Session
Papers focused on revisiting/reinterpreting canonical texts by 20th/21st century US queers of color: canonicity, critical reappraisal, iconography, legacies. 250 word abstract and 1 page CV by 10 March 2013; Aureliano DeSoto (aureliano.desoto@metrostate.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Cognitive Approaches to French Renaissance Literature
Division: Sixteenth-Century French Literature
What can cognitive science tell us about literature, and literature about cognitive processes? Case studies in the French Renaissance. Title and Abstract for a 20-minute presentation by 15 March 2013; Andrea Marie Frisch (afrisch@umd.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
The Materiality of Power: Embodied Performances of Resistance in Medieval and Early Modern Spain
Special Session
This session examines how subjects traditionally seen as disenfranchised express resistance through embodied behavior. Send 250 words abstract by 15 March 2013; Rebeca Castellanos (castellr@gvsu.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Economy and Literature
Division: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literature
How are 18th and 19th-century economic processes (profit, value, money, commerce, management of material wealth) connected to literary, cultural and social formations (i.e., gender, class, race)? abstracts by 1 March 2013; Ana Hontanilla (amhontan@uncg.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Cosmopolitanism and its Discontents
Division: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literature
This panel will explore the tensions between cosmopolitanism and its various conceptual antagonists within 18th- and 19th-century culture and its study today. 250-page abstracts by 1 March 2013; Michael Iarocci (miarocci@berkeley.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Joseph C. Landis: In Memoriam
Allied Organization: American Association of Professors of Yiddish
Session on topics studied by Joe Landis, the late founder of our association: An-sky, Asch, Bashevis, Hirschbein, Leivick, Philip Roth, Yiddish theater memoirs, etc. 150-300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Alan Astro (aastro@trinity.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013, last updated 6 February 2013
Futures of South-South Comparison
Special Session
Seeking proposals for a roundtable on the challenges/potential of comparison in the Southern Hemisphere—from material histories of exchange to more abstract critical “resonances”. 300-word (approx.) abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (marmilla@olemiss.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013, last updated 6 February 2013
Apocalyptic Voices in West Asian Culture
Discussion Group: West Asian Languages and Literatures
This panel tracks apocalyptic narratives of West Asian intellectuals as they confronted modernity and its postmodern aftermath, an encounter manifesting a fatalistic imagination of civilization's end. by 15 March 2013; Stephen Sheehi (sheehi@sc.edu) and Jason Mohaghegh (jmohaghegh@njcu.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Language, Colonialism, and the State in Nineteenth Century Southwest Asia
Discussion Group: West Asian Languages and Literatures
Resistance, co-optation or disciplining? How does language act under the violence of colonialism and state formation in 19th century Southwest Asia? by 15 March 2013; Stephen Sheehi (sheehi@sc.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
The Revolution's Memory
Discussion Group: West Asian Languages and Literatures
We welcome proposals that consider how memoirs write and form narratives about contemporary revolutionary movements and moments in West Asia? West Asia Language and Literature Discussion Group by 15 March 2013; Stephen Sheehi (sheehi@sc.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Common Core State Standards: Paradigmatic Shifts
Special Session
An exploration of how CCSS will impact English majors who enter the K-12 teaching profession and how CCSS will/may shift college course design and offerings. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jocelyn Ann Chadwick (jocelynchadwick@yahoo.com)
Posted 6 February 2013
Constructive responses to current challenges faced by German
Allied Organization: American Association of Teachers of German
Constructive, radical curricular revisions incorporated at undergraduate/graduate level in response to challenges of decreasing enrollments, closures, lack of institutional support. 300-word abstract and bio by 1 March 2013; Eva Russo (erusso@wustl.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
The Naked Eye: Visuality and Vulnerability
Special Session
How does the visual/visible alongside, within, as text convey or resist vulnerability? Abstracts addressing any time period, genre, culture(s) welcome. 300-400-word abstract and 1 page CV by 8 March 2013; Allison Crawford (allison.crawford@utoronto.ca)
Posted 5 February 2013
Representing African American Adolescence
Special Session
Seeking papers that address the literary representation of African American adolescence, particularly from the perspective of Black youth narrators, in the post-Civil Rights period. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jennifer Griffiths (jgriff02@nyit.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Time and the Sublime around 1800
Special Session
Temporality and Romantic aesthetics circa 1780-1820. Seeking 5-10 minute talks (e.g. Lightning Shorts, PechaKucha). Detailed call on cfp.english.upenn.edu. Proposals describing content and format by 15 March 2013; Angela Vietto (arvietto@eiu.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Occupy MLA
Special Session
@OccupyMLA was a netprov about vulnerable adjuncts dreaming of tenure. Papers analyzing work as e-literature, activist fiction, netprov, hoax. 250-word abstract, brief CV by 15 March 2013; l.skallerup@moreheadstate.edu. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Lee Skallerup Bessette (l.skallerup@moreheadstate.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Class Vulnerabilities in Academia
Special Session
Roundtable on the dangers and potentialities of class as a marker of scholarly, pedagogical, and social vulnerability within the academy. Abstract (250 words) by 10 March 2013; Sara Appel (sea10@duke.edu) and Michele Fazio (michele.fazio@uncp.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Immigrant Auto/biography
Special Session
How does auto/biography help the immigrant subject negotiate, and situate him/herself in, shifting contexts of space, society, gender and religion? 250-word abstract and 50-word bio by 15 March 2013; Alana J. Fletcher (7af15@queensu.ca) and Shadi Ghazimoradi (11sg28@queensu.ca)
Posted 5 February 2013
Lit Misbehaving: Digital Accidents and Agency
Special Session
Critical approaches to unmanageable, deviant, erring electronic texts--including digitized literature, codework, internet art, e-lit, etc. Specifically questions of intentionality and reading. 400-word abstract & short cv by 15 March 2013; Rachael Sullivan (sulliv97@uwm.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013, last updated 5 February 2013
Contingency at the Core
Division: Teaching as a Profession
Implications for curriculum change when a school's curriculum is taught largely by contingent faculty members. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kimberly Nance (kanance@ilstu.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 5 February 2013
Cuba on Stage
Discussion Group: Cuban and Cuban Diaspora Cultural Production
We seek papers on any facet of Cuban or Cuban Diaspora theater or other performing arts and its critical resonance for aesthetics, culture, politics, or everyday life. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Vicky Unruh (kunruh@ku.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
The History of Teaching as a Profession
Division: Teaching as a Profession
Short papers examining past historical accounts of teaching or presenting new histories from which we can learn lessons. 500 word abstracts and short bios by 8 March 2013; Steven Mailloux (sjmaillo@uci.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 February 2013
Marxism and Psychoanalysis in the Twenty-First Century
Special Session
Addresses the theoretical-methodological intersectionality of two influential but controversial disciplines, with special focus on their current historical, cultural, and/or political relevancy and applicability. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Adam Meehan (ameehan@email.arizona.edu) and Carlos Gallego (gallego@stolaf.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Nineteenth-Century American Popular Publishing
Special Session
Approaches defined broadly by production factors, volume, form, or relationships between publisher, author, and the mass consumer. 250-word abstract and cv by 15 March 2013; Dustin Kennedy (dmk336@psu.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Guns in American Culture
Special Session
Analyses of firearms, violence, gun culture and armed (or targeted) identities in American literature, film and television. 250-word abstracts by 18 March 2013; Louis Sherman (louis.sherman@utah.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Las hijas del mar. Emociones de costa a ciudad
Special Session
Rosalía de Castro su generación. La exploración de la emotividad entre los sexos. Abstract inglés o español, 300 palabras. by 15 March 2013; Ana Simon (AISimon@adelphi.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Reading after Negri
Special Session
Hardt and Negri read Bartleby's “refusal to work" as inaugurating “a liberatory politics." Papers on the "ends" of politics of singularity/collectivity and the place of "reading" in it. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Kimberly DeFazio (kdefazio@uwlax.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Native South: Past, Present, and Future
Allied Organization: Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Where do Native American and southern literary studies intersect? What are the perils/possibilities for imagining the Native South as a field of study? Abstracts, 250 Words by 15 March 2013; Gina Caison (gcaison@gsu.edu) and Stephanie Rountree (slittle19@gsu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
Other Archives, Other Souths
Allied Organization: Society for the Study of Southern Literature
How have authors incorporated histories beyond those found in traditional archival sources in order to broaden representations of a multicultural south in literature? Abstracts, 250 Words by 15 March 2013; Gina Caison (gcaison@gsu.edu) and Stephanie Rountree (slittle19@gsu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
Rethinking Hispanic Orientalism
Special Session
Papers theorizing and analyzing the development of Hispanic Orientalism in Spain and Latin America. 300-word abstract, short bio by 10 March 2013; Svetlana Tyutina (svetatyutina@yahoo.com)
Posted 4 February 2013
Upstream Both Ways: Aligning Community Colleges and Four-Year Institutions
MLA Committee: Committee on Community Colleges
Expectations, successes, and challenges in the preparation, upward passage, and persistence of composition, literature, and language students. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Eric William Devlin (eric.devlin@tccd.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Chicago Schools of Anthropology and Literature
Division: Anthropological Approaches to Literature
Papers that explore or exemplify anthropological methods associated with Chicago in dialogue with literary analysis or that interrogate texts by Chicago anthropologists. 250-word abstracts, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Brian T. Edwards (bedwards@northwestern.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Animal and Artistic Life
Special Session
Does capital’s expansion over life link the vulnerabilities of animal life to those of artistic life? Can their vulnerabilities be addressed simultaneously? Send abstracts to gvarner@purdue.edu or mapplega@g by 8 March 2013; Matthew Varner (gvarner@purdue.edu) and Matt Applegate (mapplega@gmail.com)
Posted 4 February 2013
Disability Discourses in Latin America: Academy and Activism
Division: Disability Studies
Roundtable exploring current issues and discourses in disability studies in LA. 6-7 minute position papers identifying areas of research, activism. 200-word abstract, cv by 1 March 2013; Beth Jorgenson (beth.jorgensen@rochester.edu) and Susan Antebi (susan.antebi@utoronto.ca)
Posted 4 February 2013
Writing (Beyond) Regionalisms in Northeastern North America
Special Session
Seeking papers that consider or challenge the ways in which Atlantic Canadian/New England literatures reinforce the Canada/U.S. border. Please submit a 200-300 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Rachel Bryant (rachel.bryant@unb.ca)
Posted 4 February 2013
Vulnerability and Survivalism of Humanities in Corporatized Academia
Allied Organization: Community College Humanities Association
A roundtable on how humanities faculty can resist adjunctification and other neoliberal "market-driven" values and corporate structures increasingly prevalent in academia. abstracts/ position papers by 11 March 2013; George Louis Scheper (gscheper@jhu.edu) and Stacey Donohue (sdonohue@cocc.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Keats & Company
Allied Organization: Keats-Shelley Association of America
Keats’s life and work in the context of Romantic sociability: friends, coteries, and collectors, then and now; conversation, correspondence, and print. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Sarah M. Zimmerman (zimmerman@fordham.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
"I've Known Rivers": Water in African Diasporic Literary Consciousness
Special Session
Research that engages water in African Diaspora literature. Including: migration, memory, access, transatlantic crossings, black spirituality, disaster, trauma. 350 word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Kameelah L. Martin (kmsamuel@uh.edu) and Folashade Alao (ALAOF@mailbox.sc.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
The Long Weekend: Popular Culture in Inter-War Britain
Special Session
Papers on any form of popular culture, including genre fiction, popular drama, film, middlebrow literature, reportage, etc., that illuminate the period. Abstract, brief bio. by 1 March 2013; Rosemary Erickson Johnsen (rjohnsen@govst.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Innovative Criticism
Special Session
Roundtable discussion about the production and publication of innovative, experimental, affective, multi-genre, or performative criticism, with participants at different stages of academic careers. abstracts and vitae by 8 March 2013; Robin Silbergleid (silberg1@msu.edu) and Kristina Quynn (quynn@colostate.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Names and naming in language studies
Allied Organization: American Name Society
Papers on names and naming in any area of language study from anywhere in the world are welcomed. 250 word abstract by February 15 2013. by 15 February 2013; Carol Lombard (linguist1022@gmail.com)
Posted 9 January 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
Remembering the Perpetrators: Empathy and Moral Responsibility in Spanish Cultural Production
Special Session
Analyses of the figure of the power-abuser and perpetrator of violence in 20th/21st century Spanish film and literature. 250-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Katherine Stafford (kostafford@ucdavis.edu) and Ana Luengo (luengo@gmx.net)
Posted 3 February 2013
Fiction in Flux: Genre and Transmission in Recent Latin American Narrative
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Exploring manifestations of fiction and modes of transmission (hand-made books, blogs, other electronic platforms). 250-word abstracts and brief bios by 15 March 2013; Marcy Schwartz (mschwartz@spanport.rutgers.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013
Imprisonment and Resistance
Special Session
Current directions in American prison studies, with a focus on how twentieth-century US literature has contributed to prison abolition. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Katy Ryan (kohearnr@mail.wvu.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013
Affirmation and the End of the Negative
Special Session
Foucault dreamt of criticism that "would not judge." Has theory become affirmation of the existing? Papers on abandonment of the negative, dialectics, and critique. abstracts by 1 March 2013; Julie P. Torrant (Julie.Torrant@kbcc.cuny.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013
Transcendental Materialisms
Allied Organization: Thoreau Society
We seek presentations demonstrating how new/green materialist approaches elucidate the Concord Transcendentalists’ engagements with subject/object, mind/matter, and self/world--preferably (but not exclusively) in relation to their Transatlantic contemporaries. 500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Rochelle Johnson (rjohnson@collegeofidaho.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 2 February 2013
Soupirs et murmures
Special Session
From the unspoken sufferings of classical tragedy to the seditious mutterings of encyclopedic logorrhea, how does pre-revolutionary French literature still resonate with our quietly manipulative identities? 250-300 word abstract. by 17 March 2013; Eric Turcat (eturcat@hotmail.com)
Posted 2 February 2013
New Digital Vanguards in Spanish Literature
Special Session
Papers exploring the relationship between new media technologies and recent experimental changes in Spanish-language literature (aesthetics, themes, means of distribution, hybrid genres, mutli-platform, etc). 250-500-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Alexandra Saum-Pascual (saum-pascual@berkeley.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Dreaming the Actual: Chicago Literary Voices
Allied Organization: Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature
How do Chicago writers use - - and resist - - the city in their art? Title, a short Vita, and a one page abstract by 15 March 2013; Marilyn Judith Atlas (atlas@ohio.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Between "Gay" and "Queer"
Special Session
The persistence of gay identity in a queer world; gay/lesbian vs/in queer theory; transgender/cisgender and sexual identity; cruising; clubs; drag; social media; activism. 300-word proposal and brief CV by 11 March 2013; Zachary Lamm (zlamm@uic.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Shaw and Adaptation
Special Session
This panel invites papers that discuss specific play-scripts by Bernard Shaw and their transformation across genres and media. Visit http://www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-at-MLA-2014.htm for details. CVs and abstracts of 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Lawrence Switzky (lawrence.switzky@utoronto.ca)
Posted 2 February 2013
Storms at/of the Court
Allied Organization: International Courtly Literature Society
This session will explore how medieval courtly literature uses the storm (emotional or literal) as motif, metaphor, and plot mechanism. abstracts, 500 words. by 15 March 2013; Kathy M. Krause (krausek@umkc.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Failure Studies
Special Session
Panel will investigate reasons why failure is subordinated as a category of critical thought, in an effort to highlight a new cross-disciplinary analytic--failure studies--to understand the experience of modernity. Abstract/CV. by 8 March 2013; Keith Gandal (kgandal@ccny.cuny.edu) and Gavin Jones (grjones@stanford.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Children's Literature and New Trends
Special Session
We invite papers that consider 'transgressed boundaries' across Aesthetics, Content, and/or Genre in contemporary children's texts and how they may redefine the field. 350-word abstracts; short bio by 1 March 2013; Abbie Ventura (abbie-ventura@utc.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Failed Hispanic Commemorations
Special Session
This session invites papers on 19th- to 21st- century cultural celebrations that were unsuccessful in commemorating events of national significance, specially centenaries. 300-word abstract by 5 March 2013; David Rodriguez-Solas (dsolas@bard.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
"Langston Hughes's Poetry in Vulnerable Times"
Allied Organization: Langston Hughes Society
Abstracts examining the theme of “vulnerable times” in Hughes’s texts. Presenters must join the Modern Language Association and Langston Hughes Society. 250 word abstract and CV by 10 March 2013; Sharon Lynette Jones (sharon.jones@wright.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
Contemporary Poet-Critics & Creative Scholarship
Special Session
What are the forms and purposes of hybrid creative-critical texts? How do they elucidate the category of the poet-critic today? 250-word abstracts and short CV. by 15 March 2013; Gillian C. White (gcwhite@umich.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
100 Years of Bollywood
Allied Organization: South Asian Literary Association
Critical reflections on a century of films coming from Mumbai and popular in the West. Themes include directors, stars, identity, representation, music, global reception. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Rahul Gairola (rgairola@uw.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
Chanson and Cinema - A French Affair
Special Session
Chanson as genre, as narrative vehicle in French language fiction films. Literary, cultural, historical aspects of specific rapport between chanson and cinema. abstracts (250-300 words) by 15 March 2013; Olivier Bourderionnet (obourde1@uno.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
South Asian Diasporas beyond the US
Discussion Group: South Asian Languages and Literatures
Presenters will explore the intersections, parallels, and tensions between South Asian and other groups outside the US, including Australia, Africa, and South East Asia. 200-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Moumin Quazi (quazi@tarleton.edu) and Indrani Mitra (mitra@msmary.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
The Sacred and the Sexual in South Asian Literature
Discussion Group: South Asian Languages and Literatures
Interrogations of gender and the construction of sexuality in relation to diverse religious traditions of South Asia. 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Indrani Mitra (mitra@msmary.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
Poetry in the First-Year Writing Classroom
Special Session
How do we use poetry to challenge and engage first-year writers? Seeking innovative pedagogies and tales from the classroom. 300-word abstracts to mickelsonjn@yahoo.com by 4 March 2013; Nate Mickelson (mickelsonjn@yahoo.com)
Posted 1 February 2013
Digital Humanities and Early Modern Hispanic World
Special Session
Papers about websites, google articles, blogs, e-Journals, related to the early modern Hispanic world are welcome. 1 page abstract, 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Juan Pablo Gil-Oslé (gilosle1@gmail.com)
Posted 31 January 2013
Reticent Regionalism: Postwar Midwestern Literature
Special Session
Overlooked postwar artists who unsettle aesthetic or spatial definitions of Midwestern art. Importance of class, race, or sexuality to a redefined regionalism. Submit 300-word abstract. by 10 February 2013; Tyler T. Schmidt (tyler.schmidt@lehman.cuny.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Opera and Antiquity
Discussion Group: Opera as a Literary and Dramatic Form
Monteverdi, Gluck, early Mozart, Rossini, Strauss, Schoenberg, Henze, Glass... Papers on the persistence of themes from European, Biblical, and other antiquities in libretto, composition, and performance. 500-word abstracts by 7 March 2013; Marshall J. Brown (mbrown@u.washington.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Afro-Diasporic Popular Culture Interventions
Special Session
This panel addresses Afro-diasporic popular culture forms (eg. Brazilian capoeira, Hip Hop, rumba) throughout the Americas and globally to approach transnational social vulnerabilities. 350-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Naomi Wood (naomi.wood@coloradocollege.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Wit, Humor, and 'Serious' Texts
Allied Organization: American Humor Studies Association
Abstracts welcome on any subject related to comic dimensions in literary works not normally classified as 'comic.'. 300 word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Bruce F. Michelson (brucem@illinois.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Pinter and the Arts
Allied Organization: Harold Pinter Society
Presentations on Pinter and his relation to other art forms welcome. 250-word abstracts with name, address, phone, emai by 15 March 2013; Ann C. Hall (halla@ohiodominican.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
South Asia at Risk
Allied Organization: South Asian Literary Association
analyses of South Asian literary/film texts examining violated bodies, homophobia, racism, gender violence, caste barriers, religious intolerance, economic vulnerability, environmental degradation, oppression of all kinds. 150 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Nalini Iyer (niyer@seattleu.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Periodicals as Tastemakers
Special Session
We seek papers from a variety of fields and disciplines which explore the role of 19th- and 20th-century European and American periodicals as tastemakers. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 February 2013; Edward Whitley (whitley@lehigh.edu) and Melissa Renn (melissa_renn@harvard.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Authorship, Lecture Tours, & Politics in the U.S
Special Session
Their intersections in places and historical moments, particularly as writers addressed communities on issues of American identities and social justice. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Carrie Johnston (cjohnston@smu.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
From Lope To Lorca: Reading The Social Nature Of Humans
Special Session
Panel seeks papers that apply an evolutionary perspective to the study of Spanish theater. 250-300 word abstracts, in English or Spanish by 10 March 2013; Ana Dotras (ad100@nyu.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Bringing Contemporary Experience and Innovative Tools to Business Writing Courses
Allied Organization: Association for Business Communication
In university Business Writing and Communication courses, how are graduate assistants using their experiences to teach/develop Business Writing? 250 word proposal by 4 March 2013; Katherine V. Wills (kwills@iupuc.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Life Writing and Vulnerable Ethnic Communities
Division: Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing
Life writing that communicates the vulnerability of certain ethnic groups or is embraced by them. Proposals from all time periods and cultures welcome. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Irene Kakandes (irene.kacandes@dartmouth.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Stealing Lives: appropriation, hoaxes, ownership
Division: Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing
Papers consider the ethics and legality of online and print publishing when life stories are stolen or appropriated by individuals, insitutions or corporations. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Julie Rak (julie.rak@ualberta.ca)
Posted 30 January 2013
South Asian Diasporas beyond the US
Allied Organization: South Asian Literary Association
Presenters will explore the intersections, parallels, and tensions between South Asians and other Groups outside the US, including Australia, Africa, and South East Asia. 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Moumin Quazi (quazi@tarleton.edu) and Indrani Mitra (mitra@msmary.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Approaches to Narconarratives
Special Session
What form does narcotrafficking take? How does narcotrafficking come to bear on literature? This panel will explore intersections between literature and narcolife in the Americas. 250 word abstract. by 28 February 2013; Sharada Balachandran Orihuela (sbalacha@umd.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
The Tyranny of Irony and Irony's Edge
Allied Organization: American Humor Studies Association
300-word abstracts welcome on interpretive practice in the wake of insights from David Foster Wallace, Linda Hutcheon, and others on literary irony. 300-word abstracts. by 4 March 2013; Bruce F. Michelson (brucem@illinois.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Learned Society Journals: Challenges and Opportunities in the Twenty-First Century
Allied Organization: Doris Lessing Society
What challenges and opportunities do learned society journals face in the twenty-first century? Bios and 250-word abstracts for roundtable talks by 11 March 2013; Alice Rachel Ridout (alice.ridout@algomau.ca)
Posted 30 January 2013
Emigres, Expats, and Exiles in Postwar London
Allied Organization: Doris Lessing Society
When Doris Lessing returned to Britain in 1950 she joined an influx of immigrants to London. Comparative studies welcomed. 250 word abstracts and brief bios by 14 March 2013; Alice Rachel Ridout (alice.ridout@algomau.ca)
Posted 30 January 2013
The Dis(embodied) Scholar: Access in Theory and Practice
MLA Committee: Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession
Roundtable session on embodiment and the shifting role of identity discourse within disability studies. 250 word abstract by 4 March 2013; Rebecca Terese Sanchez (rsanchez28@fordham.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013, last updated 30 January 2013
The Great War in Modern Literature
Special Session
Perspectives on the First World War as represented in fiction published 1970 to the present, including relationship of literature to national memory. 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 1 March 2013; Marguerite Helmers (helmers@uwosh.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Re-evaluating the [English] Literary "Coterie" 1550-1790
Special Session
The role of social and literary networks, reading groups, and writing communities on English literature. Please submit 250-word abstract and brief bio by 22 March 2013; Hannah Crumme (hannah.crumme@gmail.com)
Posted 30 January 2013
Piety and Pastry: Catholic Cooking in the English Renaissance
Special Session
The role of food in recusant culture in any literary capacity. Please send 250-word abstract and bio by 22 March 2013; Hannah Crumme (hannah.crumme@gmail.com)
Posted 30 January 2013
Spanish Shakespeares
Special Session
The image of Spain in England, the reverberations of Spanish literature in English drama, or Spanish reinterpretations of English works. Please send 250-word abstract and brief bio by 22 March 2013; Hannah Crumme (hannah.crumme@gmail.com)
Posted 30 January 2013
Cisneros, Chicago, Mango
Division: Chicana and Chicano Literature
Seeking papers considering The House on Mango Street's impact on its 30th anniversary and in a year when MLA will be held in Chicago. 250 word abstracts by 28 February 2013; Yolanda Padilla (padilla.y@googlemail.com )
Posted 30 January 2013
¿Anthologizing Latinidad?
Division: Chicana and Chicano Literature
What are the promises and pitfalls of teaching with Latina/o literature anthologies, and with the Norton in particular? Does your institution affect your choice of teaching texts? 250 word abstracts by 28 February 2013; Marissa K. Lopez (mklopez@ucla.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Friendship in Early Modern Spanish Literature
Special Session
Female friendship, visual representations of friendship, politics of friendship; friendship and relaciones de servicio, picaresca, celestinesca, and patronage. 1 page abstract and 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Juan Pablo Gil-Oslé (gilosle1@gmail.com)
Posted 29 January 2013
Women’s Fears and Fear of Women 1300-1800
Allied Organization: GEMELA: Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas (pre-1800)
Women's texts about women experiencing fear, or as subjects to be feared, in Iberia and Latin America. 1 page abstract and 2 page CV. by 20 February 2013; Dana C. Bultman (dbultman@uga.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
What Is the Impact of Humanities Scholarship?
Special Session
How are we to theorize or measure the impact of humanities scholarship? How might dwindling resources change how we conceptualize projects? 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Matthew F. Wickman (matthew_wickman@byu.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Hispanic Urban Cultural Studies
Special Session
Roundtable on how the spatial turn contributes to Latin American, Spanish, U.S. Latino and Chicano cultural criticism. 250-word abstracts to Susan Larson by March 1. by 1 March 2013; Susan Larson (slarson@uky.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013, last updated 29 January 2013
T. S. Eliot and the Other Arts
Allied Organization: T. S. Eliot Society
We invite proposals exploring the relations between Eliot’s work and extraliterary art forms such as music, the visual arts, dance, and cinema. 500-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Frances Dickey (dickeyf@missouri.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Electronic Atwood
Allied Organization: Margaret Atwood Society
On Atwood's creative use of electronic media. 250 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Theodore F. Sheckels (tsheckel@rmc.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Margaret Atwood's Latest Work: A Roundtable Discussion
Allied Organization: Margaret Atwood Society
The ORYX AND CRAKE trilogy will be completed in October. A roundtable discussion of the final book. Abstracts suggesting approach you anticipate takin by 15 March 2013; Theodore Sheckels (tsheckel@rmc.edu) and Karma Waltonen (kjwaltonen@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
New Modernist Studies/Feminist Pedagogy Roundtable
Special Session
How might the methodologies or subjects of new modernist studies influence the practice of feminist pedagogy? Where and how do their ethos intersect and/or diverge? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Laurel Harris (lharris@qcc.cuny.edu) and Lauren Rosenblum (lauren.rosenblum@gmail.com)
Posted 29 January 2013
Queer Matter
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Queer materialisms; queer mattering; the queerness of matter; queer material; material queer; queer objects, queer things; queer theories and approaches to matter. 250-words abstracts and brief CVs by 15 March 2013; Carla Freccero (freccero@ucsc.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Deletion, Erasure, Cancellation
Special Session
How might we theorize the aesthetics and poetics of practices such as deletion and erasure? All periods, genres, media welcome. Full CFP at paulbenzon.com/mla14cfp. Abstracts with short biographical statement by 1 March 2013; Paul Benzon (pbenzon@temple.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Troubleshooting gender in 19/20th-Century French/European literature
Special Session
Exploring masculinity, femininity or/and hybridity of being throughout French and other literatures/cultures, as well as different medias. Comparative works encouraged. 250-300word abstracts in French or English by 14 March 2013; Dany Jacob (danyjaco@buffalo.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Affect in Literature
Special Session
What can we say about affect in literature? 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 10 March 2013; Yubraj Aryal (yaryal@purdue.edu). 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 10 March 2013; Yubraj Aryal (philitsociety@gmail.com)
Posted 29 January 2013
Arthur Miller: Self and Tragedy
Special Session
The Arthur Miller Society invites papers on the construction of the self and the conception of tragedy in plays by Miller and other dramatists. Abstracts <500 words by 15 March 2013; David Palmer (dpalmer@maritime.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Slavery and the Book Trade
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
This panel will combine the methodology of the history of the book with recent studies of slavery and aesthetics, focusing on the 18th century. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Sean D. Moore (sean@unh.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Activist Poetics: Jayne Cortez and Adrienne Rich
Division: Poetry
Seeking papers on any aspect of the works of Jayne Cortez and/or Adrienne Rich. 300-word abstract and 2 page c.v. by 1 March 2013; Meta Jones (metad.jones@gmail.com) and Virginia Jackson (vwjackson@gmail.com)
Posted 28 January 2013
Nineteenth-Century French Studies in the Twenty-first Century
Division: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Roundtable on the state of research/teaching in the field. What are the emerging trends/looming challenges? What forces will shape the field? Abstracts for 10-minute presentations by 22 February 2013; Susan McCready (smccread@southalabama.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Animals and Animality
Division: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Animal encounters in fiction and theory, discourse, images, phenomena, events. Topics: allegory, anthropomorphism, zoomorphism, ethics, animals on display, le regard de l’animal, animals and thought. Abstracts of 250-350 words by 22 February 2013; Cheryl Kreuger (clk6m@virginia.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Incorporating Undergraduate Research in English Studies
Special Session
Panelists will discuss best practices and innovative approaches to incorporating undergraduate research in English Studies. 250-word abstract and short bio. by 1 March 2013; Donna M. Bickford (dbickford@unc.edu) and Jenny Shanahan (Jenny.Shanahan@bridgew.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
One World, One Speed? Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the Nation
Special Session
This panel explores the ways in which the pace-setting, synchronizing power of globalization is challenged in specific locales throughout the world. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Juan Meneses (jmeneses@purdue.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Chronicling a Financial Crisis
Division: Nonfiction Prose Studies, Excluding Biography and Autobiography
Seeking papers on the task of chronicling a financial crisis. What questions do such accounts ask? What problems do they encounter? What are their duties? 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Howard Horowitz (h.horwitz@English.utah.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Transcendentalist Women and Friendship
Special Session
This session invites papers on transcendentalist women’s conceptions and practices of friendship, especially in comparison to their male counterparts. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Eileen Abrahams (abrahae@sunysccc.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
East Asian Traditional Poetry in the Digital Age
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures to 1900
Impact of modern technology on circulation, discussion, and composition of poetry in traditional forms (shi, tanka, haiku, etc.). 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Paul Rouzer (prouzer@umn.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Du Bois, King and the Discourse of Freedom
Special Session
Examines the discourse of freedom and the promise of America in the work of Du Bois and Martin Luther King. (300 words; dolan.hubbard@morgan.edu). Abstracts by 7 March 2013; Dolan Hubbard (dolan.hubbard@morgan.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Romantic Partisanship
Special Session
Aesthetics of taking sides in period that birthed radicalism, conservatism, liberalism; interplay of democracy and art: literary-ideological battles, affective excess, polemical genres, ad hominem attacks, straw (wo)men. 250-word abstract CV by 15 March 2013; Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud (gerard@utk.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
American Literature and the Sea in the Long Nineteenth Century
Special Session
This panel focuses on oceanic spaces, journeys, and work to redraw geography of nineteenth-century American literature. 250 word abstract and short bio by 15 March 2013; Edward Sugden (edward.sugden@linacre.ox.ac.uk)
Posted 28 January 2013
Early Modern Media Ecologies
Special Session
How do Renaissance media (ranging from book to actor’s body to tapestry to ballad) cross-fertilize, reproduce, surmount and consume each other? 250-word abstracts and CV by 15 March 2013; Scott A. Trudell (trudell@umd.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Theorizing the Villain in Early Modern England
Special Session
Seeking new theorizations of the early modern villain or reconsiderations of old approaches (“motiveless malignity,” the legacy of medieval Vice, etc.). Short abstract by 1 March 2013; David Hershinow (dhershi1@jhu.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Literature integration in language classes
Special Session
The 2007 Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages called for integrating literature in language courses. How is this being done? Abstracts of 350 words should be submitted. by 1 March 2013; Cecilia Ojeda (cecilia.ojeda@nau.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Ecocritical Sand
Allied Organization: George Sand Association
The natural world, artistic creativity, and the environment; nature vs. nurture; city vs. country. Environmental awareness, activism, recycling, ecosystems of affect, harmony and idealism, theories of social justice. One-page abstract by 1 March 2013; Lauren Ravalico (aurenravalico@gmail.com)
Posted 27 January 2013
Women on Work, Women's Work
Allied Organization: George Sand Association
Literary and cultural approaches to work; material labor and the work of culture and language in the writings of George Sand and nineteenth-century women writers. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Pratima Prasad (Pratima.Prasad@umb.edu) and David Bell (dfbell@duke.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Untranslatability
Discussion Group: Romance Literary Relations
How do writers, intellectuals, or artists advocate or refute the untranslatability of a word, idea, or concept? Submit an abstract with a maximum of 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Gerard Aching (gla23@cornell.edu) and Guillermina de Ferrari (gdeferrari@wisc.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Borges and Perception
Special Session
In light of Rodrigo Quian Quiroga's recent text, this panel will examine competing theories of mind in the prose of Jorge Luis Borges. Abstracts (250-500 words) by 15 March 2013; Stacey Balkan (sbalkan@bergen.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
New Directions in Williams Studies
Allied Organization: William Carlos Williams Society
Contemporary approaches to Williams in “lightning talk” PechaKucha format -- possible topics include: medicine/embodiment; technology; transnationalism; ecocriticism; Williams and/in archives; publishing; etc. CV and 200 word abstracts by 22 March 2013; Daniel Burke (daniel.e.burke@marquette.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Shakespeare in Performance
Special Session
Choose any play of Shakespeare on stage in the Western world and illustrate how the social and cultural context have affected performance. Papers on the playing of Shakespeare. by 4 March 2013; John Camera (jcamera@wgfilms.com)
Posted 26 January 2013
Frank Wedekind at 150
Special Session
Wedekind's work was ahead of its time. Or was it? What about today? Proposals sought focusing on Wedekind (drama, narrative, poetry/cabaret) in the 21st century. Abstracts, 200 words by 8 March 2013; Mary M. Paddock (mary.paddock@quinnipiac.edu)
Posted 26 January 2013
End(s) of Poetry: A Roundtable
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Modern, postmodern, diasporic, epic, web-based, spoken word, queer, feminist, nationalist, multilingual, untimely. 7-minute papers on any aspect of contemporary or 20th century poetry. 300-word abstracts and bios by 14 March 2013; José Quiroga (jquirog@emory.edu)
Posted 26 January 2013
The Romanticism of a Return to Communism
Special Session
Is it possible to rethink Marx(ism) and Romanticism by considering recent, non-economist philosophies of communism, “being-in-common,” and the commons? Abstracts up to 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Lenora Hanson (lahanson3@gmail.com) and Karim Wissa (kwissa@gmail.com)
Posted 26 January 2013
Queer Philology
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Explorations of “queer philology,” the close inspection of the historical meaning of words and phrases that bear upon sexuality studies. 250-word abstract Brief CV by 15 March 2013; Christopher Looby (clooby@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 26 January 2013
Chicago Women Playwrights
Division: Women's Studies in Language and Literature
The panel invites work by or about women playwrights from Chicago such as Sarah Ruhl, Lydia R. Diamond, and Lorraine Hansberry. abstracts of 250 word or less by 1 March 2013; Susan G. O'Malley (susanomalley4@gmail.com)
Posted 25 January 2013
Chess and Literature
Special Session
Proposals on the representation of chess in literature in any period or genre. 250 word abstracts plus brief biography by 12 March 2013; Gina Bloom (gbloom@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 25 January 2013
Getting the Word Out: Communication Disabilities in Literature/ Scholarship
Special Session
Describing/experiencing/studying "invisible" communication disabilities: critiques of memoirs about Aphasia/Autism; literary occurrences; scholars' and teachers' language disability experiences. Please send 100-200-word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Carolyn McCue Goffman (cgoffman@depaul.edu)
Posted 25 January 2013
Claudel et les Amériques: Théâtre et Poésie
Allied Organization: Paul Claudel Society
Proposed by Sergio Villani, the session will focus on Claudel’s production in North and South America. Submit your abstract (50-100 words) by March 1, 20 by 1 March 2013; Christophe Ippolito (christophe.ippolito@modlangs.gatech.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013, last updated 25 January 2013
Geospatial Literary Studies
Special Session
Investigating the geospatial in digital literary studies: GIS, gazetteers, spatial narratives, literary cartographies, spatio-temporal visualization of literary datasets. 250– word abstract (plus visuals) and bio by 15 March 2013; David Joseph Wrisley (dw04@aub.edu.lb)
Posted 25 January 2013
How We Talk about Contingent Faculty
Special Session
How are contingent faculty described and discussed, and by whom? What are the implications of this rhetoric for their place in the academy? 300-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Catherine Keohane (keohanec@mail.montclair.edu) and Julia Wagner (wagnerj@mail.montclair.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Letters
Division: Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century German Literature
Letters as literature; letters in literature; letters as autobiography; open letters; letters and technology; letters and gender; the letter as material object; editions of letters. Proposals of 250 words by 1 March 2013; Jocelyne Kolb (jkolb@smith.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013, last updated 24 January 2013
Góngora’s Soledades After 400 Years
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry and Prose
Interpretations, Reception and Appropriations. Send one-page abstract and two-page CV by 7 March 2013; Steven Wagschal (MLA2014@indiana.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013, last updated 24 January 2013
Science (and) Fiction in Early Modern Spain
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry and Prose
History of Science, New Technologies, Magic and Marvels. Send one-page abstract and two-page CV by 7 March 2013; Steven Wagschal (MLA2014@indiana.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013, last updated 24 January 2013
Jewish Rhetoric, Visual Rhetoric, Pedagogy
Special Session
What constitutes a specifically "Jewish" rhetoric or pedagogy? And how do new developments in the field of Visual Rhetoric relate to Jewish thought and textuality? papers, abstracts by 10 March 2013; Susan A. Handelman (susanhandelman@gmail.com)
Posted 24 January 2013
Compromising, Negotiating: Being a Graduate Student
Allied Organization: Graduate Student Caucus
How to be a grad student? Privacy, negotiating conflicts, living healthy, planning the future, dealing with discrimination, parenthood and school... Abstract: 300 words (Roundtable: 8 minutes/present by 10 March 2013; Loic Bourdeau (lbourdeau@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Exile, Death, Sacrifice: The Poetics of Suffering in Francophone Literature
Allied Organization: Graduate Student Caucus
Exile, death, and sacrifice in Francophone literature (19th to 21st century): writing “souffrance” and its implications. Abstract: 300 words. (Presentations: 20 minutes) by 10 March 2013; Loic Bourdeau (lbourdeau@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Violent Sympathies
Special Session
This session explores how violent representation produces a space of vulnerability that allows for different forms of sympathy to emerge in 19th/early 20th century America. 250-word abstract, CV by 1 March 2013; Rebeccah Bechtold (rebeccah.bechtold@unco.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
National Epic
Allied Organization: Goethe Society of North America
We seek papers that analyze the particular fascination of the German literary imagination with national epic in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Charlton Payne (charlton.payne@uni-erfurt.de)
Posted 24 January 2013
Latin American Darwinisms
Special Session
Literary responses to Social Darwinist discourses, analyses of texts only possible in a post-Darwin world, impacts of Larmarckian (and other) theories, reassessments of “La raza cósmica.”. 1-page proposals, CV by 15 March 2013; Todd Garth (garth@usna.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
The Pleasure of the Text: Creating Life-Long Readers
Division: the Teaching of Literature
Teaching literature with an eye to life beyond the classroom. How do we connect literature to students' lives? Theory or practice. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Jeanne A. Follansbee (follansb@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Multilingualism in Native American/Aboriginal Texts
Division: American Indian Literatures
Panel analyzes Native American/Aboriginal texts in original languages and/or with other languages; region, time, and genre are open. 250-word abstract and short bio by 25 February 2013; Beth Piatote (piatote@berkeley.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Bottom's Dreams and Beyond: Arno Schmidt at 100
Special Session
New perspectives on this post-war author's writings and his legacy, particularly on "Zettel's Traum". CV and abstract by 1 March 2013; Stefan Hoeppner (shoppner@ucalgary.ca)
Posted 23 January 2013
South to North: Modern Inter-American Cultural Transactions
Special Session
How have Latin American cultural productions informed political, aesthetic and cultural practices in North America from the 19th Century to the present? (250-500 word abstract) by 15 March 2013; Lara Tucker (let2108@columbia.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
The Decade Modernism Forgot: The 1930s
Special Session
What is the relationship between modernism and 1930s literature, and is it as distinct and antagonistic as the critical mythology suggests? 250-word proposals with brief bio by 1 March 2013; Erica Gene Delsandro (ericadelsandro@gmail.com)
Posted 23 January 2013
(Re)Thinking the Animal and the Human in Lusophone Literature since the 19th century
Special Session
Critical analysis of literary works concerning animal issues and the relations between humans and nonhumans. Maximum 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Anita DeMelo (Anita.Demelo@usma.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Postwhat?! Literary Postmodernism in the 21st Century
Special Session
Has postmodernism run out of steam, or are its effects only just now beginning to manifest themselves in literature of the 21st century? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Matthew Mullins (mmullins@sebts.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Transpacific Memory: Life Writing Across the Western Divide
Special Session
Papers on life writing from transpacific travel in all directions, including Western expatriate memoirs. Abstract and short bio by 15 March 2013; Mary Goodwin (profgood@hotmail.com)
Posted 23 January 2013
Mothers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Literary explorations of relationships between mothers and daughters and/or mothers and sons, as narrated in early modern European cultures, especially Italian. Title, 250-word abstract by 1 March 2013; Laura Giannetti (lgiannetti@miami.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Voice and Silence
Division: French Medieval Language and Literature
Inviting responses to how voice speaks in a text or voices silence so that it can be heard. 250-word abstract and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Cary Howie (caryhowie@cornell.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Nature and the Natural World
Division: French Medieval Language and Literature
We invite papers on NATURE AND THE NATURAL WORLD in its many guises – theological, legal, linguistic, poetic, artistic, scientific, political, sexual. 250-word abstract and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Cary Howie (caryhowie@cornell.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Teaching Sustainability
Discussion Group: the Two-Year College
Presentations that explore the teaching of sustainability in English and Foreign Languages, including place-based and project-based approaches to teaching in the environmental humanities. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Falk Cammin (camminfalk@fhda.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
What's Where in Latin America
Special Session
How, and for what purpose, do manuscripts inaugurate a new cartography of Latin America or of spaces therein? Written and drawn texts considered. 250-word abstract and CV by 1 March 2013; Samuel Jaffee (sjaffee@uci.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Broadway Babies
Division: Children's Literature
Papers should examine constructions of childhood and issues of child performance in musicals such as The Secret Garden, The Lion King, The King and I, or Sarafina! Abstracts (250-300 words) by 15 March 2013; Donelle Ruwe (donelle.ruwe@nau.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Victorian Informatics
Division: the Victorian Period
Papers related to producing, organizing, circulating knowledge; information taxonomies and technologies; narrating information; the poetics or aesthetics of information; wanting facts. 500 word abstract, 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Richard Menke (rmenke@uga.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Victorian Temporalities
Division: the Victorian Period
Papers related to instantaneity, lived time, realtime, geological time, duration, (a)synchrony, intermittence, spending time, saving time, wasting time. 500 word abstract; 1 page CV. by 1 March 2013; Richard Menke (rmenke@uga.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Digital Jews: Literature, Apps, Internet Mediations, Archiving
Discussion Group: Jewish American Literature
Roundtable exploring the impact of digital media on Jewish American writing, writers, and literature collections. Pedagogy also welcome. Abstracts (<300 words) by 15 March 2013; Laurence D. Roth (roth@susqu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Verbal and Visual Satire in the Nineteenth Century
Special Session
Verbal and/or visual satire; relations to other forms; histories; British or comparative. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Frank A. Palmeri (fpalmeri@miami.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Vulnerable Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature
Special Session
Joint session Gemela / Comediantes: hagiography , martyrdom, wife murder, rape, abuse of marginalized groups (indigenous/ poor ). 1 page abstract and one page CV by 20 February 2013; Barbara Simerka (simerkabarbara@gmail.com) and Dana Bultman (dbultman@uga.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Lope de Vega and Peasant Drama: 400 years later
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Drama
new approaches to peasant drama, canonical and lesser known plays and authors, consideration of campesinos/campesinas. 1 page abstract and 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Barbara Simerka (simerkabarbara@gmail.com)
Posted 22 January 2013
Domesticity and the Comedia
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Drama
New perspectives on the marriage plot and family relations, domestic spaces . Consideration of marginal figures: spinsters, widows , orphans . 1 page abstract and 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Barbara Simerka (simerkabarbara@gmail.com)
Posted 22 January 2013
Technologies of Translation
Discussion Group: Translation
We seek presentations that introduce experiments in the Digital Humanities relying on translation: What insights might these examples offer to Translation Studies and/or to Digital Humanities? 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Michael Emmerich (emmerich@eastasian.ucsb.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Representations of Disaster in Contemporary Asia
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900
Papers that consider issues of representation of recent disasters throughout Asia, such as earthquakes, famine, tsunami, or nuclear meltdown, in a variety of media. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Doug Slaymaker (dslaym@uky.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Literature and Film in Australasia
Allied Organization: American Association of Australian Literary Studies
AAALS seeks proposals for 15-20 minute papers on any aspect of Australian or New Zealand literature and/or film, including adaptation, narrative, history, and cultural identity. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Eva Rueschmann (erueschmann@hampshire.edu) and Nathanael O'Reilly (n.oreilly@tcu.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Asia and the Nobel Prize in Literature
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900
Papers exploring the cultural, linguistic, literary, and political meanings of this prize and the works of the surprisingly few Asian laureates and nominees. 250-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Melek Ortabasi (mso1@sfu.ca)
Posted 21 January 2013
Conrad and Cognition
Allied Organization: Joseph Conrad Society of America
Papers are invited exploring the relations between recent work in cognitive science and Conrad's understanding of the mind. Abstracts are requested for papers of 15-20 minute by 15 March 2013; Paul B. Armstrong (paul_armstrong@brown.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Digital Humanities and French Renaissance Culture
Special Session
Projects and practices that illustrate the promise of the Digital Humanities for the study of French Renaissance Culture. 300-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Dorothea Heitsch (dheitsch@unc.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Poverty and Naturalism
Special Session
New perspectives (interpretive or theoretical) on naturalism as a genre that takes the poor and vulnerable as its preferred topic. Any literary tradition or period. 300-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Eleni Eva Coundouriotis (eleni.coundouriotis@uconn.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
British Women Writers and the Arts 1880-1920
Special Session
How did music, theatre and art influence the construction of novels and poetry by British women writers who published 1880-1920? 300-word abstracts, one page CV by 5 March 2013; Donna S. Parsons (donna-parsons@uiowa.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Arguing Religion in Early Modern England
Special Session
Panel will focus on the creative uses of various types of religious argument—satire, polemic, animadversion—their innovations, interplay, and relationship to humanism and print culture. 250-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Melissa M. Caldwell (mcaldwell@eiu.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
What is Data in Literary Studies? A Roundtable
Division: Methods of Literary Research
Do all literary scholars work with data of some kind? Or are projects involving data methodologically distinct? Do we need better data? 250-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; James F. English (jenglish@english.upenn.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Scenes of Reading in Luso-Hispanic Cultures (c. XV-XIX)
Special Session
Examining the ideologies embedded in textual and visual representations of reading in Luso-Hispanic cultural productions (c. XV-XIX). 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Heather Allen (hjallen@olemiss.edu) and Anna Nogar (anogar@unm.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Artistic and Scholarly Practice in the Digital Age
Division: Twentieth-Century German Literature
Seeking papers that explore the interplay of aesthetics, science, and politics across sites of engagement in the digital era. 300 word abstracts for TRANSIT by 9 March 2013; Deniz Göktürk (dgokturk@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013, last updated 21 January 2013
Revisiting the Culture Wars
Special Session
Seeking new perspectives on the culture wars as they become part of our institutional history. Please submit abstracts of no more than 200 words. by 15 March 2013; Hala Herbly (hala.herbly@utexas.edu) and Stephanie Odom (stephanie.odom@utexas.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Narrative and Language Theory
Division: Language Theory
We solicit papers exploring relationship between narrative and theory of language. Paper proposals of 250-300 words by 15 March 2013; Jiyoung Yoon (jiyoung.yoon@unt.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
New Work in Language Theory
Division: Language Theory
We solicit papers exploring any aspect of linguistics that contributes to recent trends in language theory. Paper proposals of 250-300 words by 15 March 2013; Jiyoung Yoon (jiyoung.yoon@unt.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
American Literature and New Technologies 1865-1945
Special Session
We invite papers that consider the fault lines between literary narrative and new technologies. How has American literature responded to technological innovation? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Sarah R. Gleeson-White (sarah.gleeson-white@sydney.edu.au)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 20 January 2013
Travel Literature and the Environment
Discussion Group: Travel Literature
19th- to 21st-century travel literature and representations of the physical environment; the natural world; ecocritical approaches; and/or animal encounters. 250-500-word proposals by 5 March 2013; Jeanne Dubino (dubinoja@appstate.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Gandhi's Modernity
Special Session
This panel will read texts that surround MK Gandhi's writing/thought (eg Tolstoy, Ruskin, Thoreau), especially in the contexts of anticolonial thought. Submit abstracts (500 words) & a brief bio by 5 March 2013; James Daniel Elam (jdelam@u.northwestern.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Religious, Spiritual, Theological Approaches to Dante
Allied Organization: American Association for Italian Studies
Dante’s works explored from any religious, spiritual, or theological perspective. Abstract (200 word maximum) by 4 March 2013; Christian Moevs (Christian.Moevs.1@nd.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Italian Representations of Blackness
Allied Organization: American Association for Italian Studies
Topics include Italy, Africa, and the Mediterranean; Afro-Italian Narratives; Italy and African-American culture; and/or Colonialism and Post-Colonialism. 300-word abstract by 4 March 2013; Charles Leavitt (c.l.leavitt@reading.ac.uk)
Posted 20 January 2013
Wordsworth's Excursion at 200
Special Session
Keats called Wordsworth's Excursion one of the "three things to rejoice at in this Age." Papers should consider its legacy. Co-Sponsored by the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Jacob Risinger (risinger@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 19 January 2013
Dadaphone: Interminacy in Words and Music
Allied Organization: Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations
Dada texts and indeterminate music utilize non-traditional means of organization. Send proposals that address words and sound combined using an element of chance. 250 word proposals by 1 March 2013; Jeff Dailey (drjsdailey@aol.com) and Jonathan Eburne (jpe11@psu.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013
Latin American Feminist Representation a New Way of Resistance for the “Third World Women.”
Special Session
Feminist contemporary Latin American narrative: new scheme/representation a-response of the 20th Century feminist movement failure. abstract 400 words. by 12 March 2013; Gina Ponce de Leon (gina.poncedeleon@fresno.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013
Adoption and Disability
Allied Organization: Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture
Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture panel invites 15-min. papers that explore connections between adoption and disability. Abstracts (<500 words) and a brief CV (2pp.). by 1 March 2013; Marina Fedosik (mf107@nyu.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Transperiod Literary Studies
Special Session
What alternatives are there to period-based literary studies? What are the limitations of the periodization model? How may we approach literature across two or more periods? 500-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Hassan Melehy (hmelehy@unc.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
The Vernacular as Critical Category
Special Session
Reviews, explications, contestations through theoretical reflections and/or readings of texts, literary, cinematic or otherwise. Approaches from postcolonial and/or comparative perspectives especially welcome. 250 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; S. Shankar (subraman@hawaii.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
U.S. Immigrant Literature
Special Session
Goal: to establish a field of recent U.S. Immigrant Writing. Wanted: papers NOT treating works as ethnic, diasporic, or post-colonial, but as new forms of American literature. 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Susan K. Harris (skh5@ku.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
James T. Farrell and Chicago: New Approaches
Special Session
Proposals that consider the fiction and nonfiction of James T. Farrell, particularly investigations that employ contemporary approaches to literature. 300 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Shawn Patrick Gillen (gillens@beloit.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Trans-Iberian Literary and Cultural Studies
Special Session
An exploration of the multilingual/multicultural or hybrid nature of Iberian literatures from any period(s). Abstracts may be in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. Please submit a 50-100 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Robert Simon (rsimon5@kennesaw.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
China in World Literature
Special Session
Chinese literary works have a long history of circulation outside of China. What patterns of mobility and appropriation emerge from the close study of this history? One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; David Porter (dporter@umich.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Re-evaluating "Historical Context"
Special Session
Papers that reassess the relationship between literature and history; challenge the priority of context over content; critique, interrogate, or reframe historicism in literary studies. Brief abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Steven J. Syrek (steven.syrek@rutgers.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Teaching of Foreign Languages
Special Session
We seek proposals from alternative, innovative methods of teaching foreign languages. Papers might consider methodologies, reception, case studies... 250-word abstracts & brief CV by 10 March 2013; Adrian Gras-Velazquez (adrian.gras-velazquez@durham.ac.uk) and Prof. Doris Sommer (Harvard University)
Posted 18 January 2013
Representation of Vulnerable Societies
Special Session
The representation of societies in conflict: social exclusion, marginalization and forced displacement in the contemporary Latin American Novel. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Hilma-Nelly Zamora-Breckenridge (nelly.zamora-breckenridge@valpo.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Thinking Fanlation
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900
Papers that explore the theoretical or political ramifications of fanlation, scanlation, fansubbing, or other forms of unauthorized and/or crowdsourced translation in a global media context. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Michael Emmerich (emmerich@eastasian.ucsb.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 18 January 2013
Thinking Fanlation
Discussion Group: Translation
Papers that explore the theoretical or political ramifications of fanlation, scanlation, fansubbing, or other forms of unauthorized and/or crowdsourced translation in a global media context. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Michael Emmerich (emmerich@eastasian.ucsb.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
Orientalismo en el cine contemporáneo
Special Session
¿Cómo está siendo revisitada la representación de asiáticos, árabes y judíos en el cine hispano y brasileño contemporáneo? Enviar abstracto de 250 palabras. by 15 March 2013; Michele C. Dávila (mdavilagoncalv@salemstate.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
21st Century Pedagogies
Discussion Group: the Two-Year College
Brief presentations that explore alternative teaching approaches, innovative pedagogy, and English or Foreign language classroom best practices departing from the traditional instructional model. Stacey Donohue sdonohue@cocc.edu. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Stacey Lee Donohue (sdonohue@cocc.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
Critical Regionalisms
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Analysis of emergent conceptualizations of the regional and of cultural difference that question traditional notions of territorialization, authority, and identity in an Iberian context. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Cristina Moreiras-Menor (moreiras@umich.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
Colonial Heroes and Martyrs
Special Session
Explorers, conquerors, and victims in early North and Latin America. Are heroism and sacrifice (think: John Smith and Pocahontas) interwoven? Abstracts by 15 March 2013 to Joanne.van.der.Woude@rug.nl. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Joanne van der Woude (Joanne.van.der.Woude@rug.nl)
Posted 17 January 2013
The Musics of Chicago
Special Session
From jazz to rock, disco and house to hip-hop, this panel examines the cultures, histories, and discourses of Chicago's musics. 200-300 word abstracts / full papers & CV. by 15 March 2013; Shawn Higgins (shawn.higgins@uconn.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Brecht and the Century of War
Allied Organization: International Brecht Society
Anticipating the 100th anniversary of the onset of hostilities in WWI, this panel explores how war informs and takes form in Brecht’s works. Abstracts, 200-300 words by 15 March 2013; Marc David Silberman (mdsilber@wisc.edu) and Theodor Rippey (theodor@bgsu.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Invisible Violences in the North
Discussion Group: Scandinavian Languages and Literatures
How does the prominence of violence in Nordic literature, film, and society challenge the Nordic countries' reputation for peace, environmentalism, welfare, equality, and general happiness? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Leonardo Lisi (leonardo.lisi@jhu.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Novels of the Arab Diaspora
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers on novels by Arab writers of the diaspora, early and contemporary topics welcome, including Arabic, Francophone, and Anglophone texts. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
New Arabic Genres
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers on new Arabic media, including electronic modes of writing, graphic narratives, and innovations in genres of Arabic writing. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Vulnerable Expression after the Arab Uprisings
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers examining cultural freedoms since the Arab Uprisings, with an emphasis on legal and economic transformations in cultural production. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Trans-Mediterranean Literature and Film
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers that theorize a Trans-Mediterranean culture. Suggested topics include colonialism, cosmopolitanism, circuits of migration, and multinational/multilingual literature and cinema. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013, last updated 16 January 2013
Luso-Hispanic Exchanges
Allied Organization: American Portuguese Studies Association
A comparative examination of Portuguese- and Spanish-language literary and cultural materials. Latin American, peninsular, transatlantic, and other approaches welcome. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Robert Newcomb (rpnewcomb@ucdavis.edu) and Luiz Fernando Valente (Luiz_Valente@brown.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Luso-Hispanic Exchanges
Division: Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature
A comparative examination of Portuguese- and Spanish-language literary and cultural materials. Latin American, peninsular, transatlantic, and other approaches welcome. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Robert Newcomb (rpnewcomb@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Sport and Nation in the Lusophone World
Division: Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature
The relationship between sport and nationality in literary, cinematic and visual texts. We encourage the consideration of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Emanuelle Oliveira Monte (Emanuelle.olveira@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Memory/History/Stories
Division: Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature
The intersection of memory, history and fiction in the construction of national and self identity; memory and post-memory; remembering versus forgetting; collective and personal trauma. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Cristina Pinto-Bailey (pinto-baileyac@wlu.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Diplomacy in 17th-century French Culture
Division: Seventeenth-Century French Literature
Relations between disparate cultures; evolving practices and forms of diplomacy; its languages; its influence on literary production. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Faith Beasley (Faith.Beasley@Dartmouth.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
New Approaches to Science Fiction Criticism
Discussion Group: Science Fiction and Utopian and Fantastic Literature
This panel will explore intersections between science fiction criticism and emergent realisms in the humanities (affect theory, digital humanities, surface reading etc). 250 word abstracts, CV by 8 March 2013; Rebekah Sheldon (sheldonr@uwm.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
The dandy: fashionable victim or hybrid reflection?
Special Session
Social self-made novelty, Baudrillard identifies the dandy's position as "an aesthetic form of nihilism" by reinventing aesthetic values throughout the centuries. abstracts, approx. 250-300 words by 8 March 2013; Dany Jacob (danyjaco@buffalo.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Milton’s Modernities
Allied Organization: Milton Society of America
Papers addressing the poet’s seventeenth-century context or later influence. Full CFP at miltonsociety.org. Please send 500-word abstracts or eight-page paper by 15 March 2013; Ken Hiltner (hiltner@english.ucsb.edu) and Feisal Mohamed (fgm@illinois.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Milton in the Long Restoration
Allied Organization: Milton Society of America
This session will explore Milton's presence in the long Restoration. We seek papers that address this topic from various critical perspectives. Title and brief abstract of paper. by 15 March 2013; Albert J. Rivero (albert.rivero@marquette.edu) and Blair Hoxby (bhoxby@stanford.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013, last updated 15 January 2013
John Milton: A General Session
Allied Organization: Milton Society of America
Papers on all topics relating to John Milton. Please send abstracts or complete papers. 8-page o by 15 March 2013; Ken Hiltner (hiltner@english.ucsb.edu) and Rachel Trubowitz (Rachel.Trubowitz@unh.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Blockbusters and Bestsellers
Division: Twentieth-Century English Literature
How does popular success shape novels? Topics might include literary prizes, adaptations in other media, distribution networks, reading clubs, genre, graphic novels, highbrow and middlebrow fiction, specific bestsellers. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Allan Hepburn (allan.hepburn@mcgill.ca)
Posted 14 January 2013, last updated 15 January 2013
The Sacrificial Dynamic in Goethe
Allied Organization: Goethe Society of North America
Papers discussing the degree to which Goethe’s works reflect, and reflect on, sacrificial processes. Both fictional and non-fictional works may be considered. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; David Wellbery (wellbery@uchicago.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Women's Education in Third World Countries
Discussion Group: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society
Literary, legal, political, economic or social implications of and current theories and developments on women's right to education in developing and under-developed countries/regions. Abstracts and vita by 15 March 2013; Shirin E. Edwin (see001@shsu.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Terrorism and Temporality
Special Session
How do terrorist literary narratives reflect, respond to, or reconfigure notions of temporality (chronology, periodization, history, the present, Jetztzeit, futurity, the new, the "post-," repetition, etc.)? 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Todd Kuchta (todd.kuchta@wmich.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
State-Sponsored Voyeurism and Surveillance
Discussion Group: Romanian Studies
Panel/roundtable seeks to investigate approaches to secret police surveillance and/or informant files from former East Bloc countries. one-page abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Valentina N. Glajar (glajar@txstate.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Comparative Mediterranean American Literatures
Discussion Group: Italian American Literature
Papers on works by Americans of Mediterranean origins (Anatolian, Levantine, Maghrebi, Southern European, etc.) exploring questions of bioregional, ethnoracial, and national affiliation and disaffiliation. Abstracts (<300 words) by 18 March 2013; Jim Cocola (jcocola@wpi.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Influence/Confluence of Genres in East Asia
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures to 1900
Explorations of the influence between and confluence of literary and performative genres as perceived in East Asian cultures before 1900. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Joseph Sorensen (jsorensen@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Milton in the Long Restoration
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
This session will explore Milton's presence in the long Restoration. We seek papers that address this topic from various critical perspectives. Title and brief abstract of paper by 15 March 2013; Albert J. Rivero (albert.rivero@marquette.edu) and Blair Hoxby (bhoxby@stanford.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Black German History and Culture in Research and Teaching
Special Session
Proposals addressing: current state of research; transnational/cross-cultural/comparative approaches; theoretical/interdisciplinary innovations; teaching/pedagogical considerations; integration into US/German college curricula. 500-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Maria S. Grewe (mgrewe@jjay.cuny.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Disability Discourses in Latin America: Academy and Activism
Discussion Group: Mexican Cultural and Literary Studies
Roundtable exploring current issues and discourses in disability studies in LA. 6-7 minute position papers identifying areas of research, activism. 200-word abstract and CV by 1 March 2013; Beth Jorgensen (beth.jorgensen@rochester.edu) and Susan Antebi (susan.antebi@utoronto.ca)
Posted 13 January 2013
Animation in French Literature, 1550-1750
Special Session
Exploring the act, process, or result of imparting life, spirit, motion or activity. Theories and representations of life, death, vitalism, mechanism, machines, bodies etc. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Allison Stedman (allison.stedman@uncc.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
The John Brown Event: Approaches to Antebellum Righteous Violence
Special Session
Innovative takes on responses to John Brown and other agents of nineteenth-century political violence. Submit a 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Jason Berger (jason.berger@usd.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Affect Theory or Affect Studies?
Special Session
What would shifting to a "studies" model of affects, rather than focusing on affect "theory," mean for contemporary understandings of affect and emotion? 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 15 March 2013; Octavio Gonzalez (octaviorgonzalez@gmail.com)
Posted 13 January 2013
The Legacies of Carlos Fuentes: A Roundtable Discussion
Discussion Group: Mexican Cultural and Literary Studies
This round table seeks to explore the literary, cultural and political significance of Carlos Fuentes’oeuvre. 300-word abstract and bio. by 14 March 2013; Juan Carlos Ramírez-Pimienta (jcramire@rohan.sdsu.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Mexican Studies and the Return of the PRI: A roundtable
Discussion Group: Mexican Cultural and Literary Studies
Seven-minute position papers concerning the impact on our methodologies and paradigms of the PRI’s return to power. 200-word abstracts and bio by 1 March 2013; Ignacio Sanchez-Prado (isanchez@artsci.wustl.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Teaching Brecht
Division: the Teaching of Literature
Proposals sought with critical reflections and best practices on teaching Bertolt Brecht’s ideas and works (dramas, prose, poetry), including text selection, performing excerpts, and integrating theoretical issues. Abstracts (200 words) by 15 March 2013; Per Urlaub (urlaub@austin.utexas.edu) and Paula Hanssen (hanssen@webster.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Latinoamericanismo Reloaded
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Contemporary theoretical readings on thinkers of Latin Americanism writing between 1900 (Ariel) and 1971 (Caliban). 300-word abstract and brief bio. by 1 March 2013; Ignacio Sanchez Prado (isanchez@artsci.wustl.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Parodic Form in Asian Diasporic Literature
Special Session
The roles of parodic form in Asian diasporic literature via the comedic, satirical, or absurd in experimental writing, graphic novels, or traditional print formats. 200-word abstracts by 25 February 2013; Karen An-hwei Lee (klee@vanguard.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
History, Form, Theory of Early Modern Disability
Division: Disability Studies
Reflections on historical, formal, theoretical models of disability representation in early modern period. Compare existing methodologies and/or propose inroads for future studies. 250-word abstracts, cv by 1 March 2013; Elizabeth Bearden (ebearden@wisc.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013, last updated 13 January 2013
Toxic Bodies
Division: Disability Studies
Disabled persons as canaries in coal mines of globalization. Intersectional connections to other vulnerable populations based on proximity to toxicity (fracking, irradiation, strip mining, mercury poisoning, pharmaceuticals). 350-word abstracts, cv by 1 March 2013; David Mitchell (dtmitchel@gmail.com)
Posted 12 January 2013, last updated 13 January 2013
Unamuno’s Niebla 100 Years Later
Special Session
This panel will explore the continued significance of Niebla on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. Please send abstracts to bcope@wooster.edu before March 8. abstracts (250 words) by 8 March 2013; Brian J. Cope (bcope@wooster.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
New Social Movements
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Analyses of recent movements ("yo soy 132," "indignados," etc.) in Latin America, Spain, or the US-Latino context. Round table format; comparative perspectives welcome. 250-word abstracts to: hchacon6@naz.edu and susanm by 1 March 2013; Hilda Chacón (hchacon6@naz.edu) and Susan Martin-Marquez (susanmm@rci.rutgers.edu )
Posted 12 January 2013, last updated 13 January 2013
Navigating Arthurian Waterways: Of Literary Lakes, Rivers, and Oceans
Discussion Group: Arthurian Literature
The Arthurian Literature Discussion Group seeks papers that explore the significance of water within Arthurian texts. 300-500 word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Randy P. Schiff (rpschiff@buffalo.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
Vulnerada y curativa: Contemporary Poetry in Latin America
Special Session
This roundtable rethinks Latin American poetic productions as always-already 'vulnerated' enunciations and to identify their vulnerary qualities. 250 word abstracts by March 1st. by 1 March 2013; José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra (jrruisanchez@uh.edu) and Tamara R. Williams (williatr@plu.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
The Commons/Lo común
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Analysis of how the concept is deployed in contemporary Spanish cultural production, including articulation or questioning of cultural and political imaginaries, communities, relationships and subjectivities. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Elena Delgado (ldelgado@illinois.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
New Social Movements
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Analyses of recent movements ("yo soy 132," "indignados," etc.) in Latin America, Spain, or the US-Latino context. Round table format; comparative perspectives welcome. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Susan Martin-Márquez (susanmm@rci.rutgers.edu) and Hilda Chacón (hchacon6@naz.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
Alternative Histories
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Theoretically informed proposals for, or analyses of, new ways of conceptualizing cultural, literary, or film history. Should have relevance for the study of 20th-21st century Spain. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jo Labanyi (jo.labanyi@nyu.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
The Brothers Quay and Literature
Special Session
The Brothers Quay and Literature Papers that consider the films of the Brothers Quay and their relationship to literature (Walser, Kafka, Schulz). 500-word abstracts to jplug@uwo.ca. 500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jan Plug (jplug@uwo.ca)
Posted 11 January 2013
The Imagined Text
Division: Seventeenth-Century French Literature
Exploring the boundaries between texts and meta-texts: what is there to learn from edits, rewrites, variantes, hypothetical genetics, possible texts, unwritten pages, and creative criticism. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Hélène Bilis (hbilis@wellesley.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
The Essay in the Age of Its Electronic Reproducibility
Division: Nonfiction Prose Studies, Excluding Biography and Autobiography
The essay and its "digital" production, storage, and distribution; the essay as scholarly writing and communication in networked programmable media. 500-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Brian Lennon (bul5@psu.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Girls and the f-word: twenty-first century representations of women’s lives
Special Session
Papers addressing the pioneering HBO show, attendant discussions and controversies, and/or related media exploring twenty-first century feminisms. 250-word abstract and short bio by 8 March 2013; Tahneer Oksman (toksman@gc.cuny.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Teaching Brecht
Allied Organization: International Brecht Society
Proposals sought with critical reflections and best practices on teaching Bertolt Brecht’s ideas and works (dramas, prose, poetry), including text selection, performing excerpts, and integrating theoretical issues. Abstracts (200 words) by 15 March 2013; Per Urlaub (urlaub@austin.utexas.edu) and Paula Hanssen (hanssen@webster.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Premodern East Asia in/and the World Literature Canon
Special Session
Papers on classical East Asian genres or texts, and their position in, invisibility to, or impact on conceptions of world literature. 1 page abstract by 1 March 2013; Charlotte Eubanks (cde13@psu.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Vulnerable Victorians: Identity and "Deviance"
Special Session
We seek papers that explore boundaries of normative behavior and “moral disability” in 19thc Britain: identity, deviance and vulnerable personhood for women, homosexuals, the disabled. 300w abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Brandy Schillace (bls10@case.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Post-Revolutionary Arab(ic) Literature
Special Session
Panel investigates the emerging “literature of the Revolution” in Arabic, English or French from the Arab world. How have these texts contributed to contemporary literature? abstracts by 10 March 2013; Douja Mamelouk (dmamelou@utk.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Translingual Practice: Cross-Disciplinary Conversations
Special Session
Presentations on translingual practice in literature, linguistics, literacy, and rhetoric in different languages, periods, and genres with the objective of developing an integrated orientation. Abstracts of 400 words by 8 March 2013; Suresh Canagarajah (asc16@psu.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Learning Language History through Literature
Special Session
Seeking papers that explore issues in the history of the vernacular in tandem with national literatures and literary identities. Abstracts (300 words) by 1 March 2013; Ashley Brandenburg (adb52@cornell.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Literature and the English Revolution: 1640-1659
Division: Seventeenth-Century English Literature
We welcome papers on any kind of written material from this period (pamphlets, poems, treatises, etc.). A detailed abstract of at least 500 words. by 15 March 2013; Molly Murray (mpm7@columbia.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Networks of Influence in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry
Division: Seventeenth-Century English Literature
We welcome papers on individual poets, pairs of poets and coteries, cultures, and subcultures of literary transmission. A detailed abstract of at least 500 words. by 15 March 2013; Richard Strier (rastrier@uchicago.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Fragile Theatre
Special Session
Latin American theatre often breaks or blurs boundaries. How can the concept of fragility (of genre, the fourth wall, or tradition) inform our analysis? Please submit abstracts of 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Julie Ward (wardjulie@berkeley.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
The Poetics of Information
Special Session
How are contemporary poets responding to the culture of information? How is information culture coming into relation with literary culture? Abstract and short cv. by 15 March 2013; Scott J. Pound (scott.pound@lakeheadu.ca)
Posted 10 January 2013
Kafka in Search for Alternative Realities
Special Session
Alternative realities (familiar - unfamiliar settings, narrative positions; Kafka's works; comparative - transnational topics) where marginalized people (women, children, animals) speak and act. 500 word abstsacts by 20 March 2013; Marie Luise Caputo-Mayr (mlcaputomayr@hotmail.com) and Dagmar Lorenz (dcglorenz@gmail.com)
Posted 9 January 2013
Eyes and Ears on "Homeland"
Special Session
How have critics and viewers responded to the TV show “Homeland”? How does the show complicate notions of “home,” “heroism,” and “terrorism”? abstracts of 500 words by 15 March 2013; Laura E. Savu (laura_savu@yahoo.com)
Posted 9 January 2013
My Place or Yours: The Geographies of Italian American Literature
Discussion Group: Italian American Literature
Roundtable on Italian American literature as situated in urban, suburban, rural spaces; transatlantic, transnational perspectives; academic, institutional, pedagogical contexts. Abstracts (<300 words) by 18 March 2013; Jim Cocola (jcocola@wpi.edu)
Posted 9 January 2013
A Tribute to Russell Hamilton
Discussion Group: Lusophone Literatures and Cultures outside Portugal and Brazil
Panel discussion of the latest developments in the field. Papers circulated before the convention; presentations limited to ten minutes. 250 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Ana Paula Ferreira (apferrei@umn.edu)
Posted 2 January 2013, last updated 9 January 2013
Hemingway and the Chicago Renaissance
Allied Organization: Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society
We invite papers that explore Hemingway’s relationship with the Chicago Renaissance and the writers and texts prominent within that movement. 250-500 word abstract and a brief CV by 1 March 2013; Sara A. Kosiba (skosiba@troy.edu)
Posted 9 January 2013
Les Caves du Vatican: 100 ans après
Allied Organization: Association des Amis d'André Gide
Approaches to Gide's sotie on the centenary of its first publication. 250-word abstracts, in French or English by 15 March 2013; Alison S. James (asj@uchicago.edu)
Posted 9 January 2013
Radical Ecologies: (Re)Grounding Digital Pedagogy
Special Session
A conversation/workshop exploring the following: Is there a role for ecological thinking in developing humanities curricula? How can ecological concepts (re)shape digitally-inflected pedagogy? 250-400 word abstract by 1 March 2013; Pavel Cenkl (pcenkl@sterlingcollege.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013, last updated 9 January 2013
Translating the Troubadours
Discussion Group: Provençal Language and Literature
From early French ‘adaptations’ to Pound, one of the modes of reception of troubadour poetry has been translation. Proposals on linguistic and/or cultural translation from any period. Abstracts, 250-500w. by 15 March 2013; Eliza Zingesser (ez222@cam.ac.uk)
Posted 9 January 2013
The expulsion of the Moriscos (1609-1614): History and Memory
Special Session
Post-1614 history and memory of the Moriscos: where they went and how they were remembered. Abstract (500 words) and CV. by 1 March 2013; Raul Marrero-Fente (rmarrero@umn.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Mass versus Coterie I: The Audio Book
Division: Prose Fiction
How does the audio book shape the making and consuming of prose fiction? Papers might consider audiences, forms, histories. Abstracts and brief CVs by 1 March 2013; Mark McGurl (mcgurl@stanford.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Old Materials, New Materialisms
Division: Methods of Literary Research
Submissions welcome on all aspects of archival scholarship and new materialisms (including feminism, science studies, object oriented ontology, ecocriticism, animal studies). 250 word abstracts by 14 March 2013; Robert Markley (rmarkley@illinois.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Building a Book History of Theory and Criticism
Special Session
Investigating the book history of theory and criticism, for instance anthologies, journals, book series, etc. 250-500 word abstracts and short bio or cv by 15 March 2013; Jeffrey J. Williams (jwill@andrew.cmu.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
One Thousand and One Nights as World Literature
Special Session
Theoretical, hermeneutic, and historical approaches to translations, rewritings, and adaptations of the Nights from any time period, language, and geography. 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Sevinc Turkkan (sturkkan@brockport.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Speculative Realism and Literary Studies
Special Session
Philosophers on literature (e.g. Meillassoux on Mallarmé, Harmon on Lovecraft); literature attuned to SR (Ligotti, Mieville); the New Weird; new possibilities for literary criticism. 750 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Peter Schwenger (pschweng@uwo.ca)
Posted 8 January 2013
Generations of Contemporary American Fiction
Special Session
Looking for papers that focus on particular generations in contemporary U.S. fiction and think about broader issues such as definition, coherence, relation, and historical context. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Samuel Cohen (cohenss@missouri.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Postcolonial Studies and Human Rights
Special Session
Papers that address contemporary theoretical debates within postcolonial studies in relation to new directions in human rights in literary and cultural studies. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Alexandra Schultheis Moore (tanagerlodge@yahoo.com) and Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg (egoldberg@babson.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Cross-Cultural Dialogues
Division: Comparative Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Seeking papers about literature or film involving cultures or languages of the global south addressing events of transnational affect (e.g. 9/11, “occupy” movement). 250-word abstract and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Olakunle George (Olakunle_George@Brown.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Family Feeling in Early Modern Texts
Special Session
Questions of kinship and emotion in texts published between 1450-1750. Send abstracts and CVs to Megan Allen (meallen@wustl.edu) or Anna Leeper (galeeper@wustl.edu). 400-500- word abstracts by 27 February 2013; G. Anna Leeper (galeeper@wustl.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Teaching Current Events in Target Language Media: Roundtable Discussion
Special Session
Seeking participants to share pedagogical approaches to teaching language and culture through course on current events in target language media. 250-word proposal; CV by 10 March 2013; Heather Hennes (hhennes@sju.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Corpulence, Excess, Obesity: Sizing Up the Body from Shakespeare to The Biggest Loser
Special Session
We seek papers that explore popular and canonical representations of the fetishized, non-normative body. 250 word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Ambereen Dadabhoy (ambereen_dadabhoy@hmc.edu) and Ellen Scheible (escheible@bridgew.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Demons, Goblins, Ghosts and Witches in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literature
Special Session
Papers will focus on demonology, demonolatry, idolatry, witchcraft, bestiality, demoniality, etc. Send an abstract (400-500 words) and a CV. by 15 March 2013; Jorge Abril-Sanchez (jorgeabrilsanchez@hotmail.com)
Posted 6 January 2013
Ethics, Politics and Contemporary Poetry
Special Session
How do contemporary poets and poetries respond to world politics and ethics? How do ethics inflect the political and the poetic? 250-word abstracts and a short CV by 15 March 2013; Andrew R. Mossin (amossin@princeton.edu)
Posted 6 January 2013
Multiethnic Texts in Translation
Discussion Group: Literature of the United States in Languages Other Than English
Theoretical/pedagogical approaches to the role of translation in multiethnic/multilingual studies. Time period and genre open; transnational texts welcome. Brief abstract (500 words max) and brief CV (2pp m by 10 March 2013; Montse Feu (montsefeu@gmail.com)
Posted 4 January 2013
Publishing a Persona
Special Session
Exploring the typification, marketing and consumption of a diasporic author's identity in the publishing process. Kindly sumbit a 250 word abstract and CV for a 15 by 1 March 2013; Melanie Wattenbarger (mrwattenbarger@cohab.mu.ac.in)
Posted 3 January 2013
Women-Authored Novels, Sound Studies, and Music
Special Session
How do women's representations of music evoke listening or artistic expression that transcends, dismantles, or sublimates mourning or trauma? 300-word abstract, short bio by 10 March 2013; Linda Kick (linda.lee.kick@gmail.com)
Posted 30 December 2012
"John Clare: The Voices of Nature."
Allied Organization: John Clare Society of North America
Papers addressing any aspect of Clare's poetry and prose, especially regarding the intersection between nature and language. One page abstract by 15 March 2013; Samantha Celeste Harvey (samanthaharvey@boisestate.edu)
Posted 28 December 2012
Global Art, Western American Context
Allied Organization: Western Literature Association
The influence of reading/seeing art from all times and areas, such as in museums or books, within a personal context of the American West. 300-word abstracts by 6 March 2013; Max Despain (max.despain@gmail.com)
Posted 28 December 2012
Sir Walter Scott and Music
Allied Organization: Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations
Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Waverley, we seek proposals on any of Scott's works and music, including song settings, opera, musical theatre, etc. 250-350 word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jeff Dailey (drjsdailey@aol.com)
Posted 27 December 2012
Literature and Health
Special Session
In what ways might literature, broadly defined, be implicated in health, individual or public, and in health care? Abstract of 400-500 words and 1-page CV by 1 March 2013; Catherine Belling (c-belling@northwestern.edu)
Posted 24 December 2012
Balancing Personal Life and Academia
Special Session
What is “work-life balance”? Does it exist? Bringing personal to work and vice versa, work-life balance for LGBT students (co-sponsored by GLQ Caucus). 300-word abstract, short bio by 22 February 2013; Svetlana Tyutina (svetatyutina@yahoo.com) and Sarah Kremen-Hicks (sarahkh@uw.edu)
Posted 24 December 2012
Literature and Bioethics
Special Session
Proposals invited for short papers examining, perhaps interrogating, "literature" and "bioethics" and the possible relationships between these two variously definable fields. Abstract of 400-500 words, and one-page CV by 1 March 2013; Catherine Belling (c-belling@northwestern.edu)
Posted 24 December 2012
Hawthorne in 1864
Allied Organization: Nathaniel Hawthorne Society
In his last year of life, Hawthorne faced challenges on many fronts. All interpretations of this topic are welcome. 250-500 word abstracts and a short c.v. by 15 March 2013; Ellen Weinauer (ellen.weinauer@usm.edu)
Posted 20 December 2012
Imagery and Influence: Hawthorne and Melville
Allied Organization: Melville Society
This collaborative panel explores how Hawthorne and Melville shared influences, traded influence, and/or incorporated classical images, narratives, and sources into their work. Proposal and Short CV by 15 March 2013; Joseph Fruscione (josephk@email.gwu.edu) and David Greven (dgreven@mailbox.sc.edu)
Posted 18 December 2012
Romantic Adaptation
Allied Organization: Wordsworth-Coleridge Association
Essays should examine the purposes and techniques of textual adaptation in British Romantic literature, including translation, revision, retraction, bricolage, plagiarism, parody, forgery, hoax, lampoon, and caricature. Abstracts (250-300 words) by 15 March 2013; James C. McKusick (james.mckusick@umontana.edu)
Posted 14 December 2012
Independent Thinking: Scotland's Inscription of Separation
Discussion Group: Scottish Literature
Does possible independence inflect—or open a space for—literature? Discussion group welcomes considerations of Scottish and comparative moments of political independence. 200 word proposals (and vitae) by 7 March 2013; Matthew Wickman (Matthew_Wickman@byu.edu)
Posted 11 December 2012
Rethinking the Seminar Paper
MLA Committee: Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession
How can we reconsider the graduate seminar paper’s purpose, potential forms, and usefulness to students and teachers? 300-word abstracts – bio by 11 March 2013; Alexandra Valint (alexandra.valint@usm.edu) and Atia Sattar (azs183@psu.edu)
Posted 10 December 2012
Narrative Empathy for "the Other"
Allied Organization: International Society for the Study of Narrative
How do literary texts depict and/or elicit empathy that transgresses identity categories? What strategies do texts employ to elicit readerly empathy? Abstracts of 500 words or less by 1 March 2013; Patrick Horn (pathorn@unc.edu)
Posted 9 December 2012
Time to Degree
MLA Committee: Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession
Papers theorizing and analyzing how pressure to decrease time to degree (often without reducing requirements) affects Ph.D. students, scholarship, teaching, the future of the profession. 300-word abstracts – bio by 11 March 2013; Heather Steffen (hsteffen@andrew.cmu.edu)
Posted 26 November 2012, last updated 27 November 2012
What Makes a Modernist Plot?
Allied Organization: Modernist Studies Association
Modernism's resistance to plot needs reconsideration, given new modernist corpus and narrative theories. 250-word abstract and bio to richard.walsh@york.ac.uk. 1st March 2013. 250-word abstract and bio by 1 March 2013; Susan Stanford Friedman (ssfriedm@wisc.edu) and Richard Walsh (richard.walsh@york.ac.uk)
Posted 18 November 2012, last updated 21 November 2012
British South Africa, 1795-1919
Special Session
How was British identity constructed in or in relation to southern Africa? Abstract (250-500 words) and CV. by 10 March 2013; Melissa Free (mfree@binghamton.edu)
Posted 17 November 2012
Hoaxing Poe
Allied Organization: Poe Studies Association
Papers that deal with specific Poe hoaxes (e.g., “Hans Pfall,” “The Balloon Hoax,” “Valdemar”) and/or with the hoaxing impulse in other works are welcome. 250-word abstract and resume by 15 February 2013; Paul Lewis (paul.lewis@bc.edu)
Posted 17 November 2012
Chicago's Playwriting Renaissance
Special Session
Since 1950 a renaissance in playwriting has occurred in Chicago. Proposals about playwrights, workshops, ensembles, degree programs should address the subject's social and economic contexts. 300 word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Arvid F. Sponberg (arvid.sponberg@valpo.edu)
Posted 14 November 2012
What Makes a Modernist Plot?
Allied Organization: International Society for the Study of Narrative
Modernism's supposed resistance to plot needs reconsideration, given an enlarged modernist corpus and new cognitive and rhetorical approaches in narrative theory. 250-word abstract and short biographical statement by 1 March 2013; Richard Walsh (richard.walsh@york.ac.uk)
Posted 8 November 2012
Indigeneity and Diaspora: Exploring Intersections Through Canadian Literature
Discussion Group: Canadian Literature in English
How has Canadian literature refracted questions of alliance and difference between Indigenous and diasporic subjects? Proposals of no more than 400 words. by 1 March 2013; Pauline Wakeham (pwakeham@uwo.ca)
Posted 4 November 2012
The Future of Close Reading
Special Session
This panel will examine emergent practices of close reading. We particularly seek papers addressing the ethics of close reading non-canonical texts, including queer/traumatic work. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Meridith Kruse (meridithkruse@gmail.com) and Katherine Wilson (katherinefmw@gmail.com)
Posted 27 October 2012, last updated 29 October 2012
The Project of a General Poetics
Special Session
Including but not limited to the theory of poetry. Broad or specific discussions on where we stand, what needs doing. by 4 March 2013; David J. Gorman (dgorman@niu.edu)
Posted 24 October 2012
20th-Century South Asian Literatures - Without English
Division: Comparative Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Seeking papers on writers of South Asia who publish in indigenous languages of the region. Abstracts of ca. 250 words, plus CV by 17 December 2012; Thomas Oliver Beebee (tob@psu.edu)
Posted 23 October 2012
Native American Memoir in the West: Historical Trauma and Healing
Allied Organization: Western Literature Association
This panel considers how Native authors negotiate healing of their personal histories in the context of historical trauma. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Patrice Hollrah (hollrahp@unlv.nevada.edu)
Posted 22 October 2012
D. H. Lawrence and the Poetry
Allied Organization: D. H. Lawrence Society of North America
On the brink of the Cambridge University Press publication of the Poems, we invite papers on the poems and their contexts. 250-word abstracts or 8-page papers by 4 March 2013; Holly A. Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu)
Posted 15 October 2012
William Morris, Arts and Crafts, and the Midwest
Allied Organization: William Morris Society
Papers are invited on the influence of Morris and his associates on Midwestern culture. 1 page abstracts; please send by e-mail by 15 March 2013; Florence S. Boos (florence-boos@uiowa.edu)
Posted 14 October 2012
¿Terror feminista/femenina?
Allied Organization: Feministas Unidas
We will engage the language of terror(ism) in creative works by Spanish-speaking/U.S. Latina women writers, film makers and visual artists. How is terrorism related to women's experience/creativity/in)visibility? 250 word abstracts by 1 February 2013; Maria DiFrancesco (mdifrancesco@ithaca.edu)
Posted 8 October 2012
Death and Affect in Chaucer
Special Session
How does Chaucer’s literature confirm/counter medieval ‘norms’ of emotions related to death? How do Chaucer’s affects of death work on listeners and readers, medieval to modern? Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Rebecca McNamara (rebecca.mcnamara@sydney.edu.au)
Posted 4 October 2012
Using the Corpus of Historical American English for Literary Study
Special Session
Papers are invited exploring ways to use COHA (http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/) for historical research and/or undergraduate and graduate literature classes. Abstracts (300 words) by 1 March 2013; Peter J. Schmidt (pschmid1@swarthmore.edu)
Posted 1 October 2012
Doris Lessing and D.H. Lawrence
Allied Organization: D. H. Lawrence Society of North America
Lessing's reading of Lady Chatterley's Lover as an anti-war novel suggests important intertextual relations between these authors. 250-word comparative abstracts and bio by 10 March 2013; Holly A. Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu) and Alice Rideout (dorislessingsociety@gmail.com)
Posted 1 October 2012
Doris Lessing and D.H. Lawrence
Allied Organization: Doris Lessing Society
Lessing's reading of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" as an anti-war novel suggests important intertextual relations between these authors. 250-word abstracts and bio by 10 March 2013. by 10 March 2013; Alice Rachel Ridout (dorislessingsociety@gmail.com) and Holly Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu)
Posted 1 October 2012
Transnational Indigeneities against the Law
MLA Committee: Committee on the Literatures of People of Color in the United States and Canada
Position papers on racial profiling, settler colonialism, and indigenous politics in Canadian and US institutions. State regulation and defunding of ethnic studies. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Cheryl Suzack (cheryl.suzack@utoronto.edu)
Posted 24 September 2012
Global Ed?
MLA Committee: Committee on the Literatures of People of Color in the United States and Canada
Position papers on impact of global education. Considerations may include relations among historically underrepresented ethnic groups, the local and the global, and ethnic studies in the face of austerity. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Sue Kim (sue_kim@uml.edu) and Sharon Holland (Sharon.Holland@duke.edu)
Posted 24 September 2012
Write on Your Own Time: Scholarship and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty
MLA Committee: Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession
Managing expectations for scholarly and professional activity by non-tenure-track faculty members. Papers highlighting tensions for faculty members and departments. 300-word abstracts. by 22 February 2013; Karen Madison (kmadison@uark.edu)
Posted 21 September 2012
Off the Tenure Track, On Our Radar
MLA Committee: Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession
Practices to improve the professional lives and working conditions of non-tenure-track faculty members. Reports invited from chairs, tenure-track and non-tenure-track colleagues. 300-word abstracts by 22 February 2013; Karen Madison (kmadison@uark.edu)
Posted 21 September 2012
Spectatorship and Reception in Early Drama
Allied Organization: Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society
Roundtable session on the audience's role in early drama, with attention to theories of spectatorship applied to medieval performance. Brief abstracts to initiate a conversation amongst by 1 January 2013; Carolyn E. Coulson-Grigsby (ccoulson2@su.edu)
Posted 9 September 2012
Native Voices in Genre Fiction
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
Session seeks papers analyzing American Indian voices in genre fiction; will explore the possibilities these texts create within and beyond genre boundaries. Abstracts or full papers and c.v. by 8 March 2013; Ryan Winn (rwinn@menominee.edu )
Posted 4 September 2012
Native American Memoir in the West: Historical Trauma and Healing
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
This panel considers how Native authors negotiate healing of their personal histories in the context of historical trauma. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Patrice Hollrah (hollrahp@unlv.nevada.edu)
Posted 3 September 2012
American Indian Gothic
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
Panel seeks to investigate the recent prevalence of this genre within contemporary Indigenous literature and to describe its uniqueness within the Gothic. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Amy Gore (agore@eastern.edu)
Posted 3 September 2012
Deliver Us To Normal: Children’s Literature and the Midwest
Allied Organization: Children's Literature Association
This panel considers how children’s literature and the American Midwest mutually construct one another through geographic and discursive exchanges. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kate Slater (kslater@ucsd.edu)
Posted 14 August 2012, last updated 28 August 2012
Epistolary Children’s & Young Adult Literature
Allied Organization: Children's Literature Association
Analyses of epistolary Children’s and Young Adult literature even as these epistolary modalities become obsolete. 2-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Robyn Schiffman (rls@fdu.edu)
Posted 14 August 2012
Pre-Raphaelites and Children's Literature
Allied Organization: Children's Literature Association
On any aspect of text, illustration, or design of Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic, or Fin de Siecle children's books. Co-sponsored with the William Morris Society. 1-2 page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Florence Boos (florence-boos@uiowa.edu)
Posted 14 August 2012
Discussion Group: Romanian Studies
We invite comparative presentation proposals exploring interconnections between literature, language, music, painting, photography and the other arts in Romanian, Hungarian, and World Literature. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 31 March 2013
The Sentimental Worlds of Ray Bradbury
Special Session
Topics include folktale, fairy tale, science fiction, children, and domesticity in the work of Ray Bradbury. . 300-word abstracts by 23 March 2013; Adam Lawrence (BradburyMLA@gmail.com) and Andrea Krafft (BradburyMLA@gmail.com)
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 18 March 2013
Tenure Denied: What Happens Next (A Roundtable Discussion)
Special Session
What happens to people after tenure denial? How do they reinvent, reorient themselves. Let's share stories. 250-word abstract and short bio by 21 March 2013; Annette Van (avan@centralmethodist.edu)
Posted 4 January 2013, last updated 14 March 2013
Literary Social Media, Past and Present
Discussion Group: Media and Literature
Relationships between social media (broadly conceived) and literary history, including networks of production / dissemination as mediated in any genre / period. 300 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Jeremy Douglass (jeremydouglass@english.ucsb.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 12 March 2013
Mincing Their Words: Spanish Women in the Kitchen
Special Session
How did nineteenth through twentyfirst-century authors present food and food preparation? What does this reveal about them and their readers? Abstract (300 words), CV by 18 March 2013; Michelle Sharp (michelle.m.sharp@gmail.com)
Posted 11 January 2013, last updated 11 March 2013
Nation, Authorship, and Visual Culture: Revisiting 19-Century Latin America
Special Session
Reshape recent readings of this period in relation to nation, authorship, and visual culture. A 7 pages paper in Spanish. by 17 March 2013; Alicia B. Rios (abrios@syr.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 9 March 2013
Mass versus Coterie II: The Rare Book
Division: Prose Fiction
How does the limited edition shape the making and consuming of prose fiction? Papers might consider audiences, forms, histories. Abstracts and brief CVs by 15 March 2013; Hester Blum (hester.blum@psu.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Merely Mnemonic? Reconsidering Middle English Medical Verse
Special Session
We invite papers on all aspects of Middle English medical verse, including poetics, sources, manuscript contexts, reading communities, and contemporary use. 250-word abstract and CV by 14 March 2013; Jake Walsh Morrissey (jake.walshmorrissey@mail.mcgill.ca)
Posted 8 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Candor, Deception, and Dissimulation
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
The contexts, uses, and reception of candor, its appearance, and/or its manipulation in Italian literary and theatrical works of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Title, 300-word abstract by 18 March 2013; Linda L. Carroll (lincar@tulane.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Drama Divisions Today
Division: Drama
What’s right or wrong about the present configurations of theater and performance studies, in the MLA and beyond? Critiques, cartographies, elegies welcome. 350 word Abstract by 15 March 2013; Tavia Nyong'o (tavia.nyongo@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
New Approaches to Vivifying Literature
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Roundtable examination of how today's scholars bring Medieval and Renaissance literature to modern students: technology, interdisciplinarity, works in translation and other strategies. Title, 300-word abstract by 18 March 2013; Linda L. Carroll (lincar@tulane.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Pilgrims and Pilgrimages
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Odeporic Middle Ages: Portraying Real and Quack Pilgrims, Adventurers, Merchants and Various Humanity on the Road. Santiago, Rome, Jerusalem, and Babylon as symbolic topoi. Title, 300-word abstract by 18 March 2013; Linda L. Carroll (lincar@tulane.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 March 2013
Costumbrismo en producción visual y escrita del siglo XIX latinoamericano
Special Session
Propuestas que aborden el costumbrismo como problema estético e ideológico en textos visuales y escritos posteriores a la independencia. Abstract 250 words by 22 March 2013; Felipe Martinez-Pinzon (felipemartinezpinzon@csi.cuny.edu) and Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik (Kari.Salkjelsvik@if.uib.no)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Conservadurismo y literatura en el siglo XIX hispanoamericano
Special Session
Exploraciones sobre las diferentes formas de articulación del pensamiento conservador en la literatura hispanoamericana decimonónica. Propuestas de 250 palabras (español o inglés) by 22 March 2013; Kari Soriano Salkjelsvik (kari.salkjelsvik@if.uib.no) and Felipe Martínez Pinzón (felipemartinezpinzon@csi.cuny.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Autobiographies of Applied Linguists
Division: Applied Linguistics
Emerging fields inevitably struggle with identity; with questions of membership; and with defining the parameters of research/theory. Session investigates the question “Who is an applied linguist?”. 150-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Sébastien Dubreil (sdubreil@utk.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Sign language use and development around the globe
Division: Applied Linguistics
Papers that analyze or problematize the use and/or development of signed languages. Abstract: 150 words by 11 March 2013; Sébastien Dubreil (sdubreil@utk.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Social pedagogies and second language development
Division: Applied Linguistics
Theoretical/empirical papers that examine the feasibility and effectiveness of pedagogical practices that bridge classroom-based language instruction and learning experiences rooted in students’ lives. 150-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Sébastien Dubreil (sdubreil@utk.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013, last updated 4 March 2013
Travel and Seeing the Real Place
Special Session
How do authors represent the quest to experience the "authentic" in their journey? What threatens and complicates that experience? Abstracts of 250-500 words and C.V. by 15 March 2013; Alexandra Lauren Milsom (alexandramilsom@ucla.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 1 March 2013
Shifting Vulnerabilities: Writing after the Truth Commissions
Special Session
Papers examining the roles of Latin American cultural production (literature, film, journalism, etc) in processes of truth and reconciliation. Abstracts (around 300 words) by 10 March 2013; Michelle Hulme-Lippert (mhulmel@emory.edu) and Stephanie Pridgeon (spridge@emory.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 1 March 2013
Germanic Linguistics and Philology
Discussion Group: Germanic Philology
Papers addressing any aspect of Germanic Linguistics and Philology. All presenters must be registered MLA members by the time of the convention. 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Stephen Mark Carey (smcarey@morris.umn.edu)
Posted , last updated 27 February 2013
Making Sense of Big Data
Division: Comparative Studies in Eighteenth-Century Literature
Papers would address issues in creating comparative literature data sets and/or methodologies for exploring them. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Laura C. Mandell (mandell@tamu.edu)
Posted 26 February 2013
Abject Comedy
Division: Film
Exploring abjection in screen comedy. Are comedies of embarrassment, excess, or awkwardness a new development toward the abject, or a continuation of comedy's traditional relationship to the body? 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Nicholas Sammond (nic.sammond@utoronto.ca) and Paul Young (paul.d.young@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted , last updated 25 February 2013
Integrating Ecocriticism in New and Established Curricula
Special Session
We invite papers on theory and best practices of introducing ecological themes and/or ecocritical discourse into literature and content-based language curricula. 200-300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Alexander E. Pichugin (pichugin@sas.upenn.edu)
Posted 25 February 2013
The Philosophical (Re)Turn?
Division: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century American Literature
After the cultural turn, the philosophical return? Assessments of (or perspectives from) the recent philosophical turn in literary studies: object-based ontology, animal studies, aesthetics, Peirce, Dewey, James. 200-word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Brad Evans (bevans@rci.rutgers.edu)
Posted 25 February 2013
Gender in Hebrew Literature and Culture
Discussion Group: Hebrew Literature
This panel invites papers on Israeli texts in order to understand gender politics, including queer and feminist readings, in Hebrew letters. Please submit 250 word abstract. by 17 March 2013; Rachel S. Harris (rsharris@illinois.edu)
Posted 25 February 2013
Italian Maladies
Division: Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
Narrative medicine, illness, vulnerability, biopolitics, disease, trauma, disability and representations of post-unification Italy. Multidisciplinary papers welcome. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Dana E. Renga ( renga.1@osu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 25 February 2013
Sports in French and Francophone Literature and Film
Special Session
How are athletic activities (traditional games, modern sports) portrayed in literature and film from the French-speaking world? 300-word abstract, 50-word biography by 15 March 2013; Roxanna Curto (roxanna-curto@uiowa.edu) and Rebecca Wines (RWines@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Chidren's Literature and The Common Core
Division: Children's Literature
Roundtable discussion of the consequences of common core standards to teaching children's literature at the university level. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jan Susina (jcsusina@ilstu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Psychoanalysis and Its Legacies
Allied Organization: Modern Austrian Literature and Culture Association
Reflections on the impact of this Viennese methodology on culture, on the limitations of Freud's influence, or on the originary texts of psychoanalysis are welcome. Abstracts, short bio by 15 March 2013; Heidi Schlipphacke (hschlipp@odu.edu) and Imke Meyer (ixmeyer@brynmawr.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Linguistics Applied to Teach and Learn Middle-Eastern or Eastern Mediterranean Languages
Discussion Group: General Linguistics
Paper proposals sought showing linguistics applied for teaching and learning a Middle-Eastern or Eastern Mediterranean language in North America. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Terrence Potter (tmp28@georgetown.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Life Drives
Division: Comparative Studies in Romanticism and the Nineteenth Century
Papers on human and non-human forms of life in literary and scientific discourse, competing notions of wills to power and life, psychoanalysis and biopolitics. One page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michal Peled Ginsburg (m-ginsburg@northwestern.edu) and Barbara Spackman (spackman@berkeley.edu. )
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
When Chicago Was In Vogue: A "Second Awakening" in African American Art and Culture
Division: Black American Literature and Culture
New perspectives on the Chicago’s South Side as a milestone site for creative ferment among black artists. Abstract. by 15 March 2013; Sherita L. Johnson (sherita.johnson@usm.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Literary Study in the twenty-first century
Special Session
Vision for a new agenda related to new series, Oxford University Press from 2013. The Literary Agenda: individual voices in defence by 15 March 2013; Philip Davis (p.m.davis@liv.ac.uk)
Posted 22 February 2013
Queering "China": Transnational and Sinophone Perspectives
Special Session
Theorizing Chinese and/or Sinophone cultures through queer theory; queer Asia as methodology; Sinophone as queering Chineseness; critique of queer Eurocentrism. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Alvin Ka Hin Wong (alvinwong@humnet.ucla.edu) and Howard Chiang (H.H.Chiang@warwick.ac.uk)
Posted 21 February 2013, last updated 22 February 2013
Reception Study
Allied Organization: Reception Study Society
We invite papers/panels on any topic related to literary/film reception or book history. Join the Reception Study Society group on MLACommons, contribute to the conversation or email proposal. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Ildiko Olasz (olasz@nwmissouri.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Native Literary Chicago
Division: American Indian Literatures
This panel seeks papers on Chicago as an Indigenous space in Native literature, from early trade center to World’s Fair, relocation, and/or the present. Please send 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Channette Romero (cromero@uga.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Critical Indigenous Studies
Division: American Indian Literatures
This panel seeks papers that take a critical indigenous studies approach to the alliances and tensions between Chicana/os and American Indians as represented in both literary traditions. by 15 March 2013; Jim Cox (jhcox@austin.utexas.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Globalización 2.0 en la ciencia ficción latinoamericana
Special Session
Es posible pensar en una postglobalización? Cómo diferentes manifestaciones de lo posthumano y la cibercultura ofrecen otra visión de la globalización. Abstract de 300 palabras by 15 March 2013; Hernán Manuel García (hgarcia@wayne.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
17th and 18th century French Fairy Tales: novelties
Special Session
Representation and exploration of avant-garde elements such as technical, scientific or medical discourses, fashion innovations, food novelties, etc. In French or English, 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Berenice Le Marchand (blemarch@sfsu.edu)
Posted 22 February 2013
Law, Literature, and the Possibility of Justice
Special Session
Papers on the relationship between literature and law/justice in American/global contexts, including responses to critics of the law and literature movement. Abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Eric Ashley Hairston (ahairston@elon.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Teaching narrative theory in undergraduate foreign literature courses
Special Session
Inviting researchers to present approaches of teaching and applying narratology in undergraduate foreign literature courses. 300-word abstract, brief bio. by 20 March 2013; Ute Inselmann (uki@buffalo.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Country Music and Resistance
Special Session
How does country music (and country-influenced literature and film) construct narratives and subjectivities of resistance to mainstream, elite, and normative ideologies? 250-word abstract and vita or bio by 16 March 2013; Nicholas Gorrell (ngorrell@olemiss.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Muslim Utopia
Special Session
Seeking abstracts that explore Muslim fiction writers’ overt as well as covert engagement with the notion of ‘utopia’, both theological and material. 300-word abstract with brief bio by 15 March 2013; Mosarrap Khan (mhkhan@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Reading Between Musical Lines
Special Session
Exploring perspectives on how the presence of music intensifies the meaning and/or the form of narrative discourses reconfiguring the way we read. 250-300-word abstract, short bio by 22 March 2013; Andrea Perez Mukdsi (perezmukdsi@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Death of God in Nineteenth-Century America
Special Session
This session explores how American authors grapple with the time's spiritual crises by providing readers with post-secular possibilities. 300 word abstracts and one page CV by 15 March 2013; Daniel Boscaljon (daniel-boscaljon@uiowa.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Piracy and Illicit Knowledge
Special Session
Seeking short papers on book piracy, underground libraries, illicit knowledge. Digital humanities, computational, and sociological approaches welcome. 250-word abstracts due on March 18th. by 18 March 2013; Dennis Tenen (dt2406@columbia.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Subjects
Special Session
Papers exploring cultural and political effects of constructions of vulnerability/agency in literature, film, human rights, particularly in relation to child, family, place and populations. 250 word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Rosanne M. Kennedy (rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
Humanities in an Anthropocene Era
Special Session
This roundtable will consider the concept of the anthropocene. What challenges /opportunities does it pose for humanities scholarship? Interdisciplinary approaches welcome. 250 word abstract and short CV. by 12 March 2013; Rosanne M. Kennedy (rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
Addressing re-generation (1914-2014)
Special Session
Theoretical issues about the cultural uses of the concept generation; focusing on the construction of intellectual generations at the beginning of the twentieth-century in Iberia. 250-word abstract, brief bio by 15 March 2013; Aurelie Vialette (vialette.1@osu.edu) and Anna Hiller (hillanna@isu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
1930s Activist Literature
Special Session
Depression-era writers responded to vulnerabilities exposed by economic and environmental crisis with artistry intended to bring about change. Papers must address marginalized writers or forgotten works. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Marnie Sullivan (msullivan@mercyhurst.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Postnational Identities in Hispanic Literature
Special Session
As globalization is problematizing the question of identity, how do processes of hybridization/the emergence of postnational affiliations impact the works of Hispanic writers? 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Heike Scharm (heikescharm@usf.edu) and Natalia Matta Jara (natalia.matta@ttu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
In the Eye of the Press: Journalism and Tabloidism in Fiction (1830-1930s)
Special Session
Papers examining the roles and representations of journalism and tabloidism in fiction welcomed. Invite you to send abstracts (300-500 words). by 15 March 2013; Denise Mok (denise.mok@ubc.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Representations of Lawyers and the Legal Profession in Fiction (1880-1930)
Special Session
This session will offer engaging perspectives on the roles and representations of lawyers in fiction (1880-1930). Please send abstracts (300-500 words). by 15 March 2013; Denise Mok (denise.mok@ubc.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Thing Theory and Object-Oriented Studies in Medieval Contexts
Special Session
Seeking papers on any aspect of medieval things and objects, simulacra, automata, or mirabilia, whether textual or material. 300-word Abstract by 15 March 2013; Anthony Adams (ajadams@colby.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Lives/Vulnerable Lands
Special Session
Analyses of literature/film/lifewriting that considers vulnerability of particular lives and populations in relation to climate change/scarcity. Interdisciplinary approaches (anthropology, ecology, animalstudies, geography) welcome. 250 word abstract and short CV by 12 March 2013; Rosanne M. Kennedy (rosanne.kennedy@anu.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Generation of 1914 – The (Re)Evaluation of an Aesthetic (1914-2014)
Special Session
This panel reevaluates the aesthetics of the Generation of ’14, and its contribution to Spanish literature. 250-word abstract, plus brief bio-sketch by 15 March 2013; Anna Eva Hiller (hillanna@isu.edu) and Aurelie Vialette (vialette.1@osu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Conceptual Writing After Literature
Special Session
What is the status of conceptual writing after the "death of poetry" (Place) or the "event of literature" (Eagleton): that is, viewed in a critical-historical framework? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Jamie Hilder (jamiehilder@gmail.com) and Clint Burnham (clint_burnham@sfu.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Romanticism After the Critique of Lyric
Special Session
Is the "critique of lyric" a critique of the Romantic lyric? What can the study of Romantic poetry add to debates on the "lyric"? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Daniel Stout (dstout@olemiss.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
On the Road; the American Auto-Mobility Story
Special Session
The automobile in American literature. Cars liberate drivers; what's generated by the freedom to drive? 300 word abstracts, 3/15. Christina Mesa (xcamesa@stanford.edu). 300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Christina Mesa (xcamesa@stanford.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
At Peril: Lives on the Verge of Extinction
Special Session
Papers analysing and theorizing German 20th-century art, films and texts on human and animal precarious existences are welcome. Please submit 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Cecilia Novero (cecilia.novero@otago.ac.nz)
Posted 21 February 2013
Salman Rushdie in the 21st Century
Special Session
How do we reassess Rushdie's 21st century fiction (and nonfiction) while grappling with his previous output and changing political beliefs? 1-2 page abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Dr. Charlie Wesley (cwesley@daemen.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Anticolonialism Since the 18th Century
Special Session
Papers invited on: anticolonial & antislavery thought in Europe/Americas/(post)colonial spaces; emancipatory aims of Enlightenment thought and creative misreadings. Send 500-word abstracts to Sunil Agnani (sagnani1@uic.edu). 500-word abstract by 17 March 2013; Sunil Agnani (sagnani1@uic.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Special Session
Papers on life or works of Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who suffered multiple vulnerabilities as alcoholic, homosexual, depressive, scientist struggling to be a poet, and, ultimately, marginalized author. 400-500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Shelley Rees (srees@usao.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Lab Lit
Special Session
Panel welcomes explorations of the genre of lab lit, especially with emphasis on contemporary vulnerabilities of science and scientists. Please submit abstracts of 200-250 words by 15 March 2013; Deborah Bailin (dbailin@ucsusa.org)
Posted 21 February 2013
Forms of Devotion in Early Modern Poetry
Special Session
Panel exploring “forms”—aesthetic, doctrinal, physical, material—in 16th and 17th century devotional poetry. Abstracts of 250-300 words by 12 March 2013; Jessica Beckman (beckman1@stanford.edu) and Luke Barnhart (labarn@stanford.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
No U-Turn: Chinese Literature, Film and Arts in the 1980s and the 1990s
Special Session
We would like to revisit the last two decades in mainland China through literature, film and arts. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Hongjian Wang (hw001@uark.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Marx and Poetry
Division: Literary Criticism
How might reading poetry with and through Marx shape poetry criticism and Marxism? 500-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Kristin Ross (kr1@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literature and Liturgy
Special Session
Interpenetrations of ritual, liturgy, and literature in English: language, form, text, theology, power, allusion, community, identity, performance, reading, history, theory, order, agency, representation, allegory, aesthetics. 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Timothy Rosendale (trosenda@smu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literatures and Cultures of the Mediterranean: Approaches and Case Studies
Special Session
Exploring interdisciplinary theoretical/methodological approaches to conceptualizing Mediterranean literatures/cultures. Exploiting intellectually productive transhistorical/transdisciplinary fault-lines that constitute Mediterranean basin cross-cultural experience. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Yasser Elhariry (yasser.elhariry@dartmouth.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Manifesto Revisited
Division: Nonfiction Prose Studies, Excluding Biography and Autobiography
The manifesto as a unique nonfiction genre and vehicle for aesthetic and political intervention. Papers welcomed on all historical periods, national contexts and artistic movements. 500 Word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Amardeep Singh (amsp@lehigh.edu) and Roderick Cooke (rcooke@haverford.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Popular Narrative during the American Depression
Special Session
How do popular narratives respond to vulnerable times? Transnational, eco-critical, feminist, and other approaches to popular literature, serial fiction, film, comics, radio drama, etc. One-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michael Tavel Clarke (michael.t.clarke@ucalgary.ca) and Martha Patterson (mhpatterson@mckendree.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Interpretation in Law and the Humanities
Special Session
Can the cultural study of law shape practical jurisprudence? The interpretive traffic among legal, literary and cultural hermeneutics. 300-word abstracts and brief CV by March 15. by 15 March 2013; Matthew Titolo (matthew.titolo@mail.wvu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
James and Conrad: Art, Criticism, History
Allied Organization: Henry James Society
Topics might address these issues in fiction, non-fiction, or through historical interaction. Papers comparing critically neglected texts will be given priority. 300-500 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Kenneth W. Warren (kwarren@uchicago.edu) and Christopher GoGwilt ( gogwilt@fordham.edu.)
Posted 21 February 2013
African Literature and Modernism
Special Session
This panel considers colonial and postcolonial African literature in relation to transnational modernism, and the possible problems with a "modernist studies" approach to African texts. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Mark DiGiacomo (mjdigiacomo@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Shakespeare, Feminism, Psychoanalysis
Special Session
Feminism and feminist reactions to psychoanalysis informed much of the best Shakespeare criticism of the late 20th century. Can these critical modes be revived? 350 word abstract and CV by 18 March 2013; James Stone (jameswstone@aol.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Oulipo : Avant-garde Language
Division: Linguistic Approaches to Literature
Session fits theme “Vulnerable Worlds." Oulipo, the last international avant-garde (1961), manipulates language ("constraints," "combinatorics") to produce literature. Title/brief abstract. by 22 March 2013; Claudia Becker (cbecker@nccu.edu) and Jean-Jacques Thomas (jt96@buffalo.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
History of Style: Language’s Impact on Literature
Division: Linguistic Approaches to Literature
Session fits topic of “Vulnerable Discourses: Linguistic Manipulation of Literature,” specifically style’s influence on literature. Title/brief abstract. by 22 March 2013; Donald E. Hardy (donhardy@unr.edu) and Claudia Becker (cbecker@NCCU.EDU)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Law and Literature in the Postcolony
Special Session
This panel explores how literary works articulate and think through problems of law and legality unique to postcolonial states. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; David Babcock (babcock@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Electronic Literature after Flash
Special Session
Lightning talks on the death of Flash e-lit, the study and preservation of Flash works, and the rise in electronic literature of HTML5, Javascript, and apps. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Mark Sample (msample1@gmu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Jürgen Habermas’s Communicative Action & Writing
Special Session
This proposal seeks creative writers/scholars to reassess the literary, cultural, and sociopolitical import of Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action. 250-words abstracts by 4 March 2013. by 4 March 2013; Ruben Quesada (rmquesada@eiu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Bookshops: History of the Vanishing Present
Allied Organization: Reception Study Society
Literary, archival, ethnographic, and economic approaches to the question: What does it mean to read in a world with fewer bookshops? 250- to 500-word abstracts by 13 March 2013; Kinohi Nishikawa (kinohi.nishikawa.3@nd.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Texts Divided: Textual Scholarship and the American Civil War
Allied Organization: Society for Textual Scholarship
Papers on Civil War textuality—broadly considered--for Society for Textual Scholarship panel. Proposals welcome on texts produced during/well after the war. 300-word abstracts, CVs by 15 March 2013; Coleman Hutchison (coleman.hutchison@utexas.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vital Matters III: Things, Animals, Humans
Division: Philosophical Approaches to Literature
We welcome papers on writing livingness, with emphasis on biopolitics, animal studies, posthumanisms, or thing theory. 250-word abstract; cv. by 15 March 2013; Suzanne Guerlac (guerlacsuzanne@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Digital Queers or Queering the Digital
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Queering online presences; queer digital performances and objects; queering the codes; digitizing race and sexuality; queer contacts; queer approaches to new media. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Martha Nell Smith (mnsmith@umd.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vital Matters II: Lively Materialisms
Division: Philosophical Approaches to Literature
The animation of materialism, literary or nonliterary, including questions of vitality and vitalism, animate being, lively materialisms modern and ancient (Stoicism, Epicureanism, atomisms). Abstract, c.v. by 15 March 2013; Natania Meeker (nmeeker@usc.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literature of Innocence and Escape Between the World Wars
Special Session
Explorations of how the World Wars influenced writers who served and then went on to write children's stories or fantasy. 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Daniel Payne (Daniel.Payne@oneonta.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Digital Poetics
Special Session
Not digital humanities but digital poetics. What does digital literature and the emergent critical reading practices for approaching it illuminate about our vulnerable times? 500-word abstract and short vita by 15 March 2013; Jessica Pressman (jessicapressman0@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Alt-Academic Feminism II: "Theorizing Collaborative Action Beyond Classrooms"
Allied Organization: Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages
Community-based, integrative, and service-learning as recognized high-impact practices but also vulnerable programs; what are models/risks of framing activist work as teaching/research/service responsibilities? 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Jessica Ketcham Weber (jweber@cascadia.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Sephardic Memoir
Discussion Group: Sephardic Studies
How have Sephardic authors used the memoir to interpret their lives and the world around them? How have they varied over time? Send a 300 word abstract to bonwass@yahoo.com by 17 March 2013; Bonnie S. Wasserman (bonwass@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Future Directions in Byron Studies
Allied Organization: Byron Society of America
New research and methodologies applied to Byron's life/works, including: material culture studies, cosmopolitanism, empire, "spatial turn," digital humanities, and/or book history. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 22 March 2013; Halina Adams (halinaad@udel.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Innovative Session on Teaching Complex Prose
Special Session
How do you lead students to navigate syntactically-difficult narrative (Conrad, Faulkner, Woolf...)? Send your six-minute story about teaching one short but difficult textual passage. 950-word paper by 15 March 2013; Debra Romanick Baldwin (dbaldwin@udallas.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
The Half-life of the Cold War
Special Session
This panel explores representations of the Cold War in recent literature, film, television, and art. How does the Cold War haunt contemporary cultural production? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Theo Finigan (tfinigan@ualberta.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Human Rights Modes: Protest
Special Session
Public shame and literary form in works in any genre, period, or nationality that protest a state's ongoing violations of human rights, dignity, and/or freedoms. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michael S. Galchinsky (mgalchinsky@gsu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Theatre and Performance in the Age of Dryden
MLA Committee: Publications Committee
Current scholarship on any aspect of this topic will be considered. Abstracts of 250 words. by 4 March 2013; Deborah H. Holdstein (dholdstein@colum.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Alt-Academic Feminism III: Feminist Vulnerability on Post-Feminist Campuses
Allied Organization: Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages
Success, support, problems, or backlash in developing programs/curriculum, equity in policy (e.g., FMLA), personnel (e.g., representation/workload), and hiring (e.g., contingent labor). 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Michelle A. Massé (mmasse@lsu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Being Vulnerable, Negotiating Life and Hope
Special Session
Desperate times, desperate measures? Vulnerability/empowerment, market successes/failures for those hiring and (not)hired:two-body "problem," declining offers, A.B.D., race and class...Roundtable:8 minute testimonial presentations. abstract (100 words), mini-bio by 11 March 2013; Sarah Ohmer (ohmers@uindy.edu) and Luziris Piñeda (lpturi@rice.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Times in Academic Life
Discussion Group: Age Studies
Senior faculty are viewed as invulnerable, deadwood, on twilight cruises, or sage scholars/mentors. What does--and should--"senior" mean in academia? Can senior status increase workplace vulnerability? 250-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Michelle A. Massé (mmasse@lsu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Sex-Radical Feminist Revolution in Early-Modern Poetry Studies
Special Session
The politics of women's desire: queer theory, new historicism, and pro-sex feminism as renovating studies of Herrick, Donne, and Lanyer. 250 word abstracts 15 March by 15 March 2013; Harold Aram Veeser (veeserh@aol.com)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Deviant Chicago
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Sexual communities and practices in Chicago: migration, settlement, same-sex relations, interracial sociability, commercial sex; nightlife, music, subculture; labor, print culture, activism; progressivism, reform literature, urban ethnography. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Heather K. Love (loveh@english.upenn.edu) and Ellen McCracken (emccr@spanport.ucsb.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
How to Do Things with New Media in Medieval Studies
Special Session
A hybrid-roundtable-session on intersections of theory and praxis in our forays into the digital reconstruction of the pre-modern world. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Heather Blatt (mdvlmedia@gmail.com) and Mary Kate Hurley (mdvlmedia@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Fiction in the Digital Age
Special Session
Exploring ways in which contemporary works of fiction are influenced by new media and digital technology. Vulnerability, resilience and ingenuity of writers. 300-word abstracts and CV by 15 March 2013; Lara Vapnyar (lv25@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Deviant Chicago
Division: Popular Culture
Sexual communities and practices in Chicago: migration, settlement, same-sex relations, interracial sociability, commercial sex; nightlife, music, subculture; labor, print culture, activism; progressivism, reform literature, urban ethnography. 250-word abstracts; brief CV by 15 March 2013; Ellen McCracken (emccr@spanport.ucsb.edu) and Heather K. Love (loveh@english.upenn.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Ethics of Vulnerability
Special Session
Vulnerability (hospitality, weakness, kenosis) has risen to prominence in interdisciplinary ethics. What are the benefits and risks of such an ethics in literature and theory? 200-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Cynthia Wallace (cwallace@stmcollege.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Radical Curators, Vulnerable Genres: Lost Histories of Collecting, Editing, Bibliography
Special Session
Engaging institutional genres and textual practices as intellectual history of gender, race and archives. CV and 250-word abstracts by March 15. by 15 March 2013; Jane Carr (jgc219@nyu.edu) and Laura Helton (laura.helton@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Pacifism and the Avant-Garde 1900-1950
Special Session
This panel explores Modernism's engagement with pacifist movements, philosophies, and thinkers. 250-word abstracts and CV by 15 March 2013; J. Ashley Foster (jashfoster@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Cultures of the Global South
Division: Postcolonial Studies in Literature and Culture
Collaboration with Sociological Approaches to Literature; papers foregrounding lifeworlds in the historically disadvantaged "industrializing" global South, and cultural engagements with precarity,loss, resilience, survival. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Bishnupriya Ghosh (bghosh@english.ucsb.edu) and Gina Dent (ginadent@ucsc.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Evaluating the Course Evaluation Process
Special Session
This session examines the course evaluation process, particularly its relationship to pedagogy: alternate means of evaluation, effects on instruction, perceptions of students and instructors, etc. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Joseph Price (joe.price@ttu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Embodied Mind
Division: Eighteenth-Century French Literature
How was the relationship between mind and body understood in the eighteenth century? In what literary forms were the mind and its processes embodied? One-page abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Joanna Stalnaker (jrs2052@columbia.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Testimonial Literature: The Role of Narrative in National Truth Commissions
Special Session
Panel explores the role of testimony in restorative justice processes in relation to truth, justice, recognition, individual and national healing. 1-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Terri Gordon (gordont@newschool.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Sublime Emotion and Cognitive Neuroscience
Special Session
Papers exploring the sublime emotion and question of disinterestedness in context of cognitive neuroscience and affect theory. Abstracts of 500 words and 2 page curriculum vitae by 17 March 2013; Jana Maria Giles (giles@ulm.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Precarity and Poetry in the 21st Century
Special Session
Papers on poetry in relation to the casualization of labor, burden of debt, and felt sense of vulnerability in our precarious times. 500-word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Charles Legere (cdlegere@pitt.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Postcolonial Trauma
Special Session
This panel explores how postcolonial contexts challenge the current rubric of trauma in fostering transcultural connections, and how they inaugurate new theoretical perspectives on trauma. 300 word abstract with CV by 15 March 2013; Jennifer Yusin (jyusin@drexel.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Posthumanism and the Premodern
Special Session
Papers addressing the animal or bestial, the in- or non-human, the machine, the cyborg; in relation to embodiment, cognition, perception, affect, ecology, and technology. abstracts of 250 words by 15 March 2013; Jennie Votava (jmv289@nyu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
New Perspectives on Sentimental Fiction
Special Session
Innovative readings of sentimental fiction - historical, intertextual, theoretical; including challenges to the genre definition. Abstract (150 words), CV by 15 March 2013; Sanda Munjic (sanda.munjic@utoronto.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Transnational Comics
Division: Literature and Other Arts
Comics and graphic narratives present visual and textual testaments to global interaction. This panel invites papers exploring their cultural exchange. 250 word abstracts and short bios by 15 March 2013; Anke K. Finger (anke.finger@uconn.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Literary Crossroads: African-American Literature and Christianity
Allied Organization: Conference on Christianity and Literature
Papers exploring the complex intersection between African-American literature and Christianity, ranging from discussions of slavery and Christianity/Bible to current engagements about race, religion, politics. 300-word abstracts. by 4 March 2013; Katherine Bassard (kcbassar@vcu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Rape of the Lock at 300
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
(Why) do we still read and teach Rape of the Lock? How can innovative theoretical approaches reframe/revise/resituate the text? Reconsiderations, critical interventions, media presentations. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Catherine Elizabeth Ingrassia (cingrass@vcu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Literature and Architecture
Division: Literature and Other Arts
This panel explores literature and architecture in view of recent spatial, pictorial, affective, sensorial, and phenomenological turns in aesthetics and cultural studies. Abstracts (250 w) and short bios by 15 March 2013; Anke K. Finger (anke.finger@uconn.edu) and Lisa Siraganian (lsiragan@mail.smu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Evaluating Digital Scholarship: Candidate Case Studies
MLA Committee: Committee on Information Technology
Electronic roundtable session. Candidates will share experiences with submitting digital scholarship for tenure and promotion. Digital work samples, framing strategies, evaluation criteria, challenges and recommendations. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Victoria E. Szabo (ves4@duke.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Queer Youth
Special Session
This panel features scholarship focused on the intersections of childhood and queer identities in literature, popular culture, and film. Send abstracts/bios to kproehl@clemson.edu. Abstracts, 250 words, Short Bio, 150 words by 15 March 2013; Kristen Proehl (kproehl@clemson.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Is the Post- in Post-Humanism the Same as the Post- in Post-Socialism?
Allied Organization: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Cultural phenomena from the Second World and its successor territories that question the “anthropological machine” of modern humanism. 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jonathan Brooks Platt (jbplatt@pitt.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
(Post-)Racial Vulnerabilities
Special Session
Papers exploring black vulnerability in the so-called “post-racial” moment, including affective, sexual/gender, socioeconomic precariousness inherent in the “post-racial.”. 300 word abstract, 1 page CV by 11 March 2013; Candice M. Jenkins (candice.jenkins@earthlink.net) and Stefanie K. Dunning (skdunno@gmail.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Cities and Cultural Mobility
Division: Postcolonial Studies in Literature and Culture
Population dispersals and re-aggregations were significant effects of colonialism; papers exploring urban space-making, cultural mobilities and their links to political projects in postcolonial texts. 250-word abstracts c.v. by 10 March 2013; Ato Quayson (a.quayson@utoronto.ca)
Posted 21 February 2013
Tragedy of the Commons?
Division: Sociological Approaches to Literature
Historicizing the affective appeal of the idea of a commons, commonality and/or communism in 20-21C. Reconsidering the 'tragedy of the commons' in terms of drama, performance. 350-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jonathan Flatley (jonathanflatley@wayne.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Streets of Bronzeville: Gwendolyn Brooks
Division: Women's Studies in Language and Literature
Seeking new approaches to the novels and poetics of Gwendolyn Brooks. Particular attention given to proposals that incorporate digital media. Title, 300 word abstract; by 10 March 2013; Angelita D. Reyes (angelita.reyes@asu.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Postcolonial Intimacies
Special Session
This panel approaches materiality and locality by focussing on close relationships in particular places as they are represented as part of a world literary space. 300 word abstracts with CV by 15 March 2013; Veronica Barnsley (ronniesfrog@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Videogames and Mental Health
Special Session
How can videogames represent mental health issues in ways that films/literature/biographies cannot? What are the ethical/rhetorical effects of playing as a character with mental health issues? 250-word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Toby Smethurst (toby.smethurst@ugent.be)
Posted 21 February 2013
Reading new India
Special Session
Writers pander to the demands of the market thereby reshaping India. How has globalization changed the face of India and IWE? 500-word abstract and a short bio. by 15 March 2013; Cristina Maria Gamez-Fernandez (cristina.gamez@uco.es) and Om P. Dwivedi (om_dwivedi2003@yahoo.com)
Posted 21 February 2013
Balkan Vulnerabilities in Contemporary Literature, Film, and Music
Special Session
Is Balkan “always the other," and for whom? How has Balkan self-consciousness or the Balkan image altered, if at all, since 2000? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Mihaela Harper (mharper@bilkent.edu.tr)
Posted 21 February 2013
Latin American Kitsch 2000
Special Session
Does kitsch exist in Latin America? Have theorizations of kitsch there evolved since milleneum, in the face of globalization and new social media? 250-word abstract and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Nicholas Cifuentes-Goodbody (ngoodbody@qf.org.qa)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Work of Literary Pastoral in Vulnerable Times
Special Session
How have contemporary novelists re-envisioned the pastoral mode in order to produce what Shoshana Felman has termed "literature in action"? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Judith Ailsa Seaboyer (j.seaboyer@uq.edu.au)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerability, Dependence, and Risk in Caribbean Literature
Special Session
How does 20th/21st century Caribbean literature grapple with political, economic, environmental, social, or affective vulnerabilities? Abstracts (200 words) and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Kristine Wilson (wilson67@purdue.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Southern Childhoods
Discussion Group: Southern Literature
The Southern Literature Discussion Group is organizing a panel on representations of southern childhood. We welcome proposals on texts in any historical period and medium. 300-word abstracts and vitas by 15 March 2013; Coleman Hutchison (coleman.hutchison@mail.utexas.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Russian Periodical Studies
Division: Slavic and East European Literatures
Periodicals, a marker of aesthetic and social change, offer a glimpse into the modes of cultural production. This panel addresses their prominent role in Russia's literary landscape. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; David L. Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Culture and Activism in the 2011-13 Russian Protest Movements
Division: Slavic and East European Literatures
Papers may discuss specific figures (Pussy Riot, Akunin, Sobchak) or broader questions of theory, practice, media, divergences from pre-2011 activism, etc. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kevin M. F. Platt (kmfplatt@sas.upenn.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Digitizing Slavic Studies
Division: Slavic and East European Literatures
The panel invites papers examining the engagement of Slavic arts and humanities with technology, media, and computational methods. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Svetlana Vassileva-Karagyozova (svk@ku.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Vulnerable Texts
Special Session
Approaches to the material vulnerabilities of texts in any medium as methodological and/or theoretical problems in the digital humanities and scholarship on electronic literature. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; John David Zuern (zuern@hawaii.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Socialist Culture in the Age of Disco
Allied Organization: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Papers on any aspect of 1970s culture in socialist East Europe and/or the USSR: literature, television, visual culture, mass media, etc. 200-word abstracts by 22 March 2013; Rebecca Stanton (rstanton@barnard.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013, last updated 21 February 2013
Making Community in Vulnerable Medieval Times
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Roundtable to discuss how people made community in medieval Iberia. Submit proposal for a brief presentation. by 15 March 2013; Jean Dangler (jdangler@tulane.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
Representing Passion Narratives in Varied Linguistic Registers in the Iberian Peninsula: Mirroring or Conflicting Versions of Affective Piety?
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Invites cross-linguistic, cross-disciplinary approaches to medieval Iberian Passion texts. Abstract and a brief c.v. by 15 March 2013; Montserrat Piera (mpiera01@temple.edu)
Posted 21 February 2013
The Reciprocal Gaze between Romania and Spain
Allied Organization: Romanian Studies Association of America
Images of Spain in the works of Romanian-speaking writers, and/or of Romania in the works of Spanish-speaking authors. Emphasis on cross-cultural aspects. Half page abstracts. by 10 March 2013; Rodica Ieta (rodica.ieta@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Work and Workers in 18th-century France
Special Session
Conceptualizations, representations, critiques. Practices, norms, values. Types of sociability, conflicts, vulnerabilities. All approaches welcomed. Papers in French or English. 300-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Laurence Mall (lmall@illinois.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Gendered spaces and aging in contemporary Spanish literature and film
Special Session
Representations of spaces occupied or traversed by the aging; perceptions of safety, opportunities for travel, work, and play. 300-word abstract, short bio. by 15 March 2013; Amy L. Sellin (sellin_a@fortlewis.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Life/Death through Deleuze and Derrida
Special Session
This session will discuss both philosophers' texts in relation to literary, psychoanalytic or artistic works that dwell on the limits between life and death. Abstract 300 words by 15 March 2013; James Martell (jmartel4@nd.edu) and Erik Larsen (alarsen1@nd.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Sex, aging in contemporary Spanish writing
Special Session
Effect of aging on creativity and expressions of the body; vulnerability and invisibility of the aging body and the creative impulse. 300-word abstract, short bio. by 15 March 2013; AMY SELLIN (sellin_a@fortlewis.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Nabokov and the Future of the Humanities
Allied Organization: International Vladimir Nabokov Society
Seeking papers that explore ways Nabokov’s works can help reinvigorate the humanities’ role within university curricula and the culture at large. 300-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Stephen H. Blackwell (sblackwe@utk.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
"Nabokov and Indeterminacy"
Allied Organization: International Vladimir Nabokov Society
Guaranteed session. Criticism has debated conflicting solutions for Pale Fire, Sebastian Knight, and Lolita. The panel invites papers treating open-ended interpretations of any Nabokov works. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Priscilla Meyer (pmeyer@wesleyan.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Contagious Disorder(s)
Special Session
(Interdisciplinary) papers approaching bodies that are particularly vulnerable to disorder, social/cultural attitudes toward disability and disabled individuals, in (twentieth-century) literature. 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Claire Barber (cbarber3@illinois.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Everyday Unrecognized Sexual Violence in South Asia
Discussion Group: South Asian Languages and Literatures
We invite critiques on representations of sexual violence against marginalized groups in South Asian literature, film, and/ or media. 200 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Namrata Mitra (nmitra@jcu.edu))
Posted 20 February 2013
Modernist Melodrama
Special Session
Traditional melodrama operates around the figurability and legibility of emotion. How do modernist texts alter or engage this convention? 200 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Rochelle Rives (rchllrives@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Alt-Academic Feminism I: "Teaching Outside the Classroom through Digital Humanities."
Allied Organization: Women's Caucus for the Modern Languages
Amid Fembot Collective, Black Girls Code, MOOCs, “brogrammers,” new collaborations—how women teach, learn, connect via DH. 250-word proposal for a roundtable presentation. by 15 March 2013; Teresa Mangum (teresa-mangum@uiowa.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
The Wisdom of Translation
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
This session will explore the role of medieval Iberia as a center for linguistic, literary, and cultural translation. Please send abstracts by the deadline. by 20 March 2013; Ryan Giles (rdgiles@indiana)
Posted 20 February 2013
Marketing the Humanities
Special Session
Seeking critical analysis of how humanities have or have not been marketed, currently and previously; discussions of PR problems, specific audiences, marketing vs. advocating welcome. 250-300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Paige Morgan (paigecm@uw.edu) and Rachel Arteaga (rarteaga@uw.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Trans-Mediterranean Literature and Film
Division: Francophone Literatures and Cultures
Seeking papers that theorize a Trans-Mediterranean culture. Suggested topics include colonialism, cosmopolitanism, circuits of migration, and multinational/multilingual literature and cinema. Brief abstract and CV. by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Literature, Culture and Film of the Indian Ocean
Division: Francophone Literatures and Cultures
New developments, genres, modes of expression, performance, and intellectual inquiry in today’s cultural production from the Indian Ocean. 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Valérie Orlando (vorlando@umd.edu )
Posted 20 February 2013
Performance in Francophone Cultures
Division: Francophone Literatures and Cultures
Pioneering cultural models in performance—collaborative, experimental, and innovative genres such as dance, hip-hop, music, poetry, RAP, slam, spoken word, and theater. 250 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Dominic Thomas (dominict@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Modernism and Personality
Special Session
How did modernists theorize personality or engage personality discourse as it emerged in academic and popular psychology, popular periodicals, and self-help? 250-word abstract and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Heather Arvidson (arvidson@uw.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Visual Artifacts in Modern Latin America
Special Session
An exploration of the opacity of visual archives and their relationship to material culture, visual technologies, and the politics of looking. abstract (400 word max.) by 15 March 2013; Alejandra Uslenghi (a-uslenghi@northwestern.edu) and Javier Guerrero (jg17@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
New Currents in Medieval Hispanic Studies
Division: Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
New work, issues or approaches in medieval Hispanic or Iberian studies. Abstract, CV by 15 March 2013; Benjamin M. Liu (benjamin.liu@ucr.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
The Unconscious in Translation
Division: Psychological Approaches to Literature
The unconscious structured like a foreign language? Papers welcome on topics relating psychoanalysis to translation, rhetoric, performativity, cultural differences, global vs. collective unconscious. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ben Sifuentes-Jauregui (bjauregui@amst.rutgers.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Public Memory in an Age of Digital Privacy
Special Session
Public memorials/sites of memory interacting with/challenging the performance of personal memory on social networks, memoirs, and sites of private memory. 300-word abstract, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Joseph Donica (jdonica@wileyc.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
James and Conrad: Art, Criticism, History
Allied Organization: Joseph Conrad Society of America
Topics might address fiction, non-fiction, or historical interaction. Comparative papers discussing critically neglected texts will be given priority. 300-500 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Christopher GoGwilt (gogwilt@fordham.edu) and Kenneth Warren (kwarren@uchicago.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Sixteenth-Century French Women and their Transnational World
Special Session
This session invites papers on French Renaissance women's cross-border forms of communication and networking in literature and/or the arts. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Anne Larsen (alarsen@hope.edu) and Julie Campbell (jdcampbell@eiu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Jewish Monsters
Discussion Group: Jewish American Literature
Notions of monstrosity or the monstrous in Jewish tradition and in representations of Jews. Potential issues: containment/contagion, normality, pathology, inclusion/exclusion, ritual, heresy, health/disease. Abstract of 250 words or less by 15 March 2013; Garrett Eisler (gbe2@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Jewish Monsters
Discussion Group: Jewish Cultural Studies
Notions of monstrosity or the monstrous in Jewish tradition and in representations of Jews. Potential issues: containment/contagion, health/disease, inclusion/exclusion, ritual, heresy, normality, pathology. Abstract of 250 words or less by 15 March 2013; Garrett Eisler (gbe2@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Capitalism III: Rebellions and Riots
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Uprisings, riots, and other forms of rebellion in relation to transnational capital. Reflections on cultural articulations of popular insurgency, religious resistance, organized labor welcome. 250 word abstracts by 20 March 2013; Gabriela Nouzeilles (gnouzeil@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Capitalism II: Body and Labor
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Aesthetic and ideological dimensions of literary and visual constructions of the body in different regimes of labor (e.g. slavery, indentured and wage-labor, peonaje). 250 word abstract by 20 March 2013; Agnes Lugo (lugortiz@uchicago.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Capitalism I: Commodities and Mass Culture
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Responses to commodification and the rise of mass culture in nineteenth-century Latin America. Studies of literature, visual and material culture, exhibition spaces welcome. 250 word abstracts by 20 March 2013; Natalia Brizuela (brizuela@berkeley.edu) and Gabriela Nouzeilles (gnouzeil@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Enduring Noise: Sound and Sexual Difference
Special Session
Gendered sound in literature, theory, culture. Possible topics include: (queer) feminism and sonic temporalities; duration, rhythm, frequency, flows; spatializing sound (enveloping, penetrating, extimate, etc.). 300-word abstracts. by 10 March 2013; Aliza Shvarts (aliza.shvarts@gmail.com) and Amalle Dublon (amalle.dublon@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Language Games and Normative Publics
Special Session
Would Marx permit a pragmatist philosophy of language? Papers on materiality and meaning; Marx, Wittgenstein, and pragmatism; language, class, and the Pittsburgh School. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Steven Wexler (steven.wexler@csun.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Changing Minds: Boethius and Philosophical Exercise
Special Session
Aspects of medieval and early modern reception of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. Focus on ethical teaching, the subject as agent and product of philosophical exercise. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ian Cornelius (ian.cornelius@yale.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Discourse, Food, and Social Justice
Division: Language and Society
Language at the intersection of food and society: justice, foodways, labor, ethics. How does discourse shape and/or subvert the role of food in sociopolitical practice? 2-pp. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Andrea Adolph (aea13@psu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Modern Vision and the Nineteenth-Century Americas (collaborative session)
Division: Film
Visual technologies and the historical advancement of capitalism in the Americas. Objects of the period or retrospective treatments. Collaboration w/LA-Lit-1900. Abstract (400 words) by 15 March 2013; Joshua Lund (JKL7@pitt.edu) and Salome Aguilera Skvirsky (skvirsky@uic.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
What's Material about Vulnerability?
Special Session
Seeking new perspectives on materialist theory and study of vulnerability in American culture, nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature; racial, economic, sexual vulnerabilities; vulnerability and property. Abstracts, 250-300 words by 15 March 2013; Joanna Fax (jmf4@rice.edu) and Kimberly Macellaro (kam5@rice.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
French National Identity at Moments of Crisis
Special Session
Representations of French identity during war, regime change, social upheaval, etc. Any time period or medium welcome. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Melissa Deininger (mdein@iastate.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Indigenous Literatures in the Twenty-First Century: Performance, Text, and Reception
Special Session
We seek papers that discuss the diffusion and reception of indigenous literatures and narrative performance in the Americas (North/South). 200-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Ramsey Tracy (Ramsey.Tracy@trincoll.edu) and Adam Coon (adamw.coon@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Traffic
Division: Twentieth-Century American Literature
The everyday circulation of people, information, capital, and commodities. Literary and methodological reflections on flows and exchange; web traffic, data streams, and congestion. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Mark Goble (mgoble@ber by 15 March 2013; Mark Goble (mgoble@berkeley.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
War/Scar: Representing U.S. Torture and Imperial Violence since 1945
Special Session
How have literary and cultural productions represented instances of U.S. imperial violence and torture of "enemyˮ bodies since 1945? Abstracts (300-word) by 15 March 2013; Katharina Motyl (katharinamotyl@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
MOOCs, Boutique Subjects, and Marginal Approaches
Allied Organization: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
What happens to marginal approaches (feminist, queer, disability, racial) and boutique subjects (medieval studies) in the MOOC paradigm? please submit an abstract for this roundtable disc by 20 March 2013; Dorothy Kim (dokim@vassar.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Language and Culture of the Low Countries
Discussion Group: Netherlandic Language and Literature
Open topic on the language/culture of the Low Countries. Presentations treating the presidential theme Vulnerable Times especially welcome. Abtracts up to 500 words by 17 March 2013; Wijnie De Groot (wed23@columbia.edu) and Thomas F. Shannon (tshannon@berkeley.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Making Community in Vulnerable Medieval Times
Special Session
Roundtable to discuss how people made community in medieval Iberia. See blog on La corónica website: http://www2.ku.edu/~lacoronica/cgi-bin/wordpress/. Submit proposal for a brief presentation. by 15 March 2013; Jean Dangler (jdangler@tulane.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
First Person Vulnerable
Special Session
Papers addressing first person and hybrid accounts of pain, including bodily/mental/psychic/chronic. Vulnerable states/embodiment in memoir/poetry/lyric essay/graphic memoir. 200 word abstracts/proposals. by 15 March 2013; Leigh Gilmore (leighgilmore@mac.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Materialist Aesthetics
Division: Sociological Approaches to Literature
Rethinking/revisiting materialism as a concern for politicized notions of aesthetics; Marxism; embodiment; Spinoza; new materialisms; aesthetic form in visual or written texts. 300 word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Zahid Chaudhary (zrc@princeton.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Allegory - reflection between ornament and sign
Special Session
Seeking papers exploring allegory as a mode of meaning-making dependent on counter-mimetic constellations of lines and letters, which challenge conventional models of relationality. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Andrea Wald (awald@uchicago.edu) and Luisa Banki (Luisa.Banki@uni-konstanz.de)
Posted 20 February 2013
Cultures of the Global South
Division: Sociological Approaches to Literature
Foregrounding lifeworlds in the historically disadvantaged "industrializing" global South, and cultural engagements with precarity, loss, resilience, survival. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Gina Dent (ginadent@ucsc.edu) and Bishnupriya Ghosh (bghosh@english.ucsb.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Dreiser and Money
Special Session
Financial systems and their epistemologies in Theodore Dreiser’s work, including the "Trilogy of Desire" and other fiction and nonfiction. 250 word abstracts and one-page CVs by 18 March 2013; Gary Totten (gary.totten@ndsu.edu) and Jude Davies (jude.davies@winchester.ac.uk)
Posted 20 February 2013
Comparative Translation Strategies and the Market for Foreign Literature
Special Session
This panel explores the relationship between translation strategy and saleability in major translation markets and in smaller ones like the U.S. 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Jennifer Croft (jenniferlcroft@gmail.com) and Corine Tachtiris (tachtco@umich.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Postcolonial Environmental Criticism: Development, Modernity, and the Environment
Special Session
This panel examines the intersections of postcolonialism and environmentalism in contemporary British and Anglophone literature. Please send an abstract of 300-400 words. by 20 March 2013; Arun Pokhrel (arun.pokhrel@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Discursive Responses to the Politics of Domestic Seclusion
Special Session
Last decades of 19th-Century and beginnings of the 20th Latin American texts, about discursive responses to the politics of domestic seclusion. 250 words abstract by 15 March 2013; Adriana Pacheco (apacheco@utexas.edu) and Rocio del Aguila (rociodelaguila@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
The Price of Culture in Latin America
Special Session
This panel interrogates the slippery concept of autonomy (literary/intellectual), and the tensions between cultural production and money since 1900. 250-word abstracts and brief bios by 15 March 2013; Claudia Cabello-Hutt (c_cabell@uncg.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Hungarian Film at Home and Beyond
Discussion Group: Hungarian Literature
We invite presentation proposals (250 words) discussing any aspects of Hungarian film, acting, directing, and cinematography in Hungary and beyond. Comparative perspectives welcomed. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Women and the Literature/Language of Human Rights
Division: Women's Studies in Language and Literature
Possible topics: the language/practice of the Beijing Platform for Action or CEDAW; human rights (trafficking, FGM, immigration, forced early marriage); development and NGOs. Abstracts by 10 March 2013; Susan G. O'Malley (susanomalley4@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Form and Formalisms in Literature and Science
Special Session
Roundtable discussion of how approaches like STS, disciplinary history, cognitive theory, etc. intersect with literary studies’ renewed focus on form. 250-300 words and brief cv by 5 March 2013; John Savarese (jsavarese@utexas.edu) and Debapriya Sarkar (dsarkar@eden.rutgers.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Latina/o Chicago
Special Session
Seeking papers about Latina/o writers from Chicago or the Midwest and papers about Latina/o literary works set in Chicago and the Midwest. 250-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; William Orchard (worchard@colby.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Formal Education
Special Session
How do literary and cultural productions relate to theories and practices of aesthetic education? Proposals welcome on representations and theories of form in pedagogy, broadly conceived. 250-word abstract and cv by 15 March 2013; Lisa Siraganian (lsiragan@smu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Open Session
Allied Organization: American Boccaccio Association
We welcome proposals related to the study of Boccaccio's life and/or works. 300-word proposals and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Elsa Filosa (elsa.filosa@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Boccaccio & Petrarch
Allied Organization: American Boccaccio Association
We welcome papers that deal with Boccaccio & Petrarch's friendship and with any kind of relations between their works: intertextualities, analogies, and reciprocal influence. 300-word proposals and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Elsa Filosa (elsa.filosa@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Lecturae Boccaccii
Allied Organization: American Boccaccio Association
An ongoing MLA tradition, the Lecturae are intelligent readings of one Decameronian novella. This panel seeks enlightening interpretations of any one of Boccaccio's 100 tales. 300-word proposals and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Elsa Filosa (elsa.filosa@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Memory, History, and Cultural Discourses in Spain
Special Session
Papers on the relationship between memory and politics, nationalist movements and the past, the collective unconsciousness through cultural products, and ethics of memory. 500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Alfredo J. Sosa-Velasco (sosavelasca1@southernct.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Literature and the Arts
Discussion Group: Hungarian Literature
We invite comparative presentation proposals (250 words) exploring interconnections between literature, language, music, painting, photography and the other arts in Hungarian, Romanian, and World Literature. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
World Travelers: Travel Writing in Hungary and Beyond
Discussion Group: Hungarian Literature
We invite presentation proposals (250 words) exploring Hungarian travel writing; travel writing about Hungary; the construction of alterity, exile, and exoticism in travel writing. by 15 March 2013; Adriana Varga (avarga@umail.iu.edu) and Zsuzsanna Varga (Zsuzsanna.Varga@glasgow.ac.uk)
Posted 20 February 2013
Literary Crossroads: African-American Literature and Christianity
Division: Literature and Religion
Papers exploring the complex intersection between African-American literature and Christianity, ranging from discussions of slavery and Christianity/Bible to current engagements about race, religion, politics. 300-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Katherine Bassard (kcbassar@vcu.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Essaying Masculinity
Special Session
How does Montaigne try out/question/reify masculinity? What is the role of intertextuality? Of the essay as genre? Abstracts electronically to Todd Reeser. by 15 March 2013; Todd W. Reeser (reeser@pitt.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Drama Divisions Tomorrow
Division: Drama
How should the Drama Division transform to address emerging debates and shape the future of theater and performance studies? Manifestos, prognoses, proposals welcome. 350 word Abstract by 15 March 2013; Tavia Nyong'o (tavia.nyongo@nyu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Singularity and Transnational Poetics
Special Session
If ‘singularity’ conveys singular-plural, relational, differential existences of bodies (of text), what are the concept's potentials for new comparative literatures and readings of transnational poetics? abstracts (400 words) by 15 March 2013; Birgit Kaiser (b.m.kaiser@uu.nl)
Posted 20 February 2013
DH from the Ground Up
Discussion Group: Computer Studies in Language and Literature
See http://computerstudies.commons.mla.org/ for additional information. Email 150-word abstracts to aearhart@tamu.edu by 15 March 2013; Amy Earhart (aearhart@tamu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Criminal Justice and the Literary Imagination
Discussion Group: Law as Literature
Connections between criminal justice and imaginative writing. How do texts represent, affirm, and/or challenge legal conceptions of crime or punishment? 500-word abstracts and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Jay Paul Gates (jgates@jjay.cuny.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Vulnerable Readers
Special Session
Mid-century American novels and the reading practices they engender. How do experiments in genre instruct readers in attending to the vulnerabilities of social life after WWII? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jenny M. James (jamesja@plu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Unveiling Herself: Women in the Works of Arab Women Filmmakers
Special Session
What happens when Arab women leave a position of ideological invisibility to step both before and behind the camera? 250-300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Susan Blood (sblood@albany.edu) and Nabila El Guennouni (nelguennouni@albany.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Developing and Funding Online Teaching Platforms
Special Session
Given differently-resourced departments, how best to create and maintain Open Source teaching platforms? Those experienced with grant-funded, direct-budget, or unfunded single-maintainer systems are encouraged. 350-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Scott Henkle (shenkle@hotmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Forgotten Sources, Alternative Archives
Special Session
Documenting and explaining more elusive sources of well-known literary works; expanding what it means to read for sources and/or the traditional sense of “archive." 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Sean O'Toole (sean.otoole@baruch.cuny.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Rustbelt Migrations: Ethnicities and (De)Industrialization
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Literature of immigrants (Europe, Asia) and internal migrant populations (Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians) connected to urban spaces, racial formation, and global capitalism. Brief abstract and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Richard T. Rodríguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu) and Lingyan Yang (Lingyan@iup.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Literary Sociologies of Race and Ethnicity
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Theorists and sociologists such as Randolph Bourne, Robert E. Park, Alain Locke, Charles S. Johnson in relation to 20th-century American poetry, fiction, and drama. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Richard T. Rodríguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
20th/21st Century Antisemitisms
Special Session
Papers theorizing antisemitism in law/policy debates, literature, film, television, etc. What approaches/theories are needed to contend with antisemitism in the 21st Century? Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Lara A. Trubowitz (laratrubowitz@gmail.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
“Feminism and Nationalism”: The Case of South Asian Women
Special Session
Seeking proposals (roundtable) on the creation of the nation-state and the role of women in South Asia. an abstract of 250 words by 15 March 2013; Umme Al-wazedi (ummeal-wazedi@augustana.edu) and Feroza Jussawalla (imohf@aol.com)
Posted 20 February 2013
Charlemagne at the Crossroads of Europe: Negotiating Intersections
Allied Organization: Société Rencesvals, American-Canadian Branch
Papers addressing reflections in the romance epic of Charlemagne negotiating intersections (Church/Empire, Pan-European politics, war/peace). Abstract (250 words), brief CV. by 14 March 2013; Paula E. Leverage (leverage@purdue.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Digital Pedagogy Going Global
Special Session
This panel focuses on the pedagogical benefits of cross-cultural online collaborative projects in teaching literature, writing, linguistics, and modern languages. 300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Zsuzsanna Palmer (zpalm001@odu.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
Biodiversity and Extinction
Division: Literature and Science
Submissions sought for panel on literary/cultural approaches to species, biodiversity, endangered species, conservation, extinction, and environmental memory. 250-word abstract and CV by March 15, 2013, to Ursula Heise: uheise@humnet.ucla.edu. by 15 March 2013; Ursula K. Heise (uheise@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013, last updated 20 February 2013
Randall Jarrell at 100
Division: Children's Literature
This panel seeks papers celebrating Randall Jarrell, children’s author, teacher, poet, critic, novelist, essayist; his collaborations, translations and influence. Send title, 500-word abstract and 2-page CV. by 15 March 2013; Tali Noimann (cnoimann@bmcc.cuny.edu)
Posted 20 February 2013
World War I in Film and Literature
Division: European Literary Relations
The military self-destruction of Europe that took place between 1914 and 1918 has been portrayed and analyzed in film and literature. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Paul Lutzeler (jahrbuch@wustl.edu ) and katerina clark (katerina.clark@yale.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Constantinople/Istanbul: East/West
Division: European Literary Relations
Literary and visual representations of the ancient and modern city in European texts. Send abstracts by 15 March. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Bella Brodzki (to: bbrodzki@slc.edu.) and katerina clark (katerina.clark@yale.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Literature and Philosophy: New Perspectives
Special Session
We seek papers exploring new interconnections between (European or analytical) philosophy and modern literature. 250-page abstracts to henry.pickford@colorado.edu by 15 March 2013; Henry Pickford (henry.pickford@colorado.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Author vs. Form vs. Concept: The Clash of Paradigms in the Study of Twentieth-Century Literature
Division: Comparative Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Shifting history, consequences, and/or possible future of critical paradigms. 5-7 minute roundtable presentations, comparativist and/or Americanist. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ramon Saldivar (saldivar@stanford.edu) and Robert Parker (rparker1@illinois.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Diaries of the Young Girl: The Craft of Female Selfhood
Division: Children's Literature
Girls’ diaries from diverse perspectives: feminism, the bildungsroman, constructions of adolescence, ethnicity, gender, cultural theory, and new diary forms. Send 500-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; June Cummins (jcummins@mail.sdsu.edu) and Rocio Davis (rdavis@cityu.edu.hk )
Posted 19 February 2013
Teaching Racist Texts: Roundtable on Pedagogy
Special Session
What problems/issues are at stake when teaching racist literature? What are our pedagogical strategies for teaching students how to talk and write about racism? 100-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Brigitte Fielder (brigitte.fielder@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
Revisiting Popular Culture in Early Modern Spain
Special Session
New perspectives on the cultural practices of the popular classes in 15th- to 18th-century Spain. One-page abstract by 8 March 2013; Miguel Martinez (martinezm@uchicago.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Vulnerable Times and the Rise of Fascism: Radical Writers on the Front of the Spanish Civil War
Special Session
This panel explores testimonies of writers who volunteered in the Spanish Civil War. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; J. Ashley Foster (jashfoster@yahoo.com) and Evelyn Scaramella (evelyn.scaramella@manhattan.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Author vs. Form vs. Concept: The Clash of Paradigms in the Study of Twentieth-Century Literature
Division: Twentieth-Century American Literature
Shifting history, consequences, and/or possible future of critical paradigms. 5-7 minute roundtable presentations, comparativist and/or Americanist. Abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Robert Dale Parker (rparker1@illinois.edu) and Ramón Saldívar (saldivar@stanford.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Modernism and the Body
Special Session
How does modernist literature approach and appropriate the body? Topics: non-normative bodies (pregnant, disabled, “othered,” “queer”), or ordinary bodies. Abstracts (max. 350 words) by 15 March 2013; Erin Kingsley (erin.kingsley@colorado.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Medieval Women and Poverty
Allied Organization: Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship
We are interested in examining medieval women and charity, limited resources in households and religious organizations, models of poverty, poor books and readers. Paper session, please submit abstracts by 20 March 2013; Dorothy Kim (dokim@vassar.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Have we ever been secular?
Division: Late-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
Papers revisiting customary narratives about Enlightenment and secularization; exemplifying 18th-century studies after the “theological turn”; etc. 500-word proposals by e-mail by 22 March 2013; Deidre Lynch (deidre.lynch@utoronto.ca)
Posted 19 February 2013
World War
Division: Late-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
In the wake of the 250th anniversary of the Seven Years War, we invite submissions upon concepts, effects, and literature of global war. 500 word abstract by March 22nd by 22 March 2013; William Warner (warner@english.ucsb.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Antebellum Affects: Literature & Theory
Special Session
Theories of affect and antebellum American literature, including sentiment’s historical mutations, literary assemblages, nationalism as social bond, and racial/gender epistemes in flux. Brief CV. 250– word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Richard A. Garner (ragarner@buffalo.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Renaissance Cosmopolitanism
Division: Sixteenth-Century French Literature
Poetics, politics and/or philosophies of being at home all over the world, as seen from the world of sixteenth-century France. Title and abstract for a 20-minute presentation by 15 March 2013; Andrea Marie Frisch (afrisch@umd.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Extreme Politics in Popular Culture
Special Session
Papers on post-W.W. II popular cultural representations of neofascism, white supremacist groups, and/or the ultra right-wing. All media/all approaches welcome. Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Lara A. Trubowitz (laratrubowitz@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
The Victorian Photographic Imaginary
Special Session
Papers on any aspect of the relationship between Victorian literature and photography. Topics may include genre, theater, intermediality, proto-photography, spiritualism, mourning, identity, or empire. 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Jesse Hoffman (jessehoffman@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
The New Weird
Special Session
Papers on authors/artists (any language) associated with the New Weird in fiction, film, or other media. Political, aesthetic, narratological, historical topics all welcome. Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; David Wittenberg (david-wittenberg@uiowa.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
The Data is the Scholarship
MLA Committee: Committee on Scholarly Editions
How can data models represent theories of scholarly textual editing? Where in the data does textual scholarship inhere? Practical and theoretical explorations invited; see http://scholarlyeditions.commons.mla.org/2013/02/15/convention-2014-call-for-papers/. 250-word proposal by 10 March 2013; Julia H. Flanders (julia_flanders@brown.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Size and Scale in Literature and Culture
Special Session
Papers on bigness, smallness, proportion, the sublime, or other topics related to size and scale in literature and culture. Abstract (300 words) and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; David Wittenberg (david-wittenberg@uiowa.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Roots of Ecocriticism: the 1970's and 1980's
Special Session
papers on earliest initiatives toward ecocriticism both as scholarly theory and practice and in the classroom; particular interest in first-person accounts. queries or 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Frederick O. Waage (renwag@charter.net) and Michelle Balaev (michellebalaev@gmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
War Media
Special Session
Spectacles of combat; the cinema of endless war; the facts, fictions and fables of battlefield reportage; drone optics; the militarization of social media; the military-industrial-entertainment complex. abstracts or papers by 15 March 2013; Jan Mieszkowski (mieszkow@reed.edu) and Ross Etherton (etherton@colorado.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Rethinking the Place of the Novel in the History of Genre
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
What can other genres teach us about the early English novel? Seeking papers that revise our novel-centric literary histories. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Wolfram Michael Schmidgen (wschmidg@artsci.wustl.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
The 21st-Century Library: Discovery Services vs. Subject Specialists
MLA Committee: Advisory Committee on the _MLA International Bibliography_
This panel considers the role of the literature subject specialist in an era which appears to promote the use of Google-style one-box-fits-all searches. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; James Raymond Kelly (jrkelly@library.umass.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
"Does It Explode?" Discursive Redlining in CLYBOURNE PARK
Allied Organization: American Theatre and Drama Society
How does Bruce Norris' play revise/revisit the Youngers' neighborhood in Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN? Abstracts of 250 words, plus brief CV by 8 March 2013; Donald P. Gagnon (gagnond@wcsu.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
New Directions in American Multiethnic Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Theories and Criticisms
Allied Organization: MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
We welcome both theoretical conceptualizations and application of them to analyzing multiethnic (women's) literature. Brief abstract and 1-page CV. by 20 March 2013; Lingyan Yang (lingyan@iup.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Rustbelt Migrations: Ethnicities and (De)Industrialization
Allied Organization: MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
Literature of immigrants (from Europe, Asia, etc.) and internal migrants (Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians) connected to urban spaces, racial formation, and global capitalism. Abstract and 1-page CV. by 15 March 2013; Lingyan Yang (lingyan@iup.edu) and Richard T. Rodriguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Medieval German Literature and Mystical Theology
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers addressing the intersection of literature and mystical theology. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013 by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
The Lyrical 'I'
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers exploring the figure and function of the 'I' in medieval German poetry. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013 by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Medieval 'World Literature'?
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers addressing questions of what moves, what doesn't move, what circulates, and what doesn't circulate among medieval literatures of different languages. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Continental Arthur
Division: German Literature to 1700
Seeking papers discussing the role of Arthurian motives in literature on the continent, especially the Low Countries, German-speaking lands, and Scandinavia. Co-sponsor: Arthurian Literature Discussion group. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013; Niklaus E. Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013, last updated 19 February 2013
Feel the Pain: Medieval Trauma
Division: Middle English Language and Literature, Excluding Chaucer
Round Table Possible topics: hagiography, romance, psychoanalysis, affect, bodies, torture, witnessing, empathy, animals, medicine, pedagogy, or critical narratives as traumatic. 500-word abstract and cv by 8 March 2013; Erin Labbie (labbie@bgsu.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Medieval England and the History of the Book
Division: Middle English Language and Literature, Excluding Chaucer
session will address the materiality of written culture: codicology, paleography, manuscript illumination, and the transmission of texts and textual traditions. 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Marilynn Desmond (mdesmon@binghamton.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
Melville and Matter
Allied Organization: Melville Society
Echoing themes of vulnerability and resilience, we seek readings of Melville vis-a-vis what has been called the “new materialism” and the “new vitalism.”. 300-500 word proposal and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Tim Marr (marr@unc.edu) and Joseph Fruscione (josephk@email.gwu.edu)
Posted 19 February 2013
The Quixotic in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction
Special Session
This panel will focus on the representation of the quixotic in twentieth-century women's fictions. by 15 March 2013; Gina Tomasulo (jeanrhys_4@hotmail.com)
Posted 19 February 2013
Approaches to Feminist Orientalism
Special Session
The session will assess, complicate, and extend the important intersectional concept of “feminist orientalism.” Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. Send abstracts of 300 words to Samara Cahill by 15 March 2013; Samara Cahill (sacahill@ntu.edu.sg)
Posted 19 February 2013
Accenting Punctuation
Special Session
Punctuation--as used by a specific literary figure, in certain genres, or topics related to linguistics. Abstracts of 100 to 300 words by 5 March 2013; Albert E. Krahn (krahn@punctuation.org)
Posted 19 February 2013
Continental Arthur
Discussion Group: Arthurian Literature
Seeking papers discussing the role of Arthurian motives in literature on the continent, especially the Low Countries, German-speaking lands, and Scandinavia. Co-sponsor: Arthurian Literature Discussion group. One-page CV, abstract by 13 March 2013; Niklaus Largier (nlargier@berkeley.edu) and Randy Schiff (rpschiff@buffalo.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Infrastructuralism
Special Session
Themes of infrastructure - its environmental sustainability, its social and economic desirability, its political vulnerability - in literary representation from any period and tradition. See more at http://infrastructuralism.commons.mla.org/. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Michael Rubenstein (michael.d.rubenstein@gmail.com)
Posted 18 February 2013
Between Vulnerability and Resilience: Representations of the Veil in Literature
Special Session
This roundtable will explore the re-emergence of the veil and its literary and cultural representations. 250-word abstracts and vitae by 15 March 2013; Afrin Zeenat (azeenat@uark.edu) and Umme Al-Wazedi (ummeal-wazedi@augustana.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Asian American Literary Criticism Today
Division: Asian American Literature
Open call for papers on Asian American literature. 1 pg abstract, 2 pg CV by 8 March 2013; Paul Lai (pylai@stkate.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Aiiieeeee! and Asian American Literature, 40 Years Later
Division: Asian American Literature
Debating the legacy of Aiiieeeee!, the first major anthology of Asian American literature, forty years after its publication in 1974. 1-page abstract, c.v. by 15 March 2013; Timothy Yu (tpyu@wisc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Asian Americans and the Undead
Division: Asian American Literature
Considerations of the undead (including but not limited to zombies, vampires, ghosts) in relation to Asian American cultural production or subject formation. 250 word abstract 2 page CV by 8 March 2013; Julia Lee (jxlee@utexas.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 18 February 2013
"Disability, Prosthesis, and Medieval Literature"
Special Session
This panel explores how medieval literature makes use of disability and/or prosthesis as theme, metaphor, and/or plot device. Please send 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Tory V. Pearman (pearmatv@muohio.edu) and Joshua Eyler (jeyler42@gmail.com)
Posted 18 February 2013
Vulnerable Times in the Archive: Forgotten Modernist Literary Magazines
Special Session
Texts or individuals excluded from the recent Oxford critical volumes (by Brooker & Thacker) are particularly welcome. 250 word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Belinda Wheeler (bwheeler@paine.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Harlem’s Transnational Modernisms: Recovering the Black Archive Beyond the Nation
Special Session
Presentations on canonical or non-canonical Harlem writers addressing black transnationalism. 250-word-abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Belinda Wheeler (bwheeler@paine.edu) and Joseph Donica (jdonica@wileyc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Organic Mechanisms: Whitehead, Literature, and Science
Division: Literature and Science
New approaches to literature and science informed by the resurgent philosophy of nature, metaphysics, and cosmological speculations of Alfred North Whitehead. One-page CV and 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Steven J. Meyer (sjmeyer@wustl.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Reading Postmodern Space
Special Session
How do postmodern literary and theoretical texts map and navigate, construct and alter, inhabit and evacuate space? 250 word abstracts – brief biography. by 15 March 2013; Karen Jacobs (karen.jacobs@colorado.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
The Online Seminar Table
Special Session
How can we use technology to create intimate seminars that collapse geographical distance, connecting far-flung students and institutions in meaningful new intellectual relationships? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Meg Lamont (melamont@stanford.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
In the Meme Time
Division: Popular Culture
“Meme” accounts for phenomena such as “Gangnam Style” dance. Papers that pressure the “popular” through the technical, theoretical and performative logic of the meme. CVs and short abstracts by 8 March 2013; John Mowitt (mowit001@umn.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Chaucer and the New Aesthetics
Division: Chaucer
Rethinking aesthetics, including affect and the sensorium; material culture; the descriptive turn; form and symptom. Abstracts by 15 March 2013 to Mark Miller (jmmiller@uchicago.edu). abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Mark Miller (jmmiller@uchicago.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Middle English Keywords
Division: Chaucer
This roundtable asks: What are the critical terms through which we currently think about Chaucer and medieval literature? Single-word titles with abstracts by 15 March to Kellie Robertson (krobert@umd.edu). by 15 March 2013; Kellie Robertson (krobert@umd.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Where is French Theory Today?
Division: Twentieth-Century French Literature
“French Theory” in a global context (e.g. migration studies, social media, Occupy movements); how other cultures, emergent scholarship, new political practices reconfigure theory. 250-word abstract, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Danielle Marx-Scouras (marx-scouras.1@osu.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 18 February 2013
Dickinson, Poe, and 19-Century Aesthetic Practices
Allied Organization: Poe Studies Association
Papers comparing the work of Dickinson and Poe by locating them within a 19th-century cultural trend or literary practice. 250-word abstract and resume. by 15 March 2013; Eliza Richards (ecr@email.unc.edu) and Paul Lewis (paul.lewis@bc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Dickinson, Poe, and 19c Aesthetic Practices
Allied Organization: Emily Dickinson International Society
Papers comparing the work of Dickinson and Poe by locating them within a 19th-century cultural trend or literary practice. 250-word abstract and cv by 15 March 2013; Eliza Richards (eliza_richards@unc.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Zionisms Past, Present, and Future
Discussion Group: Jewish Cultural Studies
The Zionist imagination in global literatures and cultures. Potential topics: pre- or proto-Zionist texts, Christian Zionism, post-Zionism, Israel and its others. Abstract, 250 words maximum by 10 March 2013; Garrett Eisler (gbe2@nyu.edu)
Posted 18 February 2013
Forms of Freedom: Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Liberal Thought
Special Session
This session will explore the ways that poetry responds to the rise of liberalism during the long nineteenth century. Abstracts of 250 words by 15 March 2013; Anna Barton (a.j.barton@sheffield.ac.uk)
Posted 18 February 2013
Cid Corman and American Poetry
Special Session
Looking for papers that examine the work of the Japan-based expatriate American poet Cid Corman and his influence upon, and contribution to, American poetry. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Gregory Dunne (gdunne@sky.miyazaki-mic.ac.jp)
Posted 18 February 2013
Deleuze and the States of Film Analysis
Division: Film
Relate Deleuze’s philosophy to film analysis. How do 'movement-image' and 'time-image' help understand role of cinema, film, visual images, 20th century and beyond? Abstract, bio by 10 March 2013; Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio (serena.anderlini@gmail.com) and Paul Young (paul.d.young@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013, last updated 18 February 2013
Picturing the 1914 "jeune-fille"
Special Session
What does the French literature, art and culture of the years 1890-1920 tell us about the blooming young girls ? One-page abstract & bio by 14 March 2013 by 14 March 2013; Virginie Pouzet-Duzer (virginie.pouzet-duzer@pomona.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Vulnerable Children in Contemporary Narratives
Special Session
How is the vulnerability of children depicted or resisted within contemporary narratives? Abstracts addressing post-WWII narratives of all types are welcome. 300-word abstract and a brief CV by 15 March 2013; Mark Heimermann (heimerm5@uwm.edu) and Eric Herhuth (eherhuth@uwm.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Rethinking Lydia Sigourney
Special Session
For a critical reassessment, papers on any approach to her writings, including psychoanalytical, cultural studies, globalization or transnational, canon formation, comparative, disability studies, or other. Abstract and 2-page CV. by 10 March 2013; Elizabeth Petrino (epetrino@fairfield.edu) and Mary Lou Kete (mkete@uvm.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Textual Carnivals Revisited
Division: the Teaching of Writing
20 years after Susan Miller’s Textual Carnivals, Are we still “the sad woman in the basement?” This panel will explore the gendered politics of rhetoric and composition. Proposal, 250words. by 1 March 2013; Victor J. Vitanza (sophist@clemson.edu) and Jacqueline Rhodes (jrhodes@csusb.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Duras at 100
Special Session
Papers on her work and on authors of her generation that confront personal, social, historical cataclysms: colonies, death, exile, WWII, through innocent eyes. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Meaghan Emery (meaghan.emery@uvm.edu) and Jennifer Willging (willging.1@osu.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Old English Law and Literature
Discussion Group: Law as Literature
How do these fields illuminate social and political developments, or conceptions of self and the community? Why is interdisciplinarity important? 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu) and Jay Paul Gates (jgates@jjay.cuny.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Media, Justice and Revolution in the Middle East
Discussion Group: Law as Literature
How are media being used in the contemporary Middle East to challenge unjust governance and demand/define just governance? 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jay Paul Gates (jgates@jjay.cuny.edu) and Amy Motlagh (amotlagh@aucegypt.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Representing Passion Narratives in Medieval Iberian Languages: Mirroring or Conflicting Versions of Affective Piety?
Discussion Group: Catalan Language and Literature
Papers devoted to the cross-disciplinary and cross-linguistic study of Iberian Passion texts. A 250-word abstract and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Montserrat Piera (mpiera01@temple.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
The Vulnerability of Catalan Studies as a Discipline
Discussion Group: Catalan Language and Literature
Papers that analyze challenges that Catalan Studies as a professional discipline has experienced (past and present). 400-word abstract and 2-page CV by 15 March 2013; Montserrat Piera (mpiera01@temple.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Torture and Popular Culture
Division: Popular Culture
Papers on the representation of torture in popular culture, especially in recent work like Zero Dark Thirty. Is there a benefit and what is the effect? CVs/ Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Hillary L. Chute (chute@uchicago.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Global Pirandello
Allied Organization: Pirandello Society of America
Pirandello in and of the world: topics such as cosmopolitanism and global geographies, including legacies, influences, audiences, adaptations. Interdisciplinary/comparative approaches encouraged. 250-word abstract, with title and brief biography. by 15 March 2013; Jana O'Keefe Bazzoni (jana.okeefebazzoni@baruch.cuny.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Modern Consciousness: Pirandellian Obsessions
Allied Organization: Pirandello Society of America
Topics including psychology, spirituality, sexuality and other aspects of modern consciousness in Pirandello and contemporaries; interdisciplinary/comparative approaches encouraged. 250-word abstract, with title and brief biography. by 15 March 2013; Jana O'Keefe Bazzoni (jana.okeefebazzoni@baruch.cuny.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
The Perpetrator's Viewpoint
Special Session
Fiction focalizing and describing the perpetrator - from Dostoevsky to Littell - faces epistemological, narratological, and ethical challenges. This panel investigates examples of perpetrator literature. 400-word abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Levin Arnsperger (larnspe@emory.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Teaching Contemporary Arab Women Writers: Remapping the Canon
Special Session
Explores contemporary works by Arab women as they relate to teaching new/existing courses on women’s writing and culture. Abstracts of 300 words or less by 15 March 2013; Lynne Dahmen (ldahmen@purdue.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Gypsies in the American Cultural Imagination
Special Session
This session will include representations of Gypsies (Romani) in American Literature, Music, Film, and/or Television. Abstracts of no more than 500 words. by 15 March 2013; David Shane Wallace (dshanew@gmail.com)
Posted 17 February 2013
New German Discourses About Conservatism: Forms and Expressions in Contemporary German Literature
Special Session
Panel critically explores discourses about conservatism in contemporary German literary production and reception. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Arnim Alex Seelig (arnim.seelig@mail.mcgill.ca)
Posted 28 January 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Assessing Early Modern Queer Studies
Division: Literature of the English Renaissance, Excluding Shakespeare
Roundtable exploring current debates and new trends. 8-10 minute position papers. Newer voices especially welcome. Send 250 word abstract, cv to Graham Hammill (ghammill@buffalo.edu) by March 22. by 22 March 2013; Graham Hammill (ghammill@buffalo.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013, last updated 17 February 2013
Destruction and Revitalization
Discussion Group: Bibliography and Textual Studies
We seek proposals for papers that involve questions of textual and cultural destruction and revitalization, in any period or context. 250-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Matt Cohen (matt.cohen@mail.utexas.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Early American Networks of Writing and the Politics of Writing Instruction
Discussion Group: Bibliography and Textual Studies
Seeking new research on the politics of early American rhetoric and writing instruction networks. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Shevaun Watson (watsonse@uwec.edu)
Posted 17 February 2013
Transatlantic Maghreb
Special Session
Explores engagement of American writers with North Africa and how this informed their own cultural identity. Papers on missionary activity, travel, fiction, and their representations of Maghrebi culture. 300 words; by 17 March 2013; Ahmed Idrissi Alami (aidrissi@purdue.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Of Love Possessed: Biopolitics as/of Love
Special Session
Is love an “ontological event...producing the common” (Hardt and Negri) or a spiritual resolution of material contradictions? Papers on love, private property, and the common. Abstracts by 17 March 2013; Jennifer M. Cotter (cotterj@william.jewell.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Cognitive Approaches to Film
Division: Cognitive Approaches to Literature
Theory; new interpretations; unexpected angles. We invite papers at the intersection of cognitive studies and the moving image. Send 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Julien Jacques Simon (jjsimon@iue.edu) and Lisa Zunshine (lisa.zunshine@gmail.com)
Posted 16 February 2013
Cognitive Historicist Approaches to Literature
Division: Cognitive Approaches to Literature
Papers examining literary works (across cultural traditions) in relation to the ideas about the mind circulating when the works were produced. Send 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Julien Jacques Simon (jjsimon@iue.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
How Inequality Has Displaced Class
Special Session
"Exploitation," Hardt and Negri claim, is "expropriation of the common" because capitalist accumulation has become "external" to production. Papers on class and inequality in the contemporary. Abstracts by 6 March 2013; Robert Wilkie (rwilkie@uwlax.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Gendered Age & Authority in Popular Media
Discussion Group: Age Studies
Collaborative session on shifting popular-media representations of women across the age spectrum in public roles. Proposals (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Elizabeth Gregory (egregory@uh.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
The Graphic Nineteenth Century
Division: Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Submissions addressing the combination of word and image in the nineteenth century, from proto “graphic novels” to graphic work popularized in periodicals. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Augusta Rohrbach (augustarohrbach@gmail.edu) and Hillary Chute (chute@uchicago.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Literature and Media in the Nineteenth-Century US
Division: Nineteenth-Century American Literature
How have media history and media theory transformed the study of nineteenth-century American literature? Roundtable on new approaches; statements posted in advance. abstracts by 15 March 2013; Meredith McGill (mlmcgill@rci.rutgers.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Slavery in the 21st-Century American Cultural Imagination
Special Session
This panel seeks critical assessments of recent representations (filmic, literary, etc.) of racial slavery in US culture. Send 250-word abstracts and a brief CV. by 15 March 2013; Gregory Laski (gmlaski@gmail.com)
Posted 14 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Beat Poets and L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. Poetics
Special Session
Beat Studies Association: subjects open. Welcome proposals on Beat literature and L.A.N.G.U.A.G.E. poets/poetics. 300-word proposal and 300-word biography. “doc” or “pdf”. 300-word abstracts; 300-word professional bio. by 10 March 2013; Ronna Catherine Johnson (ronna.johnson@tufts.edu) and Deborah Geis (dgeis@depauw.edu)
Posted 16 February 2013
Political Animals: Nature, Culture, Race in Early America
Division: Colonial Latin American Literatures
Colonizers believed the 'natures' of nations obeyed geography. How did contact among Europeans, Indians, Africans, and their descendants test this belief? CV, abstract by 15 March 2013; Nicolás Wey-Gómez (nwey@caltech.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Modern Vision and the Nineteenth-Century Americas
Division: Latin American Literature from Independence to 1900
Visual technologies and the historical advancement of capitalism in the Americas. Objects of the period or retrospective treatments. Collaboration with Film Division. Abstract (400 word max). by 15 March 2013; Joshua K. Lund (JKL7@pitt.edu) and Salomé Aguilera Skvirsky (skvirsky@uic.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 16 February 2013
Negotiating Impermanence in medieval Germanic text and words
Special Session
Papers concerning linguistic or literary transience and the awareness thereof in medieval Germanic languages and literature are requested. Abstracts of 300 words or less by 13 March 2013; Adrienne Damiani (damia004@berkeley.edu) and Adam Oberlin (oberl024@umn.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
South Asians in North America
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Inter-ethnic readings of history, culture, representation, theory - including and beyond race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, emphasizing transnational connections and global divides. Abstracts and short CVs by 15 March 2013; Amritjit Singh (singha@ohio.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013, last updated 15 February 2013
Dickinson and Visuality
Allied Organization: Emily Dickinson International Society
Emily Dickinson’s engagements with vision in any of its senses. Visual cultures, technologies, arts, performances, spectacles. 19c optics. Blindness, hallucination, observation. Ekphrasis, word and image. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Eliza Richards (eliza_richards@unc.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Early American Networks of Writing and the Politics of Writing Instruction
Division: the History and Theory of Rhetoric and Composition
Seeking new research on the politics of early American rhetoric and writing instruction networks. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Shevaun E. Watson (watsonse@uwec.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Newer New or Coming After? Americanist Literary Criticism at the Present Moment
Special Session
This panel seeks papers that reflect on the work of the New Americanists. Abstracts (300-500 words) and brief cv by 15 March 2013; Jed Dobson (james.e.dobson@dartmouth.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Red Chicago: Leftist Chicago Writers 19th Century to the Present
Special Session
Leftist Chicago writers 19th-21st centuries; representation of socialist/ communist/ anarchist midwest movements; working-class, feminist, and racial/ethnic radicalisms; revolutionary aesthetics. 200-300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Melissa Macero (melissa.macero001@umb.edu) and Barbara Foley (bfoley@andromeda.rutgers.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Post-war Town: Constructing Urban Identity
Special Session
Urban space is defined by urban memory. But whose memory is it? Have WWII and Holocaust left place for any substantial identity? 250-word abstract, 100-word bio by 22 March 2013; Pawel Wolski (wolski@brandeis.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Making Digital Counterpublics
Special Session
How can humanities classroom and research practices use digital tools and platforms to facilitate counterpublic formation for marginalized populations, activist organizations, and community outreach? 300 Word Abstracts by 15 March 2013; David Parry (dparry@utdallas.edu) and Kim Knight (kknight08@gmail.com)
Posted 15 February 2013
Raising the Bar: Academic Rigor in the Language Classroom
Division: the Teaching of Language
This session examines frameworks and approaches for teaching foreign language through intellectually challenging content. One-page abstract/20-minute paper by 15 March 2013; Fernando Rubio (fernando.rubio@utah.edu) and Heather Willis-Allen (hwallen@wisc.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Linguistic Foundations for Teaching in the Post-Methods Era
Division: the Teaching of Language
Discusses how foundations in Linguistics (L1 and L2 acquisition theory, phonology, phonetics, syntax) may inform teacher education or L2 instruction. One-page abstract, 20-minute paper by 15 March 2013; Fernando Rubio (fernando.rubio@utah.edu) and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp (j.tharp@utah.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
The Genres of Margaret Fuller's Writing
Allied Organization: Margaret Fuller Society
Translation. Travel. Essay. Conversation. Dialogue. Utopian vision. Mysticism. Poetry. Fiction. Sermon. Book review. History. Hybrid forms. Links to other writers. 1-2 page abstract plus short vita by 18 March 2013; Jeffrey Allen Steele (jsteele@wisc.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
CORPORA: Textual, Sexual, Non-Human Bodies
Allied Organization: Society for German Renaissance and Baroque Literature
Topics including: gender/sexuality, body politic, bodies of text, real/imagined bodies, angelic/monstrous bodies...papers addressing contemporary theoretical debates. Selected papers may be published. 1-page abstract; 1-page CV by 11 March 2013; Elio C. Brancaforte (ebranca@tulane.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Heresy: Arius to Rushdie
Division: Literature and Religion
We seek a range of papers from different periods, languages, religious traditions. 300-500 word abstracts or 8-page papers by 15 March 2013; Stephen M. Fallon (sfallon@nd.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Defining the Moment, Defining the Momentum
Discussion Group: Part-Time Faculty Members
Perspectives on the language used to describe employment status. Short, focused presentations that examine distinct frameworks of definition, institutional integration, and resistance. Short roundtable presentation ideas. by 15 March 2013; Margaret Hanzimanolis (hanzimanolism@fhda.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
Golden Age to Our Age: Re-reading 19th Century Aesthetics
Special Session
Seeking to explore twentieth- and twenty-first-century American literature's reworking of nineteenth-century aesthetics, politics and culture. 250 word abstract and brief bio to c.blinder@gold. by 15 March 2013; Caroline Blinder (c.blinder@gold.ac.uk)
Posted 15 February 2013
Representing Evil: The Holocaust, Slavery, and Beyond
Special Session
15-20 min. papers on American film/literature representations of "evil" and/or the pathological perpetrator as explanations for the Holocaust and slavery. http://www.daniellechristmas.com. 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Danielle Christmas (dchris20@uic.edu)
Posted 15 February 2013
"The Controversy over Attribution of De Doctrina Christiana to Milton."
Special Session
This session welcomes papers by partisans in the controversy over Milton's reputed authorship of De Doctrina Christiana. Send abstracts or complete papers. by 15 March 2013; Hugh Wilson (wilsonh@gram.edu) and Paul Sellin (psellin@ucla.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Language Change and Literature
Division: Language Change
How does language change matter to literature (and vice versa)? How might change inform recent theoretical perspectives (e.g., historical, cognitive, digital, ethical, rhetorical, or descriptive approaches)? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Chris Palmer (cpalme20@kennesaw.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Diversity and Change
Division: Language Change
What role does “diversity” play in understanding language change? Papers will explore perspectives on linguistic diversity, e.g. language maintenance, decline, and loss; language policy; and/or social variation. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Chris Palmer (cpalme20@kennesaw.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Debt and Indebtedness
Division: English Literature Other Than British and American
Financial (states, individuals), ecological, cultural, literary (intertextuality, anxieties of influence): how do these different forms of indebted relations intersect? 400 word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Jennifer Wenzel (jawenzel@umich.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Almost Human
Special Session
This panel explores the roles that human replicas (puppets, mannequins, robots) play in Spanish theater in different periods. How do such figures affect the theatrical experience? Please send 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Miguel Angel Balsa Marín (mb823@cornell.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Non-Christian Identities in the Italian Context
Division: Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Nineteenth-Century Italian Literature
This session welcomes papers that address Atheist, Jewish, Libertine, Muslim, and Protestant identities as expressed and negotiated in Christian and non-Christian texts. Please submit 1-page abstract. by 15 March 2013; Nathalie Hester (nhester@uoregon.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
What is reading poetry worth, in the Age of Knowledge?
Special Session
This panel explores the specific heuristic nature of the contemporary Italian poetic language. Send abstract and bio not later than March 15. by 15 March 2013; Enrico Minardi (eminardi@asu.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
African Literature/Performance and New Media
Division: African Literatures
Paper proposals considering how new media technologies are shaping the production, circulation and reading of creative texts by Africans are invited. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Moradewun Adejunmobi (madejunmobi@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
The Work of Alfonso Ruiz de Aguirre
Special Session
Abstracts dealing any aspect of any of the works of Alfonso Ruiz de Aguirre. 300 word abstract and abbreviated CV (2 pages max. by 15 March 2013; Tania De Miguel Magro (tania.demiguelmagro@mail.wvu.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Cinema of Guantanamo: Torture, Temporality, Complicity
Special Session
How do recent films normalize or critique torture, rewrite history or reconcile audiences to America's treatment of its racial/ethnic 'enemies'? 500w abstract by 15 March 2013; Lance Duerfahrd (lduerfah@purdue.edu) and Megha Anwer (manwer@purdue.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Spanish/Latin American Children and Adolescent Literature
Special Session
This panel invites papers that analyze children and adolescent literature written in Spanish from any approach. Please submit 300 w. abstracts and a brief CV. by 15 March 2013; Maria Fernandez-Lamarque (maria.lamarque@tamuc.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Contesting the Radical Enlightenment
Division: Eighteenth-Century French Literature
This session will be devoted to a reevaluation and critique of the concept of Radical Enlightenment. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Ourida Mostefai (mostefai@bc.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Crise du français, impact de la francophonie ?
Allied Organization: Conseil International d'Etudes Francophones
Consulter http://cief.org/congres/appelMLA2014.pdf pour une description détaillée de la session. Envoyer un précis de 350 mots. by 15 March 2013; Oana Panaïté (opanaite@indiana.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Montaigne and Shakespeare
Division: Shakespeare
Intertextual relations including such issues as translation, rhetoric, skepticism, and the coming of modernity. Submit abstract by 15 March to Leonard Barkan (lbarkan@princeton.edu) and Bradin Cormack (bcormack@uchicago.edu). One-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Bradin Cormack (bcormack@uchicago.edu) and Leonard Barkan (lbarkan@princeton.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Women on Work, Women's Work
Division: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Literary and cultural approaches to work; material labor and the work of culture and language in the writings of George Sand and nineteenth-century women writers. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Pratima Prasad (Pratima.Prasad@umb.edu) and David Bell (dfbell@duke.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
O'Neill and the City
Allied Organization: Eugene O'Neill Society
O’Neill's relationship to urban life, as depicted in his plays, in contexts that influenced his writing, or in productions, including major revivals. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jefferey Kennedy (jtkennedy@asu.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Embedded Music: Sung Song in Narrative and Theatre
Special Session
Embedded songs influence on audience: e.g., ballads in novels, leitmotifs in soap operas, songs in non-musical theater. 15-20 min papers, performances, or informal presen by 15 March 2013; Jeffrey Weiner (jeffreyweiner@berkeley.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Comparing Theories of Trauma
Special Session
From antiquity to the present, panel will compare theories of trauma on the subject in literature. Theological, psychological, and other perspectives. Papers should be 15-20 minutes in length. by 15 March 2013; Jeffrey Weiner (jeffreyweiner@berkeley.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Roundtable on the Renaissance Mediterranean
Division: Sixteenth-Century French Literature
Current research on the early modern Mediterranean. Comparativist proposals, focus on the Mediterranean as a concept and analytic paradigm particularly welcome. Title and Abstract for 10-minute presentation by 15 March 2013; Andrea Marie Frisch (afrisch@umd.edu) and Marcus Keller (mkeller@illinois.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 14 February 2013
Meeting Where Students Are: Faculty-Library Collaborations and Undergraduate Research
Discussion Group: Libraries and Research in Languages and Literatures
Seeking best-practices, methods, activities or lessons-learned using research as a medium for collaborative teaching and learning involving faculty and librarians. http://wp.me/p29LID-1x. 300-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Bob Kieft (kieft@oxy.edu)
Posted 14 February 2013
Metafiction Revisited
Special Session
What are some contemporary and post-postmodern manifestations of metafiction? How has it evolved and changed since the 80's which is considered its hallmark? 250-word abstract by 11 March 2013; Lissi Athanasiou Krikelis (lissi.krikelis@gmail.com)
Posted 14 February 2013
Michael Haneke: Vulnerable Minds, Bodies, Spectators
Special Session
Human vulnerabilities to modernity, emotion, violence, age, etc. in Haneke’s films. How Haneke engages/exploits/critiques spectators' own vulnerabilities. Individual and comparative analyses welcomed. Abstracts, 250-500 words by 15 March 2013; Donald F. Larsson (donald.larsson@mnsu.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
ATDS panels at MLA
Allied Organization: American Theatre and Drama Society
ATDS invites proposals for papers on performance, theatre, and/or drama, engaging the MLA theme, "Vulnerable Times." Email 300-word abstract as Word attachment, 1-page by 10 March 2013; Peter Reed (preed@olemiss.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Revolutionary Afterlives: Creative Conversation about Two Books, One Year Later
Special Session
Session juxtaposes new books on French Revolution by Julia Douthwaite and Katherine Astbury. Conversation, debate between authors, respondents. 2-page CV, 300-word abstract by 1 March 2013; Julia V. Douthwaite (julia.v.douthwaite.1@nd.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Explorations in Celtic Languages and Literatures
Discussion Group: Celtic Languages and Literatures
Any aspect of Celtic languages, literatures, or cultures - including history, archaeology, linguistics, music, religion, folklore, art history, anthropology, or gender studies. 250-word electronic abstracts by 15 March 2013; Charlene M. Eska (ceska@vt.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Montaigne and Shakespeare
Division: Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature
Intertextual relations including issues of rhetoric, of translation and cultural exchange, of philosophical skepticism, and of selfhood at the edge of modernity. One-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Leonard Barkan (lbarkan@princeton.edu) and Bradin Cormack (bcormack@uchicago.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Comparative Renaissance Festivity
Division: Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature
Papers on religious and secular festival, festive custom, festive drama, literary representations of festivity, comparative European and new world festivity. One-page abstracts by 20 March 2013; Susanne Wofford (susanne.wofford@nyu.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Renaissance Rhetoric
Division: Comparative Studies in Renaissance and Baroque Literature
All aspects and topics of Renaissance rhetoric in a comparatist context, with an emphasis on epideictic rhetoric or the rhetoric of praise and blame. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Eric MacPhail (macphai@indiana.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Asia in Germany
Division: Eighteenth- and Early-Nineteenth-Century German Literature
How does engagement with Asia precede the concept of world literature? Romantic interest in Sanskrit, representations of China after chinoiserie, adaption of Islamic genres, Asia in fantastic tales/opera. by 11 March 2013; Daniel Purdy (dlp14@psu.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Harriet Monroe, Poetry Magazine, and Chicago Modernism
Special Session
We invite papers on the central role these figures and sites played in shaping poetic modernism. 250-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Erin J. Kappeler (erin.kappeler@tufts.edu) and Sarah Ehlers (sarah.ehlers@usd.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Modes of Learning in the Early Modern Iberian Worlds
Special Session
Forms of pedagogy and apprenticeship in communities beyond the University — academic, artistic, religious — and their textual forms of expression. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Nicole Hughes (nth2106@columbia.edu) and Noel Blanco Mourelle (nb2491@columbia.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Literary Works in Multiple Versions
Allied Organization: Association for Documentary Editing
This panel investigates the implications of multiple versions of a text, particularly for scholarly editors. Proposals of 500 words or less plus bio by 15 March 2013; Carol DeBoer-Langworthy (cdbl@brown.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Dialects of English Worldwide
Discussion Group: Present-Day English Language
The Discussion Group on Present-Day English seeks proposals on English language topics including: "Dialect" or "Variety?" Teaching multilingual/multidialectal speakers Dialect prejudice Dialect features in understudied areas. Abstracts of 500 words by 13 March 2013; Elizabeth Bell Canon (canon_eb@yahoo.com) and Jennifer Santos (jennifer.m.santos@gmail.com)
Posted 13 February 2013
Desire for Narrative in Law and Literature
Special Session
This roundtable (detailed cfp: http://bit.ly/lawandlitcfp) will explore legal and literary aesthetics and narrative, particularly as construed historically, pedagogically, or formally. Bio and 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Robin Wharton (robin.wharton@lcc.gatech.edu) and Derek Miller (dkmiller@stanford.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Diapora in Middle Eastern Literatures
Special Session
Proposals that focus on diaspora in Anglophone Middle Eastern Literatures and discuss broader issues such as gender, ethnicity, language and narrative. 300-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Eda Dedebas Dundar (eda.dedebas@gmail.com)
Posted 13 February 2013
Anglo-Saxon Studies in the Profession
Division: Old English Language and Literature
Roundtable on Anglo-Saxon curricula and studies in the profession. Short papers on teaching, administration, research, and the role of popular media (blogs, Facebook, etc.). 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Old English Law and Literature
Division: Old English Language and Literature
How do legal and literary texts illuminate social and political developments, or conceptions of self and the community? Why is interdisciplinarity important? 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Wonder in Anglo-Saxon England
Division: Old English Language and Literature
Wonder as an emotional, physical or intellectual response; textual and material catalysts for wonder; boredom or malaise as wonder’s opposite. 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
Cultures of Reading in Anglo-Saxon England
Division: Old English Language and Literature
Forms of meditative, ascetic, and active reading; representations of reading/ readers; close reading and its others; connections to contemporary reading praxis. 500-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Samantha Zacher (sz66@cornell.edu)
Posted 13 February 2013
New Oceanic Studies of the Colonial Americas
Division: Colonial Latin American Literatures
How have oceanic studies reframed approaches to early Anglo and Iberian colonialisms? Papers exploring oceans in the cross-currents of our fields welcome. One-page CV, abstract by 15 March 2013; Stephanie Louise Kirk (skirk@wustl.edu) and Kathleen Donegan (kdonegan@berkeley.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Encyclopedism
Division: Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature
The many facets of the encyclopedic urge in the 13th-15th centuries. Any and all approaches are welcome. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; David F. Hult (dhult@berkeley.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Medieval Literature, Digital Humanities
Division: Comparative Studies in Medieval Literature
Methods, tools, new directions: any and all approaches considered. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Geraldine Heng (heng@austin.utexas.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013, last updated 13 February 2013
Retheorizing the "Vernacular"
Special Session
Inviting fresh critical considerations of local, subaltern, and other non-canonical processes that are antithetical to classical, cosmopolitan, and national formations in language, literature, culture. 350-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Aparna Dharwadker (adharwadker@wisc.edu) and Vinay Dharwadker (vdharwadker@wisc.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Beyond the Proto-Monograph: New Models for the Dissertation
Special Session
Focus on how the dissertation should/is changing in response to the digital turn, doctoral reform, or various 'crises.' Pechakucha style presentations. 250-300 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Daniel Powell (djpowell@uvic.ca)
Posted 12 February 2013
Romanticism and Systems
Allied Organization: North American Society for the Study of Romanticism
Any aspect of the relationship between Romanticism and systems (aesthetic, biological, linguistic, political etc.). 500 word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Mark Canuel (mcanuel@uic.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
The image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain
Special Session
This panel explores fictionalized representations of Queen Elizabeth I and their impact on the Spanish collective imagination at the time. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Esther Fernández (ef336@cornell.edu) and Eduardo Olid (EOlid@muhlenberg.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Teaching and Hospitality
Special Session
This roundtable explores how hospitality as a metaphor for teaching informs particular pedagogical decisions (e.g. teaching as "host" or "guest, food, safety, physical space, etc.). Abstracts of 200-300 words by 12 March 2013; Jacob Stratman (jstratman@jbu.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Virginia Woolf, book history & arts
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Woolf and letterpress, bookbinding, book arts; depictions of the material book or printing process in Woolf; or bibliographical or manuscript-based studies. lhankins@cornellcollege.edu and barnhiselg@duq.edu. 300-word abstract by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Virginia Woolf, book history & arts
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Woolf and letterpress, bookbinding, book arts; depictions of the material book or printing process in Woolf; or bibliographical or manuscript-based studies. lhankins@cornellcollege.edu and barnhiselg@duq.edu. 300-word abstract by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Woolf and London's Colonial Writers
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Literary, political, social, and spatial connections between Virginia Woolf and London-affiliated writers from the British colonies. Elizabeth F. Evans elizabeth.evans@nd.edu. (subject to MLA approval). 300 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Woolf, Wittgenstein, and Ordinary Language
Allied Organization: International Virginia Woolf Society
Woolf's and Wittgenstein’s philosophies of ordinary language, their tangential relationship to the “Apostles” and/or Bloomsbury. Organizers: Madelyn Detloff detlofmm@miamioh.edu and Gaile Pohlhaus Jr. pohlhag@miamioh.edu. 300 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Leslie Kathleen Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
WWI and the Poetics of Slavic Memory
Discussion Group: Slavic Literatures and Cultures
The significance of the outbreak of WWI cannot be overestimated. This panel confronts the variety of cultural and aesthetic approaches to memorializing this moment. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; David L. Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Soviet Cinema and Western Film Theory
Discussion Group: Slavic Literatures and Cultures
This panel examines how Soviet films influenced film theory philosophy in the West, and how those theories have subsequently changed our view of Soviet cinema. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; David L. Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Visualizing Vulnerability
Special Session
How does Caribbean visual culture bear upon imaginings of social, historical or political vulnerability? 150 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Guillermina De Ferrari (gdeferrari@wisc.edu) and Jacqueline Loss (jacqueline.loss@uconn.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Job Success despite these Vulnerable Times
Special Session
Papers discussing successful academic and non-academic job searches, particularly offering tips for recent PhDs, are especially welcome. 250-word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Belinda Wheeler (bwheeler@paine.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
The Avant-Garde at War
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of Dada and Surrealism
Papers welcome on the exigency and fate of radical aesthetics in times of war: e.g. anti-colonial, world war, revolutions, Hungary 1956, May 1968, 9/11, Persian Gulf. 1-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jonathan P. Eburne (jpe11@psu.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Epic, Tragedy, and Community
Special Session
How do the memorializing practices instituted in epic and tragedy from any period or region contribute to constituting communities and negotiating ethical relations? 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Jennifer R. Ballengee (jballeng@towson.edu) and Erin Fehskens (efehskens@towson.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Dada, Surrealism, and the Poetics of Outsider Art
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of Dada and Surrealism
Papers invited that explore the interrelationships between Dada, Surrealism and self-taught / visionary / marginal thinkers, writers, and artists. 1-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kate Conley (kconley@wm.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Roundtable: Book History and Digital Humanities
Allied Organization: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
The relationships between book history and digital humanities. Short presentations on new scholarship in book history and DH, archival materials, learning DH skills, etc. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Lise Jaillant (ljaill01@interchange.ubc.ca)
Posted 12 February 2013
Technology and Teaching Vulnerable Languages in Vulnerable Times
MLA Committee: Committee on Community Colleges
How technology creates new possibilities for teaching Native American, Native Latin American, and/or many other minority languages. Internet, YouTube, distance/learning, MOOCs. Abstracts 250 words by 1 March 2013; Arturo Davila-Sanchez (adavila@peralta.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 12 February 2013
Spenser's "Darke" Materials
Allied Organization: International Spenser Society
As Amphion moved stones with songs to build Thebes, Spenser shaped matter into poetry. This panel examines Spenser’s imbrication of materials (tools, remains) and immaterial forces (language, memory). abstracts by 15 March 2013; Tiffany Jo Werth (twerth@sfu.ca) and Rebeca Helfer (rhelfer@uci.edu)
Posted 12 February 2013
Nature
Division: the English Romantic Period
of/ and/ or Romanticism: the un-green, post-green, ever-green; grafts, transplants, hybrids; histories, economies; scale, pace; local/ total/ micro; de-naturing, re-naturing; (without) life; the “all in all”/ “now no more.”. 300-word proposals by 11 March 2013; Miranda Jane Burgess (mirandab@mail.ubc.ca)
Posted 11 February 2013
"How to Read Now"
Division: Twentieth-Century American Literature
Can hermeneutics of suspicion and "surface readings" join forces? Can ideological interpretations be reparative? Reflections on recent divides in reading 20th-century U.S. texts. 1-2 page abstracts and CVs. by 15 March 2013; William J. Maxwell (wmaxwell@wustl.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Italian Difference
Division: Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
The Italian historical-theoretical disposition to impurity, profanation, and contamination in Novecento and contemporary literature and/with other media. Multidisciplinary papers welcome. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 20 March 2013. abstracts by 20 March 2013; Manuela Marchesini (mmarchesini@tamu.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Re-Thinking Divismo: Italy and Modern Celebrity Culture
Division: Twentieth-Century Italian Literature
Celebrity studies analyzing identities, politics, theatre, literature, cinema, media from Duse and D’Annunzio to Berlusconi and Benigni. 250 word abstract, bio by 15 March 2013; John Welle (John.P.Welle.1@nd.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Scandal and Early American Literature
Division: American Literature to 1800
Innovative approaches to the interdynamic between scandal and EAL and culture: scandals in literature, literature as scandal; scandal and authorship, genre, economy, sex, etc. CV and abstract by 15 March 2013; Sean X. Goudie (sxgoudie@psu.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Scientific Americans: Exploring Science in Early American Literature
Division: American Literature to 1800
New perspectives on the place of scientific inquiry in early American literature, and/or the literary qualities of scientific writing. One-page CV and abstract. by 15 March 2013; Kathleen Donegan (kdonegan@berkeley.edu) and Sean X. Goudie (sxgoudie@psu.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
New Oceanic Studies of the Colonial Americas
Division: American Literature to 1800
How have oceanic studies reframed approaches to early Anglo and Iberian colonialisms? Papers exploring oceans in the cross-currents of our fields welcome. One-page CV, abstract by 15 March 2013; Kathleen Donegan (kdonegan@berkeley.edu) and Stephanie Kirk (stephanielouisekirk@gmail.com)
Posted 11 February 2013
Fine Arts and Comics
Discussion Group: Comics and Graphic Narratives
Papers on the historical relationship, and interconnection between the form of comics and the art world. Chicago connections, e.g. The Hairy Who, welcome. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Hillary L. Chute (chute@uchicago.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Collaboration in Comics
Discussion Group: Comics and Graphic Narratives
The verbal-visual form of comics offers unique opportunities for collaboration. We invite critical perspectives on the advantages, constraints, and effects of collaboration in comics. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Charles Hatfield (charles.hatfield@csun.edu )
Posted 11 February 2013
Transnational Comics
Discussion Group: Comics and Graphic Narratives
Comics have long been the visual and textual testament to global interaction. We invite papers that explore the transnational contexts that comics offer, imitate, and critique. Abstracts by 8 March 2013; Nhora Serrano (Nhora.Serrano@csulb.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Emotion in Cervantes
Allied Organization: Cervantes Society of America
Emotion, including the plural sense of emotions, affects, sentiments, passions, in Cervantes’ writings. How emotion is represented in texts, elicited in readers, articulated through language or character. 200-word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Steven Hutchinson (shutchin@wisc.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
East European Women's Tales of Relocation
Discussion Group: Romanian Studies
Recent changes in narrative patterns in oral/written/visual, conventional/unconventional postcommunist tales of East European women’s migration and mobility in the global age. short bio and abstract by 15 March 2013; Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru (sabina.draga@americanstudies.ro)
Posted 11 February 2013
Yiddish Connections
Discussion Group: Yiddish Literature
We seek papers connecting Yiddish with other cultures, literatures, or traditions through acts of imagination and resistance. Varied approaches (text analysis, literary history, and translation) welcome. Abstracts. <300 words by 15 March 2013; Kathryn Ann Hellerstein (khellers@sas.upenn.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Jewish American or Jewish Americas?
Discussion Group: Jewish American Literature
Papers examining/expanding the location of “America” in Jewish American literary study to include the Caribbean, Central/South America, or Canada. Abstracts (<300 words) by 15 March 2013; Laurence D. Roth (roth@susqu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Literature and/as Ethnography
Division: Twentieth-Century French Literature
Papers will explore the ethnographic impulse in 20th/21st-century French literature. Topics may include the exotic and the everyday; ethnographic narrative and fiction; description and participation. 250-word abstracts, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Alison S. James (asj@uchicago.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Francophone African Writers and Anthropology
Division: Twentieth-Century French Literature
This collaborative session will explore the engagement of French-speaking African writers with anthropology in the 20th-century. 300-word abstract, short CV by 15 March 2013; Vincent Debaene (vd2169@columbia.edu) and Justin Izzo (justin_izzo@brown.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Francophone African Writers and Anthropology
Division: African Literatures
This session will explore the engagement of French-speaking African writers with anthropology in the 20th-century. 300-word abstract and short CV by 15 March 2013; Justin Izzo (justin_izzo@brown.edu) and Vincent Debaene (vd2169@columbia.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Expatriation, Authorship, and Reception in African Literatures
Division: African Literatures
Forms and themes of expatriation and location in African literatures. Who/what is an African author? Examinations of relationships between expatriation and literary form. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi (tunjitunji@yahoo.com) and Joya Uraizee (uraizeej@slu.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
The State in African Literatures
Division: African Literatures
Papers on representations of the state (both the real and the desired) and biopolitics in African literatures; Alain Lawo-Sukam (lawosukam@tamu.edu) and Neil Kortenaar (kortenaar@utsc.utoronto.ca). 250-WORD ABSTRACTS by 8 March 2013; Neil Koortenaar (kortenaar@utsc.utoronto.ca) and Alain Lawo-Sukam (lawosukam@tamu.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Beyond Huck and Puddn'head: Mark Twain and Race
Allied Organization: Mark Twain Circle of America
three paper panel. 300 word abstracts examining Twain and race in wor by 15 March 2013; John Bird (birdj@winthrop.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Mark Twain's Style(s)
Allied Organization: Mark Twain Circle of America
A three-paper session analyzing Mark Twain's style. 300 word abstracts analyzing aspects of Mark Twain by 15 March 2013; John Bird (birdj@winthrop.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Postcolonial Graphic Memoirs
Division: Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing
Please submit abstracts examining graphic texts dealing with self-construction/representation and questions of diasporic identification, decolonization, empire and transnational belonging. 200-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Linda Rugg (rugg@berkeley.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
2014's 1914: Great War
Division: Late-Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century English Literature
Emergent approaches to World War One stressing revisionism motivated by recent events and theoretical developments. Abstracts (300 words) to Jesse Matz (matzj@kenyon.edu) by March 1. 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jesse E. Matz (matzj@kenyon.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Alternative Sexualities in 19th-century Realist Fiction
Allied Organization: International Association of Galdós Scholars
What are the questions arising from the study of non-normative sexualities in the fiction of Benito Pérez Galdós and his contemporaries? 250 word abstracts by 3 March 2013; Collin McKinney (cm038@bucknell.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
The Policy Era
Special Session
This panel attends to the relationship between postwar American foreign policy and the aesthetic problems facing American novelists involved with these initiatives. Submit 250 word abstracts by March 15. by 15 March 2013; Merve Emre (merve.emre@yale.edu) and Maggie Doherty (doherty4@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 11 February 2013
Made in Germany: Nation Branding through Feminist Literature and Film
Allied Organization: Women in German
This panel considers how German feminist texts support, challenge, and/or undermine the creation and marketing of a German national brand. 250-word abstract by 1 March 2013; Julie K Allen (jkallen@wisc.edu) and Jamele Watkins (jamele@german.umass.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Fifty Shades of Brecht
Allied Organization: Women in German
Brecht's (mis-)treatment of female collaborators is notorious. Panel considers why women sacrificed so much to work with Brecht and what benefit they derived from this collaboration. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Julie K Allen (jkallen@wisc.edu) and Kristopher Imbrigotta (imbrigotta@wisc.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 11 February 2013
Medicine, Literature, and Gender
Special Session
We invite proposals that consider the relationship between gender and medicine in 19th- and early 20th-century literature (British or American). Abstract of 300 words and one-page CV by 15 March 2013; Danielle Coriale (dcoriale@unc.edu) and Anne Stiles (astiles1@slu.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Why Rancière is important? Rethinking the Political in light of Contemporary Global Revolution
Special Session
This session invites papers discussing themes of vulnerability, resistance and social change in Jacques Rancière’s work. 500 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Haythem Guesmi (h.guesmi@umontreal.ca)
Posted 10 February 2013
Coming Out as ‘Alt Ac’
Special Session
How open can students be about wanting non-tenure track careers? Roundtable on the personal and professional consequences of “coming out” as Alt Ac. 200 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Stacy Hartman (stacyh1@stanford.edu) and Bridget Whearty (bwhearty@stanford.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Dickens and the Environment
Allied Organization: Dickens Society
How might we characterize modes of nineteenth-century environmental thinking, and how did Dickens intervene? How might we understand his contribution to a nineteenth-century environmental imaginary? 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Michael Rectenwald (Dickens.universe.environment@gmail.com) and Allen MacDuffie (Dickens.universe.environment@gmail.com)
Posted 10 February 2013
Puerto Rican Crime Narratives
Discussion Group: Puerto Rican Literature and Culture
We seek papers examining any aspect of Puerto Rican crime narratives (noir, hard-boiled, true crime, etc), on any genre (fiction, film, graphic novels, and/or popular music). 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jason Cortés (jasoncor@andromeda.rutgers.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Shakespearean Hierarchies: History and Natural History
Division: Shakespeare
sovereignty; legitimacy; subordination; natural law; chain of being; order and disorder; proportion; perfection; properties; categories; kinds; rank; class; dominion; offices; genre; mediation; accommodation. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Mary L. Floyd-Wilson (floydwil@email.unc.edu)
Posted 10 February 2013
Eastern European and US American Cultures
Special Session
Seeking papers on connections between Eastern European and US literatures, cultures, or media post-1989; 300-word abstract and brief CV. by 15 March 2013; Claudia Sadowski-Smith (Claudia.Sadowski-Smith@asu.edu) and Ioana Luca (ioana.luca@ntnu.edu.tw)
Posted 10 February 2013
Queer Wharton
Allied Organization: Edith Wharton Society
Homosexuality and homosociality in Wharton; queer authors, intertexts, and aesthetics in Wharton’s writing; Wharton’s relationships with gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals; queering Wharton’s nonfiction writing. 250-word abstracts and c.v.s by 15 March 2013; Meredith Lynn Goldsmith (mgoldsmith@ursinus.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013
Literary Communism: Community without Community
Special Session
Papers on the dialectics of class and difference in Nancy's "literary communism" as the transformative writing that inserts difference into community and Agamben's "the coming community." Abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Stephen C. Tumino (stephen.tumino@kbcc.cuny.edu)
Posted 9 February 2013
Contemporary Central American Cultural Production
Special Session
DEADLINE EXTENDED! This session will adopt a fresh approach to contemporary Central American literature, film and music. We welcome papers from all disciplines. Abstracts (300 words) by 15 February 2013; Jennifer Carolina Gómez Menjívar (jgomezme@d.umn.edu)
Posted 11 December 2012, last updated 8 February 2013
Beyond Autobiography, Ethnography, and Profiling: Tabish Khair and Postcolonial Narrative Today
Special Session
The narrative interventions into history found in Tabish Khair’s novels (and/or in those of Rushdie, Hamid, etc.). 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jim Hicks (jhicks@complit.umass.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Kesey's Sometimes A Great Notion Fifty Years Later
Special Session
The 50th anniversary calls for a renewed evaluation of this product of the early sixties. Abstract or 2500 word paper by 15 March 2013; C. Herbert Gilliland (gillilan@usna.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Reading Pragmatically in Vulnerable Times
Special Session
How might pragmatic critical methods (exemplified by Peirce, Dewey, James, Rorty, Poirier) help us to live in an uncertain “universe of chance”? 300-word abstract and one-page CV by 15 March 2013; Kate Stanley (kate.stanley@uwo.ca)
Posted 8 February 2013
Medieval Revival in France
Special Session
This panel investigates how the Middle Ages were remembered, imagined and reinvented in the arts and literature of fin-de-siècle or early XX century France. 500-word abstract, paper title. by 15 March 2013; Stephen P. McCormick (smccormi@mailbox.sc.edu) and Leah K. S. Holz (Leah.Holz@colorado.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Singing Out in the American Literary Experience
Discussion Group: Folklore and Literature
Proposals are sought concerning the use of folk song (blues, jazz, country, etc.) within American Literature of any genre or period. 350 word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Mark Allan Jackson (mark.jackson@mtsu.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
La política de género: Reflexiones culturales en el capitalismo de la España contemporánea
Special Session
La redefinición de géneros sexuales desde la perspectiva literaria y fílmica. Brief abstract (500 words max) and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Ana-Maria Medina (amedin40@mscd.edu) and Jen Brady (Jennifer.Brady@du.edu)
Posted 8 February 2013
Transatlantic Ireland
Discussion Group: Anglo-Irish Literature
Proposals (250 words) are invited on the transatlantic in any period(s) of Irish literature; possible topics include migration, travel, circulation of texts, and geography/geopolitics. Proposals (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Julia M. Wright (julia.wright@dal.ca)
Posted 8 February 2013
Illness and Disability Memoir as Embodied Knowledge
MLA Committee: Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession
Life writing about illness/disability as a form of theoretical knowledge. New ways of conceiving relationship of memoir to embodiment, environment, and community. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Rachel Adams (rea15@columbia.edu) and Helen Deutsch (hdeutsch@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013, last updated 8 February 2013
Stupid Dickens
Allied Organization: Dickens Society
Moving beyond pronouncements that Dickens produced one-dimensional characters appealing to our non-intellectual selves. Consider intelligence/stupidity in terms of provincialism/urbanity; cognition/affect; race, class, genre. 250 word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Rae Greiner (drgreine@indiana.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
JEAN-LUC GODARD: HISTORY, THEORY, CINEMA
Special Session
This panel will reassess the historical and theoretical implications of Godard’s films and media productions since 1990. 450-word proposals by 15 March 2013; Richard Neupert (neupert@uga.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Faulkner and Disability
Allied Organization: William Faulkner Society
Suggested topics: representation of disability, constructions of ableism, applications of disability studies to Faulkner's work, the intersection of modernism and disability, or other related areas. 500 word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Deborah L. Clarke (deborah.clarke@asu.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Faulkner and Women Writers
Allied Organization: William Faulkner Society
Proposals on Faulkner’s relation to women writers, including but not limited to: specific writers, techniques associated with women writers, reception theory, cultural context. 500 word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Deborah L. Clarke (deborah.clarke@asu.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Representations of Muslim Female Sexuality in Early Modern English Travel Narratives
Special Session
Any theoretical paradigm is encouraged, especially feminist or post-colonial theory. Please submit abstracts of 250-500 words. by 18 March 2013; William Reginald Rampone (wrampone@scsu.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Books and the Law
Allied Organization: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
Readers, writers, publishers, printers, booksellers, and the law: copyright, sedition/blasphemy, legal texts, censorship, the law in literature, labor law in print shops, etc. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 March 2013; Greg Barnhisel (barnhiselg@duq.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Book History and Woolf
Allied Organization: Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing
Virginia Woolf, book history & arts. Woolf and letterpress, bookbinding, book arts; depictions of the material book or printing process in Woolf; bibliographical or manuscript-based studies. 300-word abstract by 8 March 2013; Greg Barnhisel (barnhiselg@duq.edu) and Leslie Hankins (lhankins@cornellcollege.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Revisiting the US Queer of Color Canon
Special Session
Papers focused on revisiting/reinterpreting canonical texts by 20th/21st century US queers of color: canonicity, critical reappraisal, iconography, legacies. 250 word abstract and 1 page CV by 10 March 2013; Aureliano DeSoto (aureliano.desoto@metrostate.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
Cognitive Approaches to French Renaissance Literature
Division: Sixteenth-Century French Literature
What can cognitive science tell us about literature, and literature about cognitive processes? Case studies in the French Renaissance. Title and Abstract for a 20-minute presentation by 15 March 2013; Andrea Marie Frisch (afrisch@umd.edu)
Posted 7 February 2013
The Materiality of Power: Embodied Performances of Resistance in Medieval and Early Modern Spain
Special Session
This session examines how subjects traditionally seen as disenfranchised express resistance through embodied behavior. Send 250 words abstract by 15 March 2013; Rebeca Castellanos (castellr@gvsu.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Economy and Literature
Division: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literature
How are 18th and 19th-century economic processes (profit, value, money, commerce, management of material wealth) connected to literary, cultural and social formations (i.e., gender, class, race)? abstracts by 1 March 2013; Ana Hontanilla (amhontan@uncg.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Cosmopolitanism and its Discontents
Division: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Spanish Literature
This panel will explore the tensions between cosmopolitanism and its various conceptual antagonists within 18th- and 19th-century culture and its study today. 250-page abstracts by 1 March 2013; Michael Iarocci (miarocci@berkeley.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Joseph C. Landis: In Memoriam
Allied Organization: American Association of Professors of Yiddish
Session on topics studied by Joe Landis, the late founder of our association: An-sky, Asch, Bashevis, Hirschbein, Leivick, Philip Roth, Yiddish theater memoirs, etc. 150-300 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Alan Astro (aastro@trinity.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013, last updated 6 February 2013
Futures of South-South Comparison
Special Session
Seeking proposals for a roundtable on the challenges/potential of comparison in the Southern Hemisphere—from material histories of exchange to more abstract critical “resonances”. 300-word (approx.) abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Magalí Armillas-Tiseyra (marmilla@olemiss.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013, last updated 6 February 2013
Apocalyptic Voices in West Asian Culture
Discussion Group: West Asian Languages and Literatures
This panel tracks apocalyptic narratives of West Asian intellectuals as they confronted modernity and its postmodern aftermath, an encounter manifesting a fatalistic imagination of civilization's end. by 15 March 2013; Stephen Sheehi (sheehi@sc.edu) and Jason Mohaghegh (jmohaghegh@njcu.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Language, Colonialism, and the State in Nineteenth Century Southwest Asia
Discussion Group: West Asian Languages and Literatures
Resistance, co-optation or disciplining? How does language act under the violence of colonialism and state formation in 19th century Southwest Asia? by 15 March 2013; Stephen Sheehi (sheehi@sc.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
The Revolution's Memory
Discussion Group: West Asian Languages and Literatures
We welcome proposals that consider how memoirs write and form narratives about contemporary revolutionary movements and moments in West Asia? West Asia Language and Literature Discussion Group by 15 March 2013; Stephen Sheehi (sheehi@sc.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
Common Core State Standards: Paradigmatic Shifts
Special Session
An exploration of how CCSS will impact English majors who enter the K-12 teaching profession and how CCSS will/may shift college course design and offerings. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jocelyn Ann Chadwick (jocelynchadwick@yahoo.com)
Posted 6 February 2013
Constructive responses to current challenges faced by German
Allied Organization: American Association of Teachers of German
Constructive, radical curricular revisions incorporated at undergraduate/graduate level in response to challenges of decreasing enrollments, closures, lack of institutional support. 300-word abstract and bio by 1 March 2013; Eva Russo (erusso@wustl.edu)
Posted 6 February 2013
The Naked Eye: Visuality and Vulnerability
Special Session
How does the visual/visible alongside, within, as text convey or resist vulnerability? Abstracts addressing any time period, genre, culture(s) welcome. 300-400-word abstract and 1 page CV by 8 March 2013; Allison Crawford (allison.crawford@utoronto.ca)
Posted 5 February 2013
Representing African American Adolescence
Special Session
Seeking papers that address the literary representation of African American adolescence, particularly from the perspective of Black youth narrators, in the post-Civil Rights period. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jennifer Griffiths (jgriff02@nyit.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Time and the Sublime around 1800
Special Session
Temporality and Romantic aesthetics circa 1780-1820. Seeking 5-10 minute talks (e.g. Lightning Shorts, PechaKucha). Detailed call on cfp.english.upenn.edu. Proposals describing content and format by 15 March 2013; Angela Vietto (arvietto@eiu.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Occupy MLA
Special Session
@OccupyMLA was a netprov about vulnerable adjuncts dreaming of tenure. Papers analyzing work as e-literature, activist fiction, netprov, hoax. 250-word abstract, brief CV by 15 March 2013; l.skallerup@moreheadstate.edu. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Lee Skallerup Bessette (l.skallerup@moreheadstate.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Class Vulnerabilities in Academia
Special Session
Roundtable on the dangers and potentialities of class as a marker of scholarly, pedagogical, and social vulnerability within the academy. Abstract (250 words) by 10 March 2013; Sara Appel (sea10@duke.edu) and Michele Fazio (michele.fazio@uncp.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Immigrant Auto/biography
Special Session
How does auto/biography help the immigrant subject negotiate, and situate him/herself in, shifting contexts of space, society, gender and religion? 250-word abstract and 50-word bio by 15 March 2013; Alana J. Fletcher (7af15@queensu.ca) and Shadi Ghazimoradi (11sg28@queensu.ca)
Posted 5 February 2013
Lit Misbehaving: Digital Accidents and Agency
Special Session
Critical approaches to unmanageable, deviant, erring electronic texts--including digitized literature, codework, internet art, e-lit, etc. Specifically questions of intentionality and reading. 400-word abstract & short cv by 15 March 2013; Rachael Sullivan (sulliv97@uwm.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013, last updated 5 February 2013
Contingency at the Core
Division: Teaching as a Profession
Implications for curriculum change when a school's curriculum is taught largely by contingent faculty members. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kimberly Nance (kanance@ilstu.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 5 February 2013
Cuba on Stage
Discussion Group: Cuban and Cuban Diaspora Cultural Production
We seek papers on any facet of Cuban or Cuban Diaspora theater or other performing arts and its critical resonance for aesthetics, culture, politics, or everyday life. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Vicky Unruh (kunruh@ku.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
The History of Teaching as a Profession
Division: Teaching as a Profession
Short papers examining past historical accounts of teaching or presenting new histories from which we can learn lessons. 500 word abstracts and short bios by 8 March 2013; Steven Mailloux (sjmaillo@uci.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013, last updated 5 February 2013
Marxism and Psychoanalysis in the Twenty-First Century
Special Session
Addresses the theoretical-methodological intersectionality of two influential but controversial disciplines, with special focus on their current historical, cultural, and/or political relevancy and applicability. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Adam Meehan (ameehan@email.arizona.edu) and Carlos Gallego (gallego@stolaf.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Nineteenth-Century American Popular Publishing
Special Session
Approaches defined broadly by production factors, volume, form, or relationships between publisher, author, and the mass consumer. 250-word abstract and cv by 15 March 2013; Dustin Kennedy (dmk336@psu.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Guns in American Culture
Special Session
Analyses of firearms, violence, gun culture and armed (or targeted) identities in American literature, film and television. 250-word abstracts by 18 March 2013; Louis Sherman (louis.sherman@utah.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Las hijas del mar. Emociones de costa a ciudad
Special Session
Rosalía de Castro su generación. La exploración de la emotividad entre los sexos. Abstract inglés o español, 300 palabras. by 15 March 2013; Ana Simon (AISimon@adelphi.edu)
Posted 5 February 2013
Reading after Negri
Special Session
Hardt and Negri read Bartleby's “refusal to work" as inaugurating “a liberatory politics." Papers on the "ends" of politics of singularity/collectivity and the place of "reading" in it. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Kimberly DeFazio (kdefazio@uwlax.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Native South: Past, Present, and Future
Allied Organization: Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Where do Native American and southern literary studies intersect? What are the perils/possibilities for imagining the Native South as a field of study? Abstracts, 250 Words by 15 March 2013; Gina Caison (gcaison@gsu.edu) and Stephanie Rountree (slittle19@gsu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
Other Archives, Other Souths
Allied Organization: Society for the Study of Southern Literature
How have authors incorporated histories beyond those found in traditional archival sources in order to broaden representations of a multicultural south in literature? Abstracts, 250 Words by 15 March 2013; Gina Caison (gcaison@gsu.edu) and Stephanie Rountree (slittle19@gsu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
Rethinking Hispanic Orientalism
Special Session
Papers theorizing and analyzing the development of Hispanic Orientalism in Spain and Latin America. 300-word abstract, short bio by 10 March 2013; Svetlana Tyutina (svetatyutina@yahoo.com)
Posted 4 February 2013
Upstream Both Ways: Aligning Community Colleges and Four-Year Institutions
MLA Committee: Committee on Community Colleges
Expectations, successes, and challenges in the preparation, upward passage, and persistence of composition, literature, and language students. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Eric William Devlin (eric.devlin@tccd.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Chicago Schools of Anthropology and Literature
Division: Anthropological Approaches to Literature
Papers that explore or exemplify anthropological methods associated with Chicago in dialogue with literary analysis or that interrogate texts by Chicago anthropologists. 250-word abstracts, brief CV by 15 March 2013; Brian T. Edwards (bedwards@northwestern.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Animal and Artistic Life
Special Session
Does capital’s expansion over life link the vulnerabilities of animal life to those of artistic life? Can their vulnerabilities be addressed simultaneously? Send abstracts to gvarner@purdue.edu or mapplega@g by 8 March 2013; Matthew Varner (gvarner@purdue.edu) and Matt Applegate (mapplega@gmail.com)
Posted 4 February 2013
Disability Discourses in Latin America: Academy and Activism
Division: Disability Studies
Roundtable exploring current issues and discourses in disability studies in LA. 6-7 minute position papers identifying areas of research, activism. 200-word abstract, cv by 1 March 2013; Beth Jorgenson (beth.jorgensen@rochester.edu) and Susan Antebi (susan.antebi@utoronto.ca)
Posted 4 February 2013
Writing (Beyond) Regionalisms in Northeastern North America
Special Session
Seeking papers that consider or challenge the ways in which Atlantic Canadian/New England literatures reinforce the Canada/U.S. border. Please submit a 200-300 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Rachel Bryant (rachel.bryant@unb.ca)
Posted 4 February 2013
Vulnerability and Survivalism of Humanities in Corporatized Academia
Allied Organization: Community College Humanities Association
A roundtable on how humanities faculty can resist adjunctification and other neoliberal "market-driven" values and corporate structures increasingly prevalent in academia. abstracts/ position papers by 11 March 2013; George Louis Scheper (gscheper@jhu.edu) and Stacey Donohue (sdonohue@cocc.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Keats & Company
Allied Organization: Keats-Shelley Association of America
Keats’s life and work in the context of Romantic sociability: friends, coteries, and collectors, then and now; conversation, correspondence, and print. 250 word abstract and brief bio by 15 March 2013; Sarah M. Zimmerman (zimmerman@fordham.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
"I've Known Rivers": Water in African Diasporic Literary Consciousness
Special Session
Research that engages water in African Diaspora literature. Including: migration, memory, access, transatlantic crossings, black spirituality, disaster, trauma. 350 word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Kameelah L. Martin (kmsamuel@uh.edu) and Folashade Alao (ALAOF@mailbox.sc.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
The Long Weekend: Popular Culture in Inter-War Britain
Special Session
Papers on any form of popular culture, including genre fiction, popular drama, film, middlebrow literature, reportage, etc., that illuminate the period. Abstract, brief bio. by 1 March 2013; Rosemary Erickson Johnsen (rjohnsen@govst.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Innovative Criticism
Special Session
Roundtable discussion about the production and publication of innovative, experimental, affective, multi-genre, or performative criticism, with participants at different stages of academic careers. abstracts and vitae by 8 March 2013; Robin Silbergleid (silberg1@msu.edu) and Kristina Quynn (quynn@colostate.edu)
Posted 4 February 2013
Names and naming in language studies
Allied Organization: American Name Society
Papers on names and naming in any area of language study from anywhere in the world are welcomed. 250 word abstract by February 15 2013. by 15 February 2013; Carol Lombard (linguist1022@gmail.com)
Posted 9 January 2013, last updated 4 February 2013
Remembering the Perpetrators: Empathy and Moral Responsibility in Spanish Cultural Production
Special Session
Analyses of the figure of the power-abuser and perpetrator of violence in 20th/21st century Spanish film and literature. 250-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Katherine Stafford (kostafford@ucdavis.edu) and Ana Luengo (luengo@gmx.net)
Posted 3 February 2013
Fiction in Flux: Genre and Transmission in Recent Latin American Narrative
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Exploring manifestations of fiction and modes of transmission (hand-made books, blogs, other electronic platforms). 250-word abstracts and brief bios by 15 March 2013; Marcy Schwartz (mschwartz@spanport.rutgers.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013
Imprisonment and Resistance
Special Session
Current directions in American prison studies, with a focus on how twentieth-century US literature has contributed to prison abolition. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Katy Ryan (kohearnr@mail.wvu.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013
Affirmation and the End of the Negative
Special Session
Foucault dreamt of criticism that "would not judge." Has theory become affirmation of the existing? Papers on abandonment of the negative, dialectics, and critique. abstracts by 1 March 2013; Julie P. Torrant (Julie.Torrant@kbcc.cuny.edu)
Posted 3 February 2013
Transcendental Materialisms
Allied Organization: Thoreau Society
We seek presentations demonstrating how new/green materialist approaches elucidate the Concord Transcendentalists’ engagements with subject/object, mind/matter, and self/world--preferably (but not exclusively) in relation to their Transatlantic contemporaries. 500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Rochelle Johnson (rjohnson@collegeofidaho.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013, last updated 2 February 2013
Soupirs et murmures
Special Session
From the unspoken sufferings of classical tragedy to the seditious mutterings of encyclopedic logorrhea, how does pre-revolutionary French literature still resonate with our quietly manipulative identities? 250-300 word abstract. by 17 March 2013; Eric Turcat (eturcat@hotmail.com)
Posted 2 February 2013
New Digital Vanguards in Spanish Literature
Special Session
Papers exploring the relationship between new media technologies and recent experimental changes in Spanish-language literature (aesthetics, themes, means of distribution, hybrid genres, mutli-platform, etc). 250-500-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Alexandra Saum-Pascual (saum-pascual@berkeley.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Dreaming the Actual: Chicago Literary Voices
Allied Organization: Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature
How do Chicago writers use - - and resist - - the city in their art? Title, a short Vita, and a one page abstract by 15 March 2013; Marilyn Judith Atlas (atlas@ohio.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Between "Gay" and "Queer"
Special Session
The persistence of gay identity in a queer world; gay/lesbian vs/in queer theory; transgender/cisgender and sexual identity; cruising; clubs; drag; social media; activism. 300-word proposal and brief CV by 11 March 2013; Zachary Lamm (zlamm@uic.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Shaw and Adaptation
Special Session
This panel invites papers that discuss specific play-scripts by Bernard Shaw and their transformation across genres and media. Visit http://www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-at-MLA-2014.htm for details. CVs and abstracts of 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Lawrence Switzky (lawrence.switzky@utoronto.ca)
Posted 2 February 2013
Storms at/of the Court
Allied Organization: International Courtly Literature Society
This session will explore how medieval courtly literature uses the storm (emotional or literal) as motif, metaphor, and plot mechanism. abstracts, 500 words. by 15 March 2013; Kathy M. Krause (krausek@umkc.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Failure Studies
Special Session
Panel will investigate reasons why failure is subordinated as a category of critical thought, in an effort to highlight a new cross-disciplinary analytic--failure studies--to understand the experience of modernity. Abstract/CV. by 8 March 2013; Keith Gandal (kgandal@ccny.cuny.edu) and Gavin Jones (grjones@stanford.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Children's Literature and New Trends
Special Session
We invite papers that consider 'transgressed boundaries' across Aesthetics, Content, and/or Genre in contemporary children's texts and how they may redefine the field. 350-word abstracts; short bio by 1 March 2013; Abbie Ventura (abbie-ventura@utc.edu)
Posted 2 February 2013
Failed Hispanic Commemorations
Special Session
This session invites papers on 19th- to 21st- century cultural celebrations that were unsuccessful in commemorating events of national significance, specially centenaries. 300-word abstract by 5 March 2013; David Rodriguez-Solas (dsolas@bard.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
"Langston Hughes's Poetry in Vulnerable Times"
Allied Organization: Langston Hughes Society
Abstracts examining the theme of “vulnerable times” in Hughes’s texts. Presenters must join the Modern Language Association and Langston Hughes Society. 250 word abstract and CV by 10 March 2013; Sharon Lynette Jones (sharon.jones@wright.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
Contemporary Poet-Critics & Creative Scholarship
Special Session
What are the forms and purposes of hybrid creative-critical texts? How do they elucidate the category of the poet-critic today? 250-word abstracts and short CV. by 15 March 2013; Gillian C. White (gcwhite@umich.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
100 Years of Bollywood
Allied Organization: South Asian Literary Association
Critical reflections on a century of films coming from Mumbai and popular in the West. Themes include directors, stars, identity, representation, music, global reception. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Rahul Gairola (rgairola@uw.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
Chanson and Cinema - A French Affair
Special Session
Chanson as genre, as narrative vehicle in French language fiction films. Literary, cultural, historical aspects of specific rapport between chanson and cinema. abstracts (250-300 words) by 15 March 2013; Olivier Bourderionnet (obourde1@uno.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
South Asian Diasporas beyond the US
Discussion Group: South Asian Languages and Literatures
Presenters will explore the intersections, parallels, and tensions between South Asian and other groups outside the US, including Australia, Africa, and South East Asia. 200-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Moumin Quazi (quazi@tarleton.edu) and Indrani Mitra (mitra@msmary.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
The Sacred and the Sexual in South Asian Literature
Discussion Group: South Asian Languages and Literatures
Interrogations of gender and the construction of sexuality in relation to diverse religious traditions of South Asia. 250 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Indrani Mitra (mitra@msmary.edu)
Posted 1 February 2013
Poetry in the First-Year Writing Classroom
Special Session
How do we use poetry to challenge and engage first-year writers? Seeking innovative pedagogies and tales from the classroom. 300-word abstracts to mickelsonjn@yahoo.com by 4 March 2013; Nate Mickelson (mickelsonjn@yahoo.com)
Posted 1 February 2013
Digital Humanities and Early Modern Hispanic World
Special Session
Papers about websites, google articles, blogs, e-Journals, related to the early modern Hispanic world are welcome. 1 page abstract, 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Juan Pablo Gil-Oslé (gilosle1@gmail.com)
Posted 31 January 2013
Reticent Regionalism: Postwar Midwestern Literature
Special Session
Overlooked postwar artists who unsettle aesthetic or spatial definitions of Midwestern art. Importance of class, race, or sexuality to a redefined regionalism. Submit 300-word abstract. by 10 February 2013; Tyler T. Schmidt (tyler.schmidt@lehman.cuny.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Opera and Antiquity
Discussion Group: Opera as a Literary and Dramatic Form
Monteverdi, Gluck, early Mozart, Rossini, Strauss, Schoenberg, Henze, Glass... Papers on the persistence of themes from European, Biblical, and other antiquities in libretto, composition, and performance. 500-word abstracts by 7 March 2013; Marshall J. Brown (mbrown@u.washington.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Afro-Diasporic Popular Culture Interventions
Special Session
This panel addresses Afro-diasporic popular culture forms (eg. Brazilian capoeira, Hip Hop, rumba) throughout the Americas and globally to approach transnational social vulnerabilities. 350-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Naomi Wood (naomi.wood@coloradocollege.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Wit, Humor, and 'Serious' Texts
Allied Organization: American Humor Studies Association
Abstracts welcome on any subject related to comic dimensions in literary works not normally classified as 'comic.'. 300 word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Bruce F. Michelson (brucem@illinois.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Pinter and the Arts
Allied Organization: Harold Pinter Society
Presentations on Pinter and his relation to other art forms welcome. 250-word abstracts with name, address, phone, emai by 15 March 2013; Ann C. Hall (halla@ohiodominican.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
South Asia at Risk
Allied Organization: South Asian Literary Association
analyses of South Asian literary/film texts examining violated bodies, homophobia, racism, gender violence, caste barriers, religious intolerance, economic vulnerability, environmental degradation, oppression of all kinds. 150 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Nalini Iyer (niyer@seattleu.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Periodicals as Tastemakers
Special Session
We seek papers from a variety of fields and disciplines which explore the role of 19th- and 20th-century European and American periodicals as tastemakers. 250-word abstracts and CVs by 15 February 2013; Edward Whitley (whitley@lehigh.edu) and Melissa Renn (melissa_renn@harvard.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Authorship, Lecture Tours, & Politics in the U.S
Special Session
Their intersections in places and historical moments, particularly as writers addressed communities on issues of American identities and social justice. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Carrie Johnston (cjohnston@smu.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
From Lope To Lorca: Reading The Social Nature Of Humans
Special Session
Panel seeks papers that apply an evolutionary perspective to the study of Spanish theater. 250-300 word abstracts, in English or Spanish by 10 March 2013; Ana Dotras (ad100@nyu.edu)
Posted 31 January 2013
Bringing Contemporary Experience and Innovative Tools to Business Writing Courses
Allied Organization: Association for Business Communication
In university Business Writing and Communication courses, how are graduate assistants using their experiences to teach/develop Business Writing? 250 word proposal by 4 March 2013; Katherine V. Wills (kwills@iupuc.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Life Writing and Vulnerable Ethnic Communities
Division: Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing
Life writing that communicates the vulnerability of certain ethnic groups or is embraced by them. Proposals from all time periods and cultures welcome. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Irene Kakandes (irene.kacandes@dartmouth.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Stealing Lives: appropriation, hoaxes, ownership
Division: Autobiography, Biography, and Life Writing
Papers consider the ethics and legality of online and print publishing when life stories are stolen or appropriated by individuals, insitutions or corporations. 500 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Julie Rak (julie.rak@ualberta.ca)
Posted 30 January 2013
South Asian Diasporas beyond the US
Allied Organization: South Asian Literary Association
Presenters will explore the intersections, parallels, and tensions between South Asians and other Groups outside the US, including Australia, Africa, and South East Asia. 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Moumin Quazi (quazi@tarleton.edu) and Indrani Mitra (mitra@msmary.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Approaches to Narconarratives
Special Session
What form does narcotrafficking take? How does narcotrafficking come to bear on literature? This panel will explore intersections between literature and narcolife in the Americas. 250 word abstract. by 28 February 2013; Sharada Balachandran Orihuela (sbalacha@umd.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
The Tyranny of Irony and Irony's Edge
Allied Organization: American Humor Studies Association
300-word abstracts welcome on interpretive practice in the wake of insights from David Foster Wallace, Linda Hutcheon, and others on literary irony. 300-word abstracts. by 4 March 2013; Bruce F. Michelson (brucem@illinois.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Learned Society Journals: Challenges and Opportunities in the Twenty-First Century
Allied Organization: Doris Lessing Society
What challenges and opportunities do learned society journals face in the twenty-first century? Bios and 250-word abstracts for roundtable talks by 11 March 2013; Alice Rachel Ridout (alice.ridout@algomau.ca)
Posted 30 January 2013
Emigres, Expats, and Exiles in Postwar London
Allied Organization: Doris Lessing Society
When Doris Lessing returned to Britain in 1950 she joined an influx of immigrants to London. Comparative studies welcomed. 250 word abstracts and brief bios by 14 March 2013; Alice Rachel Ridout (alice.ridout@algomau.ca)
Posted 30 January 2013
The Dis(embodied) Scholar: Access in Theory and Practice
MLA Committee: Committee on Disability Issues in the Profession
Roundtable session on embodiment and the shifting role of identity discourse within disability studies. 250 word abstract by 4 March 2013; Rebecca Terese Sanchez (rsanchez28@fordham.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013, last updated 30 January 2013
The Great War in Modern Literature
Special Session
Perspectives on the First World War as represented in fiction published 1970 to the present, including relationship of literature to national memory. 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 1 March 2013; Marguerite Helmers (helmers@uwosh.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Re-evaluating the [English] Literary "Coterie" 1550-1790
Special Session
The role of social and literary networks, reading groups, and writing communities on English literature. Please submit 250-word abstract and brief bio by 22 March 2013; Hannah Crumme (hannah.crumme@gmail.com)
Posted 30 January 2013
Piety and Pastry: Catholic Cooking in the English Renaissance
Special Session
The role of food in recusant culture in any literary capacity. Please send 250-word abstract and bio by 22 March 2013; Hannah Crumme (hannah.crumme@gmail.com)
Posted 30 January 2013
Spanish Shakespeares
Special Session
The image of Spain in England, the reverberations of Spanish literature in English drama, or Spanish reinterpretations of English works. Please send 250-word abstract and brief bio by 22 March 2013; Hannah Crumme (hannah.crumme@gmail.com)
Posted 30 January 2013
Cisneros, Chicago, Mango
Division: Chicana and Chicano Literature
Seeking papers considering The House on Mango Street's impact on its 30th anniversary and in a year when MLA will be held in Chicago. 250 word abstracts by 28 February 2013; Yolanda Padilla (padilla.y@googlemail.com )
Posted 30 January 2013
¿Anthologizing Latinidad?
Division: Chicana and Chicano Literature
What are the promises and pitfalls of teaching with Latina/o literature anthologies, and with the Norton in particular? Does your institution affect your choice of teaching texts? 250 word abstracts by 28 February 2013; Marissa K. Lopez (mklopez@ucla.edu)
Posted 30 January 2013
Friendship in Early Modern Spanish Literature
Special Session
Female friendship, visual representations of friendship, politics of friendship; friendship and relaciones de servicio, picaresca, celestinesca, and patronage. 1 page abstract and 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Juan Pablo Gil-Oslé (gilosle1@gmail.com)
Posted 29 January 2013
Women’s Fears and Fear of Women 1300-1800
Allied Organization: GEMELA: Grupo de Estudios sobre la Mujer en España y las Américas (pre-1800)
Women's texts about women experiencing fear, or as subjects to be feared, in Iberia and Latin America. 1 page abstract and 2 page CV. by 20 February 2013; Dana C. Bultman (dbultman@uga.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
What Is the Impact of Humanities Scholarship?
Special Session
How are we to theorize or measure the impact of humanities scholarship? How might dwindling resources change how we conceptualize projects? 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Matthew F. Wickman (matthew_wickman@byu.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Hispanic Urban Cultural Studies
Special Session
Roundtable on how the spatial turn contributes to Latin American, Spanish, U.S. Latino and Chicano cultural criticism. 250-word abstracts to Susan Larson by March 1. by 1 March 2013; Susan Larson (slarson@uky.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013, last updated 29 January 2013
T. S. Eliot and the Other Arts
Allied Organization: T. S. Eliot Society
We invite proposals exploring the relations between Eliot’s work and extraliterary art forms such as music, the visual arts, dance, and cinema. 500-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Frances Dickey (dickeyf@missouri.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Electronic Atwood
Allied Organization: Margaret Atwood Society
On Atwood's creative use of electronic media. 250 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Theodore F. Sheckels (tsheckel@rmc.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Margaret Atwood's Latest Work: A Roundtable Discussion
Allied Organization: Margaret Atwood Society
The ORYX AND CRAKE trilogy will be completed in October. A roundtable discussion of the final book. Abstracts suggesting approach you anticipate takin by 15 March 2013; Theodore Sheckels (tsheckel@rmc.edu) and Karma Waltonen (kjwaltonen@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
New Modernist Studies/Feminist Pedagogy Roundtable
Special Session
How might the methodologies or subjects of new modernist studies influence the practice of feminist pedagogy? Where and how do their ethos intersect and/or diverge? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Laurel Harris (lharris@qcc.cuny.edu) and Lauren Rosenblum (lauren.rosenblum@gmail.com)
Posted 29 January 2013
Queer Matter
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Queer materialisms; queer mattering; the queerness of matter; queer material; material queer; queer objects, queer things; queer theories and approaches to matter. 250-words abstracts and brief CVs by 15 March 2013; Carla Freccero (freccero@ucsc.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Deletion, Erasure, Cancellation
Special Session
How might we theorize the aesthetics and poetics of practices such as deletion and erasure? All periods, genres, media welcome. Full CFP at paulbenzon.com/mla14cfp. Abstracts with short biographical statement by 1 March 2013; Paul Benzon (pbenzon@temple.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Troubleshooting gender in 19/20th-Century French/European literature
Special Session
Exploring masculinity, femininity or/and hybridity of being throughout French and other literatures/cultures, as well as different medias. Comparative works encouraged. 250-300word abstracts in French or English by 14 March 2013; Dany Jacob (danyjaco@buffalo.edu)
Posted 29 January 2013
Affect in Literature
Special Session
What can we say about affect in literature? 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 10 March 2013; Yubraj Aryal (yaryal@purdue.edu). 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 10 March 2013; Yubraj Aryal (philitsociety@gmail.com)
Posted 29 January 2013
Arthur Miller: Self and Tragedy
Special Session
The Arthur Miller Society invites papers on the construction of the self and the conception of tragedy in plays by Miller and other dramatists. Abstracts <500 words by 15 March 2013; David Palmer (dpalmer@maritime.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Slavery and the Book Trade
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
This panel will combine the methodology of the history of the book with recent studies of slavery and aesthetics, focusing on the 18th century. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Sean D. Moore (sean@unh.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Activist Poetics: Jayne Cortez and Adrienne Rich
Division: Poetry
Seeking papers on any aspect of the works of Jayne Cortez and/or Adrienne Rich. 300-word abstract and 2 page c.v. by 1 March 2013; Meta Jones (metad.jones@gmail.com) and Virginia Jackson (vwjackson@gmail.com)
Posted 28 January 2013
Nineteenth-Century French Studies in the Twenty-first Century
Division: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Roundtable on the state of research/teaching in the field. What are the emerging trends/looming challenges? What forces will shape the field? Abstracts for 10-minute presentations by 22 February 2013; Susan McCready (smccread@southalabama.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Animals and Animality
Division: Nineteenth-Century French Literature
Animal encounters in fiction and theory, discourse, images, phenomena, events. Topics: allegory, anthropomorphism, zoomorphism, ethics, animals on display, le regard de l’animal, animals and thought. Abstracts of 250-350 words by 22 February 2013; Cheryl Kreuger (clk6m@virginia.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Incorporating Undergraduate Research in English Studies
Special Session
Panelists will discuss best practices and innovative approaches to incorporating undergraduate research in English Studies. 250-word abstract and short bio. by 1 March 2013; Donna M. Bickford (dbickford@unc.edu) and Jenny Shanahan (Jenny.Shanahan@bridgew.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
One World, One Speed? Globalization, Neoliberalism, and the Nation
Special Session
This panel explores the ways in which the pace-setting, synchronizing power of globalization is challenged in specific locales throughout the world. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Juan Meneses (jmeneses@purdue.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Chronicling a Financial Crisis
Division: Nonfiction Prose Studies, Excluding Biography and Autobiography
Seeking papers on the task of chronicling a financial crisis. What questions do such accounts ask? What problems do they encounter? What are their duties? 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Howard Horowitz (h.horwitz@English.utah.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Transcendentalist Women and Friendship
Special Session
This session invites papers on transcendentalist women’s conceptions and practices of friendship, especially in comparison to their male counterparts. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Eileen Abrahams (abrahae@sunysccc.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
East Asian Traditional Poetry in the Digital Age
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures to 1900
Impact of modern technology on circulation, discussion, and composition of poetry in traditional forms (shi, tanka, haiku, etc.). 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Paul Rouzer (prouzer@umn.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Du Bois, King and the Discourse of Freedom
Special Session
Examines the discourse of freedom and the promise of America in the work of Du Bois and Martin Luther King. (300 words; dolan.hubbard@morgan.edu). Abstracts by 7 March 2013; Dolan Hubbard (dolan.hubbard@morgan.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
Romantic Partisanship
Special Session
Aesthetics of taking sides in period that birthed radicalism, conservatism, liberalism; interplay of democracy and art: literary-ideological battles, affective excess, polemical genres, ad hominem attacks, straw (wo)men. 250-word abstract CV by 15 March 2013; Gerard Cohen-Vrignaud (gerard@utk.edu)
Posted 28 January 2013
American Literature and the Sea in the Long Nineteenth Century
Special Session
This panel focuses on oceanic spaces, journeys, and work to redraw geography of nineteenth-century American literature. 250 word abstract and short bio by 15 March 2013; Edward Sugden (edward.sugden@linacre.ox.ac.uk)
Posted 28 January 2013
Early Modern Media Ecologies
Special Session
How do Renaissance media (ranging from book to actor’s body to tapestry to ballad) cross-fertilize, reproduce, surmount and consume each other? 250-word abstracts and CV by 15 March 2013; Scott A. Trudell (trudell@umd.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Theorizing the Villain in Early Modern England
Special Session
Seeking new theorizations of the early modern villain or reconsiderations of old approaches (“motiveless malignity,” the legacy of medieval Vice, etc.). Short abstract by 1 March 2013; David Hershinow (dhershi1@jhu.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Literature integration in language classes
Special Session
The 2007 Ad Hoc Committee on Foreign Languages called for integrating literature in language courses. How is this being done? Abstracts of 350 words should be submitted. by 1 March 2013; Cecilia Ojeda (cecilia.ojeda@nau.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Ecocritical Sand
Allied Organization: George Sand Association
The natural world, artistic creativity, and the environment; nature vs. nurture; city vs. country. Environmental awareness, activism, recycling, ecosystems of affect, harmony and idealism, theories of social justice. One-page abstract by 1 March 2013; Lauren Ravalico (aurenravalico@gmail.com)
Posted 27 January 2013
Women on Work, Women's Work
Allied Organization: George Sand Association
Literary and cultural approaches to work; material labor and the work of culture and language in the writings of George Sand and nineteenth-century women writers. One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; Pratima Prasad (Pratima.Prasad@umb.edu) and David Bell (dfbell@duke.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Untranslatability
Discussion Group: Romance Literary Relations
How do writers, intellectuals, or artists advocate or refute the untranslatability of a word, idea, or concept? Submit an abstract with a maximum of 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Gerard Aching (gla23@cornell.edu) and Guillermina de Ferrari (gdeferrari@wisc.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Borges and Perception
Special Session
In light of Rodrigo Quian Quiroga's recent text, this panel will examine competing theories of mind in the prose of Jorge Luis Borges. Abstracts (250-500 words) by 15 March 2013; Stacey Balkan (sbalkan@bergen.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
New Directions in Williams Studies
Allied Organization: William Carlos Williams Society
Contemporary approaches to Williams in “lightning talk” PechaKucha format -- possible topics include: medicine/embodiment; technology; transnationalism; ecocriticism; Williams and/in archives; publishing; etc. CV and 200 word abstracts by 22 March 2013; Daniel Burke (daniel.e.burke@marquette.edu)
Posted 27 January 2013
Shakespeare in Performance
Special Session
Choose any play of Shakespeare on stage in the Western world and illustrate how the social and cultural context have affected performance. Papers on the playing of Shakespeare. by 4 March 2013; John Camera (jcamera@wgfilms.com)
Posted 26 January 2013
Frank Wedekind at 150
Special Session
Wedekind's work was ahead of its time. Or was it? What about today? Proposals sought focusing on Wedekind (drama, narrative, poetry/cabaret) in the 21st century. Abstracts, 200 words by 8 March 2013; Mary M. Paddock (mary.paddock@quinnipiac.edu)
Posted 26 January 2013
End(s) of Poetry: A Roundtable
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Modern, postmodern, diasporic, epic, web-based, spoken word, queer, feminist, nationalist, multilingual, untimely. 7-minute papers on any aspect of contemporary or 20th century poetry. 300-word abstracts and bios by 14 March 2013; José Quiroga (jquirog@emory.edu)
Posted 26 January 2013
The Romanticism of a Return to Communism
Special Session
Is it possible to rethink Marx(ism) and Romanticism by considering recent, non-economist philosophies of communism, “being-in-common,” and the commons? Abstracts up to 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Lenora Hanson (lahanson3@gmail.com) and Karim Wissa (kwissa@gmail.com)
Posted 26 January 2013
Queer Philology
Division: Gay Studies in Language and Literature
Explorations of “queer philology,” the close inspection of the historical meaning of words and phrases that bear upon sexuality studies. 250-word abstract Brief CV by 15 March 2013; Christopher Looby (clooby@humnet.ucla.edu)
Posted 26 January 2013
Chicago Women Playwrights
Division: Women's Studies in Language and Literature
The panel invites work by or about women playwrights from Chicago such as Sarah Ruhl, Lydia R. Diamond, and Lorraine Hansberry. abstracts of 250 word or less by 1 March 2013; Susan G. O'Malley (susanomalley4@gmail.com)
Posted 25 January 2013
Chess and Literature
Special Session
Proposals on the representation of chess in literature in any period or genre. 250 word abstracts plus brief biography by 12 March 2013; Gina Bloom (gbloom@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 25 January 2013
Getting the Word Out: Communication Disabilities in Literature/ Scholarship
Special Session
Describing/experiencing/studying "invisible" communication disabilities: critiques of memoirs about Aphasia/Autism; literary occurrences; scholars' and teachers' language disability experiences. Please send 100-200-word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Carolyn McCue Goffman (cgoffman@depaul.edu)
Posted 25 January 2013
Claudel et les Amériques: Théâtre et Poésie
Allied Organization: Paul Claudel Society
Proposed by Sergio Villani, the session will focus on Claudel’s production in North and South America. Submit your abstract (50-100 words) by March 1, 20 by 1 March 2013; Christophe Ippolito (christophe.ippolito@modlangs.gatech.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013, last updated 25 January 2013
Geospatial Literary Studies
Special Session
Investigating the geospatial in digital literary studies: GIS, gazetteers, spatial narratives, literary cartographies, spatio-temporal visualization of literary datasets. 250– word abstract (plus visuals) and bio by 15 March 2013; David Joseph Wrisley (dw04@aub.edu.lb)
Posted 25 January 2013
How We Talk about Contingent Faculty
Special Session
How are contingent faculty described and discussed, and by whom? What are the implications of this rhetoric for their place in the academy? 300-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Catherine Keohane (keohanec@mail.montclair.edu) and Julia Wagner (wagnerj@mail.montclair.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Letters
Division: Nineteenth- and Early-Twentieth-Century German Literature
Letters as literature; letters in literature; letters as autobiography; open letters; letters and technology; letters and gender; the letter as material object; editions of letters. Proposals of 250 words by 1 March 2013; Jocelyne Kolb (jkolb@smith.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013, last updated 24 January 2013
Góngora’s Soledades After 400 Years
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry and Prose
Interpretations, Reception and Appropriations. Send one-page abstract and two-page CV by 7 March 2013; Steven Wagschal (MLA2014@indiana.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013, last updated 24 January 2013
Science (and) Fiction in Early Modern Spain
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry and Prose
History of Science, New Technologies, Magic and Marvels. Send one-page abstract and two-page CV by 7 March 2013; Steven Wagschal (MLA2014@indiana.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013, last updated 24 January 2013
Jewish Rhetoric, Visual Rhetoric, Pedagogy
Special Session
What constitutes a specifically "Jewish" rhetoric or pedagogy? And how do new developments in the field of Visual Rhetoric relate to Jewish thought and textuality? papers, abstracts by 10 March 2013; Susan A. Handelman (susanhandelman@gmail.com)
Posted 24 January 2013
Compromising, Negotiating: Being a Graduate Student
Allied Organization: Graduate Student Caucus
How to be a grad student? Privacy, negotiating conflicts, living healthy, planning the future, dealing with discrimination, parenthood and school... Abstract: 300 words (Roundtable: 8 minutes/present by 10 March 2013; Loic Bourdeau (lbourdeau@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Exile, Death, Sacrifice: The Poetics of Suffering in Francophone Literature
Allied Organization: Graduate Student Caucus
Exile, death, and sacrifice in Francophone literature (19th to 21st century): writing “souffrance” and its implications. Abstract: 300 words. (Presentations: 20 minutes) by 10 March 2013; Loic Bourdeau (lbourdeau@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Violent Sympathies
Special Session
This session explores how violent representation produces a space of vulnerability that allows for different forms of sympathy to emerge in 19th/early 20th century America. 250-word abstract, CV by 1 March 2013; Rebeccah Bechtold (rebeccah.bechtold@unco.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
National Epic
Allied Organization: Goethe Society of North America
We seek papers that analyze the particular fascination of the German literary imagination with national epic in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Charlton Payne (charlton.payne@uni-erfurt.de)
Posted 24 January 2013
Latin American Darwinisms
Special Session
Literary responses to Social Darwinist discourses, analyses of texts only possible in a post-Darwin world, impacts of Larmarckian (and other) theories, reassessments of “La raza cósmica.”. 1-page proposals, CV by 15 March 2013; Todd Garth (garth@usna.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
The Pleasure of the Text: Creating Life-Long Readers
Division: the Teaching of Literature
Teaching literature with an eye to life beyond the classroom. How do we connect literature to students' lives? Theory or practice. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Jeanne A. Follansbee (follansb@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 24 January 2013
Multilingualism in Native American/Aboriginal Texts
Division: American Indian Literatures
Panel analyzes Native American/Aboriginal texts in original languages and/or with other languages; region, time, and genre are open. 250-word abstract and short bio by 25 February 2013; Beth Piatote (piatote@berkeley.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Bottom's Dreams and Beyond: Arno Schmidt at 100
Special Session
New perspectives on this post-war author's writings and his legacy, particularly on "Zettel's Traum". CV and abstract by 1 March 2013; Stefan Hoeppner (shoppner@ucalgary.ca)
Posted 23 January 2013
South to North: Modern Inter-American Cultural Transactions
Special Session
How have Latin American cultural productions informed political, aesthetic and cultural practices in North America from the 19th Century to the present? (250-500 word abstract) by 15 March 2013; Lara Tucker (let2108@columbia.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
The Decade Modernism Forgot: The 1930s
Special Session
What is the relationship between modernism and 1930s literature, and is it as distinct and antagonistic as the critical mythology suggests? 250-word proposals with brief bio by 1 March 2013; Erica Gene Delsandro (ericadelsandro@gmail.com)
Posted 23 January 2013
(Re)Thinking the Animal and the Human in Lusophone Literature since the 19th century
Special Session
Critical analysis of literary works concerning animal issues and the relations between humans and nonhumans. Maximum 250 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Anita DeMelo (Anita.Demelo@usma.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Postwhat?! Literary Postmodernism in the 21st Century
Special Session
Has postmodernism run out of steam, or are its effects only just now beginning to manifest themselves in literature of the 21st century? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Matthew Mullins (mmullins@sebts.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Transpacific Memory: Life Writing Across the Western Divide
Special Session
Papers on life writing from transpacific travel in all directions, including Western expatriate memoirs. Abstract and short bio by 15 March 2013; Mary Goodwin (profgood@hotmail.com)
Posted 23 January 2013
Mothers and Daughters, Mothers and Sons
Division: Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature
Literary explorations of relationships between mothers and daughters and/or mothers and sons, as narrated in early modern European cultures, especially Italian. Title, 250-word abstract by 1 March 2013; Laura Giannetti (lgiannetti@miami.edu)
Posted 23 January 2013
Voice and Silence
Division: French Medieval Language and Literature
Inviting responses to how voice speaks in a text or voices silence so that it can be heard. 250-word abstract and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Cary Howie (caryhowie@cornell.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Nature and the Natural World
Division: French Medieval Language and Literature
We invite papers on NATURE AND THE NATURAL WORLD in its many guises – theological, legal, linguistic, poetic, artistic, scientific, political, sexual. 250-word abstract and two-page CV by 15 March 2013; Cary Howie (caryhowie@cornell.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Teaching Sustainability
Discussion Group: the Two-Year College
Presentations that explore the teaching of sustainability in English and Foreign Languages, including place-based and project-based approaches to teaching in the environmental humanities. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Falk Cammin (camminfalk@fhda.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
What's Where in Latin America
Special Session
How, and for what purpose, do manuscripts inaugurate a new cartography of Latin America or of spaces therein? Written and drawn texts considered. 250-word abstract and CV by 1 March 2013; Samuel Jaffee (sjaffee@uci.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Broadway Babies
Division: Children's Literature
Papers should examine constructions of childhood and issues of child performance in musicals such as The Secret Garden, The Lion King, The King and I, or Sarafina! Abstracts (250-300 words) by 15 March 2013; Donelle Ruwe (donelle.ruwe@nau.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Victorian Informatics
Division: the Victorian Period
Papers related to producing, organizing, circulating knowledge; information taxonomies and technologies; narrating information; the poetics or aesthetics of information; wanting facts. 500 word abstract, 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Richard Menke (rmenke@uga.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Victorian Temporalities
Division: the Victorian Period
Papers related to instantaneity, lived time, realtime, geological time, duration, (a)synchrony, intermittence, spending time, saving time, wasting time. 500 word abstract; 1 page CV. by 1 March 2013; Richard Menke (rmenke@uga.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Digital Jews: Literature, Apps, Internet Mediations, Archiving
Discussion Group: Jewish American Literature
Roundtable exploring the impact of digital media on Jewish American writing, writers, and literature collections. Pedagogy also welcome. Abstracts (<300 words) by 15 March 2013; Laurence D. Roth (roth@susqu.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Verbal and Visual Satire in the Nineteenth Century
Special Session
Verbal and/or visual satire; relations to other forms; histories; British or comparative. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Frank A. Palmeri (fpalmeri@miami.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Vulnerable Bodies in Early Modern Spanish Literature
Special Session
Joint session Gemela / Comediantes: hagiography , martyrdom, wife murder, rape, abuse of marginalized groups (indigenous/ poor ). 1 page abstract and one page CV by 20 February 2013; Barbara Simerka (simerkabarbara@gmail.com) and Dana Bultman (dbultman@uga.edu)
Posted 22 January 2013
Lope de Vega and Peasant Drama: 400 years later
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Drama
new approaches to peasant drama, canonical and lesser known plays and authors, consideration of campesinos/campesinas. 1 page abstract and 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Barbara Simerka (simerkabarbara@gmail.com)
Posted 22 January 2013
Domesticity and the Comedia
Division: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Spanish Drama
New perspectives on the marriage plot and family relations, domestic spaces . Consideration of marginal figures: spinsters, widows , orphans . 1 page abstract and 1 page CV by 1 March 2013; Barbara Simerka (simerkabarbara@gmail.com)
Posted 22 January 2013
Technologies of Translation
Discussion Group: Translation
We seek presentations that introduce experiments in the Digital Humanities relying on translation: What insights might these examples offer to Translation Studies and/or to Digital Humanities? 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Michael Emmerich (emmerich@eastasian.ucsb.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Representations of Disaster in Contemporary Asia
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900
Papers that consider issues of representation of recent disasters throughout Asia, such as earthquakes, famine, tsunami, or nuclear meltdown, in a variety of media. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Doug Slaymaker (dslaym@uky.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Literature and Film in Australasia
Allied Organization: American Association of Australian Literary Studies
AAALS seeks proposals for 15-20 minute papers on any aspect of Australian or New Zealand literature and/or film, including adaptation, narrative, history, and cultural identity. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Eva Rueschmann (erueschmann@hampshire.edu) and Nathanael O'Reilly (n.oreilly@tcu.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Asia and the Nobel Prize in Literature
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900
Papers exploring the cultural, linguistic, literary, and political meanings of this prize and the works of the surprisingly few Asian laureates and nominees. 250-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Melek Ortabasi (mso1@sfu.ca)
Posted 21 January 2013
Conrad and Cognition
Allied Organization: Joseph Conrad Society of America
Papers are invited exploring the relations between recent work in cognitive science and Conrad's understanding of the mind. Abstracts are requested for papers of 15-20 minute by 15 March 2013; Paul B. Armstrong (paul_armstrong@brown.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Digital Humanities and French Renaissance Culture
Special Session
Projects and practices that illustrate the promise of the Digital Humanities for the study of French Renaissance Culture. 300-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Dorothea Heitsch (dheitsch@unc.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Poverty and Naturalism
Special Session
New perspectives (interpretive or theoretical) on naturalism as a genre that takes the poor and vulnerable as its preferred topic. Any literary tradition or period. 300-word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Eleni Eva Coundouriotis (eleni.coundouriotis@uconn.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
British Women Writers and the Arts 1880-1920
Special Session
How did music, theatre and art influence the construction of novels and poetry by British women writers who published 1880-1920? 300-word abstracts, one page CV by 5 March 2013; Donna S. Parsons (donna-parsons@uiowa.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Arguing Religion in Early Modern England
Special Session
Panel will focus on the creative uses of various types of religious argument—satire, polemic, animadversion—their innovations, interplay, and relationship to humanism and print culture. 250-word abstracts by 10 March 2013; Melissa M. Caldwell (mcaldwell@eiu.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
What is Data in Literary Studies? A Roundtable
Division: Methods of Literary Research
Do all literary scholars work with data of some kind? Or are projects involving data methodologically distinct? Do we need better data? 250-word abstracts by 4 March 2013; James F. English (jenglish@english.upenn.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Scenes of Reading in Luso-Hispanic Cultures (c. XV-XIX)
Special Session
Examining the ideologies embedded in textual and visual representations of reading in Luso-Hispanic cultural productions (c. XV-XIX). 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Heather Allen (hjallen@olemiss.edu) and Anna Nogar (anogar@unm.edu)
Posted 21 January 2013
Artistic and Scholarly Practice in the Digital Age
Division: Twentieth-Century German Literature
Seeking papers that explore the interplay of aesthetics, science, and politics across sites of engagement in the digital era. 300 word abstracts for TRANSIT by 9 March 2013; Deniz Göktürk (dgokturk@berkeley.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013, last updated 21 January 2013
Revisiting the Culture Wars
Special Session
Seeking new perspectives on the culture wars as they become part of our institutional history. Please submit abstracts of no more than 200 words. by 15 March 2013; Hala Herbly (hala.herbly@utexas.edu) and Stephanie Odom (stephanie.odom@utexas.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Narrative and Language Theory
Division: Language Theory
We solicit papers exploring relationship between narrative and theory of language. Paper proposals of 250-300 words by 15 March 2013; Jiyoung Yoon (jiyoung.yoon@unt.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
New Work in Language Theory
Division: Language Theory
We solicit papers exploring any aspect of linguistics that contributes to recent trends in language theory. Paper proposals of 250-300 words by 15 March 2013; Jiyoung Yoon (jiyoung.yoon@unt.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
American Literature and New Technologies 1865-1945
Special Session
We invite papers that consider the fault lines between literary narrative and new technologies. How has American literature responded to technological innovation? 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Sarah R. Gleeson-White (sarah.gleeson-white@sydney.edu.au)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 20 January 2013
Travel Literature and the Environment
Discussion Group: Travel Literature
19th- to 21st-century travel literature and representations of the physical environment; the natural world; ecocritical approaches; and/or animal encounters. 250-500-word proposals by 5 March 2013; Jeanne Dubino (dubinoja@appstate.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Gandhi's Modernity
Special Session
This panel will read texts that surround MK Gandhi's writing/thought (eg Tolstoy, Ruskin, Thoreau), especially in the contexts of anticolonial thought. Submit abstracts (500 words) & a brief bio by 5 March 2013; James Daniel Elam (jdelam@u.northwestern.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Religious, Spiritual, Theological Approaches to Dante
Allied Organization: American Association for Italian Studies
Dante’s works explored from any religious, spiritual, or theological perspective. Abstract (200 word maximum) by 4 March 2013; Christian Moevs (Christian.Moevs.1@nd.edu)
Posted 20 January 2013
Italian Representations of Blackness
Allied Organization: American Association for Italian Studies
Topics include Italy, Africa, and the Mediterranean; Afro-Italian Narratives; Italy and African-American culture; and/or Colonialism and Post-Colonialism. 300-word abstract by 4 March 2013; Charles Leavitt (c.l.leavitt@reading.ac.uk)
Posted 20 January 2013
Wordsworth's Excursion at 200
Special Session
Keats called Wordsworth's Excursion one of the "three things to rejoice at in this Age." Papers should consider its legacy. Co-Sponsored by the Wordsworth-Coleridge Association. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Jacob Risinger (risinger@fas.harvard.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 19 January 2013
Dadaphone: Interminacy in Words and Music
Allied Organization: Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations
Dada texts and indeterminate music utilize non-traditional means of organization. Send proposals that address words and sound combined using an element of chance. 250 word proposals by 1 March 2013; Jeff Dailey (drjsdailey@aol.com) and Jonathan Eburne (jpe11@psu.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013
Latin American Feminist Representation a New Way of Resistance for the “Third World Women.”
Special Session
Feminist contemporary Latin American narrative: new scheme/representation a-response of the 20th Century feminist movement failure. abstract 400 words. by 12 March 2013; Gina Ponce de Leon (gina.poncedeleon@fresno.edu)
Posted 19 January 2013
Adoption and Disability
Allied Organization: Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture
Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture panel invites 15-min. papers that explore connections between adoption and disability. Abstracts (<500 words) and a brief CV (2pp.). by 1 March 2013; Marina Fedosik (mf107@nyu.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Transperiod Literary Studies
Special Session
What alternatives are there to period-based literary studies? What are the limitations of the periodization model? How may we approach literature across two or more periods? 500-word abstracts by 5 March 2013; Hassan Melehy (hmelehy@unc.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
The Vernacular as Critical Category
Special Session
Reviews, explications, contestations through theoretical reflections and/or readings of texts, literary, cinematic or otherwise. Approaches from postcolonial and/or comparative perspectives especially welcome. 250 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; S. Shankar (subraman@hawaii.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
U.S. Immigrant Literature
Special Session
Goal: to establish a field of recent U.S. Immigrant Writing. Wanted: papers NOT treating works as ethnic, diasporic, or post-colonial, but as new forms of American literature. 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Susan K. Harris (skh5@ku.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
James T. Farrell and Chicago: New Approaches
Special Session
Proposals that consider the fiction and nonfiction of James T. Farrell, particularly investigations that employ contemporary approaches to literature. 300 word abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Shawn Patrick Gillen (gillens@beloit.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Trans-Iberian Literary and Cultural Studies
Special Session
An exploration of the multilingual/multicultural or hybrid nature of Iberian literatures from any period(s). Abstracts may be in English, Portuguese, or Spanish. Please submit a 50-100 word abstract. by 15 March 2013; Robert Simon (rsimon5@kennesaw.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
China in World Literature
Special Session
Chinese literary works have a long history of circulation outside of China. What patterns of mobility and appropriation emerge from the close study of this history? One-page abstract by 15 March 2013; David Porter (dporter@umich.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Re-evaluating "Historical Context"
Special Session
Papers that reassess the relationship between literature and history; challenge the priority of context over content; critique, interrogate, or reframe historicism in literary studies. Brief abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Steven J. Syrek (steven.syrek@rutgers.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Teaching of Foreign Languages
Special Session
We seek proposals from alternative, innovative methods of teaching foreign languages. Papers might consider methodologies, reception, case studies... 250-word abstracts & brief CV by 10 March 2013; Adrian Gras-Velazquez (adrian.gras-velazquez@durham.ac.uk) and Prof. Doris Sommer (Harvard University)
Posted 18 January 2013
Representation of Vulnerable Societies
Special Session
The representation of societies in conflict: social exclusion, marginalization and forced displacement in the contemporary Latin American Novel. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Hilma-Nelly Zamora-Breckenridge (nelly.zamora-breckenridge@valpo.edu)
Posted 18 January 2013
Thinking Fanlation
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures after 1900
Papers that explore the theoretical or political ramifications of fanlation, scanlation, fansubbing, or other forms of unauthorized and/or crowdsourced translation in a global media context. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Michael Emmerich (emmerich@eastasian.ucsb.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013, last updated 18 January 2013
Thinking Fanlation
Discussion Group: Translation
Papers that explore the theoretical or political ramifications of fanlation, scanlation, fansubbing, or other forms of unauthorized and/or crowdsourced translation in a global media context. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Michael Emmerich (emmerich@eastasian.ucsb.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
Orientalismo en el cine contemporáneo
Special Session
¿Cómo está siendo revisitada la representación de asiáticos, árabes y judíos en el cine hispano y brasileño contemporáneo? Enviar abstracto de 250 palabras. by 15 March 2013; Michele C. Dávila (mdavilagoncalv@salemstate.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
21st Century Pedagogies
Discussion Group: the Two-Year College
Brief presentations that explore alternative teaching approaches, innovative pedagogy, and English or Foreign language classroom best practices departing from the traditional instructional model. Stacey Donohue sdonohue@cocc.edu. 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Stacey Lee Donohue (sdonohue@cocc.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
Critical Regionalisms
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Analysis of emergent conceptualizations of the regional and of cultural difference that question traditional notions of territorialization, authority, and identity in an Iberian context. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Cristina Moreiras-Menor (moreiras@umich.edu)
Posted 17 January 2013
Colonial Heroes and Martyrs
Special Session
Explorers, conquerors, and victims in early North and Latin America. Are heroism and sacrifice (think: John Smith and Pocahontas) interwoven? Abstracts by 15 March 2013 to Joanne.van.der.Woude@rug.nl. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Joanne van der Woude (Joanne.van.der.Woude@rug.nl)
Posted 17 January 2013
The Musics of Chicago
Special Session
From jazz to rock, disco and house to hip-hop, this panel examines the cultures, histories, and discourses of Chicago's musics. 200-300 word abstracts / full papers & CV. by 15 March 2013; Shawn Higgins (shawn.higgins@uconn.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Brecht and the Century of War
Allied Organization: International Brecht Society
Anticipating the 100th anniversary of the onset of hostilities in WWI, this panel explores how war informs and takes form in Brecht’s works. Abstracts, 200-300 words by 15 March 2013; Marc David Silberman (mdsilber@wisc.edu) and Theodor Rippey (theodor@bgsu.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Invisible Violences in the North
Discussion Group: Scandinavian Languages and Literatures
How does the prominence of violence in Nordic literature, film, and society challenge the Nordic countries' reputation for peace, environmentalism, welfare, equality, and general happiness? 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Leonardo Lisi (leonardo.lisi@jhu.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Novels of the Arab Diaspora
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers on novels by Arab writers of the diaspora, early and contemporary topics welcome, including Arabic, Francophone, and Anglophone texts. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
New Arabic Genres
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers on new Arabic media, including electronic modes of writing, graphic narratives, and innovations in genres of Arabic writing. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Vulnerable Expression after the Arab Uprisings
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers examining cultural freedoms since the Arab Uprisings, with an emphasis on legal and economic transformations in cultural production. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 16 January 2013
Trans-Mediterranean Literature and Film
Division: Arabic Literature and Culture
Seeking papers that theorize a Trans-Mediterranean culture. Suggested topics include colonialism, cosmopolitanism, circuits of migration, and multinational/multilingual literature and cinema. Brief abstract and CV by 8 March 2013; Christopher Micklethwait (chrisdm@stedwards.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013, last updated 16 January 2013
Luso-Hispanic Exchanges
Allied Organization: American Portuguese Studies Association
A comparative examination of Portuguese- and Spanish-language literary and cultural materials. Latin American, peninsular, transatlantic, and other approaches welcome. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Robert Newcomb (rpnewcomb@ucdavis.edu) and Luiz Fernando Valente (Luiz_Valente@brown.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Luso-Hispanic Exchanges
Division: Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature
A comparative examination of Portuguese- and Spanish-language literary and cultural materials. Latin American, peninsular, transatlantic, and other approaches welcome. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Robert Newcomb (rpnewcomb@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Sport and Nation in the Lusophone World
Division: Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature
The relationship between sport and nationality in literary, cinematic and visual texts. We encourage the consideration of gender, race, class, and sexual orientation. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Emanuelle Oliveira Monte (Emanuelle.olveira@vanderbilt.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Memory/History/Stories
Division: Luso-Brazilian Language and Literature
The intersection of memory, history and fiction in the construction of national and self identity; memory and post-memory; remembering versus forgetting; collective and personal trauma. 300-word abstracts by 11 March 2013; Cristina Pinto-Bailey (pinto-baileyac@wlu.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Diplomacy in 17th-century French Culture
Division: Seventeenth-Century French Literature
Relations between disparate cultures; evolving practices and forms of diplomacy; its languages; its influence on literary production. 300 word abstract by 15 March 2013; Faith Beasley (Faith.Beasley@Dartmouth.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
New Approaches to Science Fiction Criticism
Discussion Group: Science Fiction and Utopian and Fantastic Literature
This panel will explore intersections between science fiction criticism and emergent realisms in the humanities (affect theory, digital humanities, surface reading etc). 250 word abstracts, CV by 8 March 2013; Rebekah Sheldon (sheldonr@uwm.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
The dandy: fashionable victim or hybrid reflection?
Special Session
Social self-made novelty, Baudrillard identifies the dandy's position as "an aesthetic form of nihilism" by reinventing aesthetic values throughout the centuries. abstracts, approx. 250-300 words by 8 March 2013; Dany Jacob (danyjaco@buffalo.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Milton’s Modernities
Allied Organization: Milton Society of America
Papers addressing the poet’s seventeenth-century context or later influence. Full CFP at miltonsociety.org. Please send 500-word abstracts or eight-page paper by 15 March 2013; Ken Hiltner (hiltner@english.ucsb.edu) and Feisal Mohamed (fgm@illinois.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Milton in the Long Restoration
Allied Organization: Milton Society of America
This session will explore Milton's presence in the long Restoration. We seek papers that address this topic from various critical perspectives. Title and brief abstract of paper. by 15 March 2013; Albert J. Rivero (albert.rivero@marquette.edu) and Blair Hoxby (bhoxby@stanford.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013, last updated 15 January 2013
John Milton: A General Session
Allied Organization: Milton Society of America
Papers on all topics relating to John Milton. Please send abstracts or complete papers. 8-page o by 15 March 2013; Ken Hiltner (hiltner@english.ucsb.edu) and Rachel Trubowitz (Rachel.Trubowitz@unh.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Blockbusters and Bestsellers
Division: Twentieth-Century English Literature
How does popular success shape novels? Topics might include literary prizes, adaptations in other media, distribution networks, reading clubs, genre, graphic novels, highbrow and middlebrow fiction, specific bestsellers. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Allan Hepburn (allan.hepburn@mcgill.ca)
Posted 14 January 2013, last updated 15 January 2013
The Sacrificial Dynamic in Goethe
Allied Organization: Goethe Society of North America
Papers discussing the degree to which Goethe’s works reflect, and reflect on, sacrificial processes. Both fictional and non-fictional works may be considered. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; David Wellbery (wellbery@uchicago.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Women's Education in Third World Countries
Discussion Group: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Culture and Society
Literary, legal, political, economic or social implications of and current theories and developments on women's right to education in developing and under-developed countries/regions. Abstracts and vita by 15 March 2013; Shirin E. Edwin (see001@shsu.edu)
Posted 15 January 2013
Terrorism and Temporality
Special Session
How do terrorist literary narratives reflect, respond to, or reconfigure notions of temporality (chronology, periodization, history, the present, Jetztzeit, futurity, the new, the "post-," repetition, etc.)? 250 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Todd Kuchta (todd.kuchta@wmich.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
State-Sponsored Voyeurism and Surveillance
Discussion Group: Romanian Studies
Panel/roundtable seeks to investigate approaches to secret police surveillance and/or informant files from former East Bloc countries. one-page abstract and bio by 15 March 2013; Valentina N. Glajar (glajar@txstate.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Comparative Mediterranean American Literatures
Discussion Group: Italian American Literature
Papers on works by Americans of Mediterranean origins (Anatolian, Levantine, Maghrebi, Southern European, etc.) exploring questions of bioregional, ethnoracial, and national affiliation and disaffiliation. Abstracts (<300 words) by 18 March 2013; Jim Cocola (jcocola@wpi.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Influence/Confluence of Genres in East Asia
Division: East Asian Languages and Literatures to 1900
Explorations of the influence between and confluence of literary and performative genres as perceived in East Asian cultures before 1900. 250-word abstract by 10 March 2013; Joseph Sorensen (jsorensen@ucdavis.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Milton in the Long Restoration
Division: Restoration and Early-Eighteenth-Century English Literature
This session will explore Milton's presence in the long Restoration. We seek papers that address this topic from various critical perspectives. Title and brief abstract of paper by 15 March 2013; Albert J. Rivero (albert.rivero@marquette.edu) and Blair Hoxby (bhoxby@stanford.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Black German History and Culture in Research and Teaching
Special Session
Proposals addressing: current state of research; transnational/cross-cultural/comparative approaches; theoretical/interdisciplinary innovations; teaching/pedagogical considerations; integration into US/German college curricula. 500-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Maria S. Grewe (mgrewe@jjay.cuny.edu)
Posted 14 January 2013
Disability Discourses in Latin America: Academy and Activism
Discussion Group: Mexican Cultural and Literary Studies
Roundtable exploring current issues and discourses in disability studies in LA. 6-7 minute position papers identifying areas of research, activism. 200-word abstract and CV by 1 March 2013; Beth Jorgensen (beth.jorgensen@rochester.edu) and Susan Antebi (susan.antebi@utoronto.ca)
Posted 13 January 2013
Animation in French Literature, 1550-1750
Special Session
Exploring the act, process, or result of imparting life, spirit, motion or activity. Theories and representations of life, death, vitalism, mechanism, machines, bodies etc. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Allison Stedman (allison.stedman@uncc.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
The John Brown Event: Approaches to Antebellum Righteous Violence
Special Session
Innovative takes on responses to John Brown and other agents of nineteenth-century political violence. Submit a 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Jason Berger (jason.berger@usd.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Affect Theory or Affect Studies?
Special Session
What would shifting to a "studies" model of affects, rather than focusing on affect "theory," mean for contemporary understandings of affect and emotion? 250-word abstracts plus vitae by 15 March 2013; Octavio Gonzalez (octaviorgonzalez@gmail.com)
Posted 13 January 2013
The Legacies of Carlos Fuentes: A Roundtable Discussion
Discussion Group: Mexican Cultural and Literary Studies
This round table seeks to explore the literary, cultural and political significance of Carlos Fuentes’oeuvre. 300-word abstract and bio. by 14 March 2013; Juan Carlos Ramírez-Pimienta (jcramire@rohan.sdsu.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Mexican Studies and the Return of the PRI: A roundtable
Discussion Group: Mexican Cultural and Literary Studies
Seven-minute position papers concerning the impact on our methodologies and paradigms of the PRI’s return to power. 200-word abstracts and bio by 1 March 2013; Ignacio Sanchez-Prado (isanchez@artsci.wustl.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Teaching Brecht
Division: the Teaching of Literature
Proposals sought with critical reflections and best practices on teaching Bertolt Brecht’s ideas and works (dramas, prose, poetry), including text selection, performing excerpts, and integrating theoretical issues. Abstracts (200 words) by 15 March 2013; Per Urlaub (urlaub@austin.utexas.edu) and Paula Hanssen (hanssen@webster.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Latinoamericanismo Reloaded
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Contemporary theoretical readings on thinkers of Latin Americanism writing between 1900 (Ariel) and 1971 (Caliban). 300-word abstract and brief bio. by 1 March 2013; Ignacio Sanchez Prado (isanchez@artsci.wustl.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
Parodic Form in Asian Diasporic Literature
Special Session
The roles of parodic form in Asian diasporic literature via the comedic, satirical, or absurd in experimental writing, graphic novels, or traditional print formats. 200-word abstracts by 25 February 2013; Karen An-hwei Lee (klee@vanguard.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
History, Form, Theory of Early Modern Disability
Division: Disability Studies
Reflections on historical, formal, theoretical models of disability representation in early modern period. Compare existing methodologies and/or propose inroads for future studies. 250-word abstracts, cv by 1 March 2013; Elizabeth Bearden (ebearden@wisc.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013, last updated 13 January 2013
Toxic Bodies
Division: Disability Studies
Disabled persons as canaries in coal mines of globalization. Intersectional connections to other vulnerable populations based on proximity to toxicity (fracking, irradiation, strip mining, mercury poisoning, pharmaceuticals). 350-word abstracts, cv by 1 March 2013; David Mitchell (dtmitchel@gmail.com)
Posted 12 January 2013, last updated 13 January 2013
Unamuno’s Niebla 100 Years Later
Special Session
This panel will explore the continued significance of Niebla on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. Please send abstracts to bcope@wooster.edu before March 8. abstracts (250 words) by 8 March 2013; Brian J. Cope (bcope@wooster.edu)
Posted 13 January 2013
New Social Movements
Division: Twentieth-Century Latin American Literature
Analyses of recent movements ("yo soy 132," "indignados," etc.) in Latin America, Spain, or the US-Latino context. Round table format; comparative perspectives welcome. 250-word abstracts to: hchacon6@naz.edu and susanm by 1 March 2013; Hilda Chacón (hchacon6@naz.edu) and Susan Martin-Marquez (susanmm@rci.rutgers.edu )
Posted 12 January 2013, last updated 13 January 2013
Navigating Arthurian Waterways: Of Literary Lakes, Rivers, and Oceans
Discussion Group: Arthurian Literature
The Arthurian Literature Discussion Group seeks papers that explore the significance of water within Arthurian texts. 300-500 word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Randy P. Schiff (rpschiff@buffalo.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
Vulnerada y curativa: Contemporary Poetry in Latin America
Special Session
This roundtable rethinks Latin American poetic productions as always-already 'vulnerated' enunciations and to identify their vulnerary qualities. 250 word abstracts by March 1st. by 1 March 2013; José Ramón Ruisánchez Serra (jrruisanchez@uh.edu) and Tamara R. Williams (williatr@plu.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
The Commons/Lo común
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Analysis of how the concept is deployed in contemporary Spanish cultural production, including articulation or questioning of cultural and political imaginaries, communities, relationships and subjectivities. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Elena Delgado (ldelgado@illinois.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
New Social Movements
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Analyses of recent movements ("yo soy 132," "indignados," etc.) in Latin America, Spain, or the US-Latino context. Round table format; comparative perspectives welcome. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Susan Martin-Márquez (susanmm@rci.rutgers.edu) and Hilda Chacón (hchacon6@naz.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
Alternative Histories
Division: Twentieth-Century Spanish Literature
Theoretically informed proposals for, or analyses of, new ways of conceptualizing cultural, literary, or film history. Should have relevance for the study of 20th-21st century Spain. 250-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jo Labanyi (jo.labanyi@nyu.edu)
Posted 12 January 2013
The Brothers Quay and Literature
Special Session
The Brothers Quay and Literature Papers that consider the films of the Brothers Quay and their relationship to literature (Walser, Kafka, Schulz). 500-word abstracts to jplug@uwo.ca. 500-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Jan Plug (jplug@uwo.ca)
Posted 11 January 2013
The Imagined Text
Division: Seventeenth-Century French Literature
Exploring the boundaries between texts and meta-texts: what is there to learn from edits, rewrites, variantes, hypothetical genetics, possible texts, unwritten pages, and creative criticism. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Hélène Bilis (hbilis@wellesley.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
The Essay in the Age of Its Electronic Reproducibility
Division: Nonfiction Prose Studies, Excluding Biography and Autobiography
The essay and its "digital" production, storage, and distribution; the essay as scholarly writing and communication in networked programmable media. 500-word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Brian Lennon (bul5@psu.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Girls and the f-word: twenty-first century representations of women’s lives
Special Session
Papers addressing the pioneering HBO show, attendant discussions and controversies, and/or related media exploring twenty-first century feminisms. 250-word abstract and short bio by 8 March 2013; Tahneer Oksman (toksman@gc.cuny.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Teaching Brecht
Allied Organization: International Brecht Society
Proposals sought with critical reflections and best practices on teaching Bertolt Brecht’s ideas and works (dramas, prose, poetry), including text selection, performing excerpts, and integrating theoretical issues. Abstracts (200 words) by 15 March 2013; Per Urlaub (urlaub@austin.utexas.edu) and Paula Hanssen (hanssen@webster.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Premodern East Asia in/and the World Literature Canon
Special Session
Papers on classical East Asian genres or texts, and their position in, invisibility to, or impact on conceptions of world literature. 1 page abstract by 1 March 2013; Charlotte Eubanks (cde13@psu.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Vulnerable Victorians: Identity and "Deviance"
Special Session
We seek papers that explore boundaries of normative behavior and “moral disability” in 19thc Britain: identity, deviance and vulnerable personhood for women, homosexuals, the disabled. 300w abstracts. by 15 March 2013; Brandy Schillace (bls10@case.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Post-Revolutionary Arab(ic) Literature
Special Session
Panel investigates the emerging “literature of the Revolution” in Arabic, English or French from the Arab world. How have these texts contributed to contemporary literature? abstracts by 10 March 2013; Douja Mamelouk (dmamelou@utk.edu)
Posted 11 January 2013
Translingual Practice: Cross-Disciplinary Conversations
Special Session
Presentations on translingual practice in literature, linguistics, literacy, and rhetoric in different languages, periods, and genres with the objective of developing an integrated orientation. Abstracts of 400 words by 8 March 2013; Suresh Canagarajah (asc16@psu.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Learning Language History through Literature
Special Session
Seeking papers that explore issues in the history of the vernacular in tandem with national literatures and literary identities. Abstracts (300 words) by 1 March 2013; Ashley Brandenburg (adb52@cornell.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Literature and the English Revolution: 1640-1659
Division: Seventeenth-Century English Literature
We welcome papers on any kind of written material from this period (pamphlets, poems, treatises, etc.). A detailed abstract of at least 500 words. by 15 March 2013; Molly Murray (mpm7@columbia.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Networks of Influence in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry
Division: Seventeenth-Century English Literature
We welcome papers on individual poets, pairs of poets and coteries, cultures, and subcultures of literary transmission. A detailed abstract of at least 500 words. by 15 March 2013; Richard Strier (rastrier@uchicago.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
Fragile Theatre
Special Session
Latin American theatre often breaks or blurs boundaries. How can the concept of fragility (of genre, the fourth wall, or tradition) inform our analysis? Please submit abstracts of 250 words. by 15 March 2013; Julie Ward (wardjulie@berkeley.edu)
Posted 10 January 2013
The Poetics of Information
Special Session
How are contemporary poets responding to the culture of information? How is information culture coming into relation with literary culture? Abstract and short cv. by 15 March 2013; Scott J. Pound (scott.pound@lakeheadu.ca)
Posted 10 January 2013
Kafka in Search for Alternative Realities
Special Session
Alternative realities (familiar - unfamiliar settings, narrative positions; Kafka's works; comparative - transnational topics) where marginalized people (women, children, animals) speak and act. 500 word abstsacts by 20 March 2013; Marie Luise Caputo-Mayr (mlcaputomayr@hotmail.com) and Dagmar Lorenz (dcglorenz@gmail.com)
Posted 9 January 2013
Eyes and Ears on "Homeland"
Special Session
How have critics and viewers responded to the TV show “Homeland”? How does the show complicate notions of “home,” “heroism,” and “terrorism”? abstracts of 500 words by 15 March 2013; Laura E. Savu (laura_savu@yahoo.com)
Posted 9 January 2013
My Place or Yours: The Geographies of Italian American Literature
Discussion Group: Italian American Literature
Roundtable on Italian American literature as situated in urban, suburban, rural spaces; transatlantic, transnational perspectives; academic, institutional, pedagogical contexts. Abstracts (<300 words) by 18 March 2013; Jim Cocola (jcocola@wpi.edu)
Posted 9 January 2013
A Tribute to Russell Hamilton
Discussion Group: Lusophone Literatures and Cultures outside Portugal and Brazil
Panel discussion of the latest developments in the field. Papers circulated before the convention; presentations limited to ten minutes. 250 word abstracts by 8 March 2013; Ana Paula Ferreira (apferrei@umn.edu)
Posted 2 January 2013, last updated 9 January 2013
Hemingway and the Chicago Renaissance
Allied Organization: Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society
We invite papers that explore Hemingway’s relationship with the Chicago Renaissance and the writers and texts prominent within that movement. 250-500 word abstract and a brief CV by 1 March 2013; Sara A. Kosiba (skosiba@troy.edu)
Posted 9 January 2013
Les Caves du Vatican: 100 ans après
Allied Organization: Association des Amis d'André Gide
Approaches to Gide's sotie on the centenary of its first publication. 250-word abstracts, in French or English by 15 March 2013; Alison S. James (asj@uchicago.edu)
Posted 9 January 2013
Radical Ecologies: (Re)Grounding Digital Pedagogy
Special Session
A conversation/workshop exploring the following: Is there a role for ecological thinking in developing humanities curricula? How can ecological concepts (re)shape digitally-inflected pedagogy? 250-400 word abstract by 1 March 2013; Pavel Cenkl (pcenkl@sterlingcollege.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013, last updated 9 January 2013
Translating the Troubadours
Discussion Group: Provençal Language and Literature
From early French ‘adaptations’ to Pound, one of the modes of reception of troubadour poetry has been translation. Proposals on linguistic and/or cultural translation from any period. Abstracts, 250-500w. by 15 March 2013; Eliza Zingesser (ez222@cam.ac.uk)
Posted 9 January 2013
The expulsion of the Moriscos (1609-1614): History and Memory
Special Session
Post-1614 history and memory of the Moriscos: where they went and how they were remembered. Abstract (500 words) and CV. by 1 March 2013; Raul Marrero-Fente (rmarrero@umn.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Mass versus Coterie I: The Audio Book
Division: Prose Fiction
How does the audio book shape the making and consuming of prose fiction? Papers might consider audiences, forms, histories. Abstracts and brief CVs by 1 March 2013; Mark McGurl (mcgurl@stanford.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Old Materials, New Materialisms
Division: Methods of Literary Research
Submissions welcome on all aspects of archival scholarship and new materialisms (including feminism, science studies, object oriented ontology, ecocriticism, animal studies). 250 word abstracts by 14 March 2013; Robert Markley (rmarkley@illinois.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Building a Book History of Theory and Criticism
Special Session
Investigating the book history of theory and criticism, for instance anthologies, journals, book series, etc. 250-500 word abstracts and short bio or cv by 15 March 2013; Jeffrey J. Williams (jwill@andrew.cmu.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
One Thousand and One Nights as World Literature
Special Session
Theoretical, hermeneutic, and historical approaches to translations, rewritings, and adaptations of the Nights from any time period, language, and geography. 250-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Sevinc Turkkan (sturkkan@brockport.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Speculative Realism and Literary Studies
Special Session
Philosophers on literature (e.g. Meillassoux on Mallarmé, Harmon on Lovecraft); literature attuned to SR (Ligotti, Mieville); the New Weird; new possibilities for literary criticism. 750 word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Peter Schwenger (pschweng@uwo.ca)
Posted 8 January 2013
Generations of Contemporary American Fiction
Special Session
Looking for papers that focus on particular generations in contemporary U.S. fiction and think about broader issues such as definition, coherence, relation, and historical context. 250-word abstracts by 15 March 2013; Samuel Cohen (cohenss@missouri.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Postcolonial Studies and Human Rights
Special Session
Papers that address contemporary theoretical debates within postcolonial studies in relation to new directions in human rights in literary and cultural studies. 300-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Alexandra Schultheis Moore (tanagerlodge@yahoo.com) and Elizabeth Swanson Goldberg (egoldberg@babson.edu)
Posted 8 January 2013
Cross-Cultural Dialogues
Division: Comparative Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Seeking papers about literature or film involving cultures or languages of the global south addressing events of transnational affect (e.g. 9/11, “occupy” movement). 250-word abstract and brief CV by 15 March 2013; Olakunle George (Olakunle_George@Brown.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Family Feeling in Early Modern Texts
Special Session
Questions of kinship and emotion in texts published between 1450-1750. Send abstracts and CVs to Megan Allen (meallen@wustl.edu) or Anna Leeper (galeeper@wustl.edu). 400-500- word abstracts by 27 February 2013; G. Anna Leeper (galeeper@wustl.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Teaching Current Events in Target Language Media: Roundtable Discussion
Special Session
Seeking participants to share pedagogical approaches to teaching language and culture through course on current events in target language media. 250-word proposal; CV by 10 March 2013; Heather Hennes (hhennes@sju.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Corpulence, Excess, Obesity: Sizing Up the Body from Shakespeare to The Biggest Loser
Special Session
We seek papers that explore popular and canonical representations of the fetishized, non-normative body. 250 word abstract and CV by 15 March 2013; Ambereen Dadabhoy (ambereen_dadabhoy@hmc.edu) and Ellen Scheible (escheible@bridgew.edu)
Posted 7 January 2013
Demons, Goblins, Ghosts and Witches in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literature
Special Session
Papers will focus on demonology, demonolatry, idolatry, witchcraft, bestiality, demoniality, etc. Send an abstract (400-500 words) and a CV. by 15 March 2013; Jorge Abril-Sanchez (jorgeabrilsanchez@hotmail.com)
Posted 6 January 2013
Ethics, Politics and Contemporary Poetry
Special Session
How do contemporary poets and poetries respond to world politics and ethics? How do ethics inflect the political and the poetic? 250-word abstracts and a short CV by 15 March 2013; Andrew R. Mossin (amossin@princeton.edu)
Posted 6 January 2013
Multiethnic Texts in Translation
Discussion Group: Literature of the United States in Languages Other Than English
Theoretical/pedagogical approaches to the role of translation in multiethnic/multilingual studies. Time period and genre open; transnational texts welcome. Brief abstract (500 words max) and brief CV (2pp m by 10 March 2013; Montse Feu (montsefeu@gmail.com)
Posted 4 January 2013
Publishing a Persona
Special Session
Exploring the typification, marketing and consumption of a diasporic author's identity in the publishing process. Kindly sumbit a 250 word abstract and CV for a 15 by 1 March 2013; Melanie Wattenbarger (mrwattenbarger@cohab.mu.ac.in)
Posted 3 January 2013
Women-Authored Novels, Sound Studies, and Music
Special Session
How do women's representations of music evoke listening or artistic expression that transcends, dismantles, or sublimates mourning or trauma? 300-word abstract, short bio by 10 March 2013; Linda Kick (linda.lee.kick@gmail.com)
Posted 30 December 2012
"John Clare: The Voices of Nature."
Allied Organization: John Clare Society of North America
Papers addressing any aspect of Clare's poetry and prose, especially regarding the intersection between nature and language. One page abstract by 15 March 2013; Samantha Celeste Harvey (samanthaharvey@boisestate.edu)
Posted 28 December 2012
Global Art, Western American Context
Allied Organization: Western Literature Association
The influence of reading/seeing art from all times and areas, such as in museums or books, within a personal context of the American West. 300-word abstracts by 6 March 2013; Max Despain (max.despain@gmail.com)
Posted 28 December 2012
Sir Walter Scott and Music
Allied Organization: Lyrica Society for Word-Music Relations
Celebrating the 200th anniversary of Waverley, we seek proposals on any of Scott's works and music, including song settings, opera, musical theatre, etc. 250-350 word abstracts by 1 March 2013; Jeff Dailey (drjsdailey@aol.com)
Posted 27 December 2012
Literature and Health
Special Session
In what ways might literature, broadly defined, be implicated in health, individual or public, and in health care? Abstract of 400-500 words and 1-page CV by 1 March 2013; Catherine Belling (c-belling@northwestern.edu)
Posted 24 December 2012
Balancing Personal Life and Academia
Special Session
What is “work-life balance”? Does it exist? Bringing personal to work and vice versa, work-life balance for LGBT students (co-sponsored by GLQ Caucus). 300-word abstract, short bio by 22 February 2013; Svetlana Tyutina (svetatyutina@yahoo.com) and Sarah Kremen-Hicks (sarahkh@uw.edu)
Posted 24 December 2012
Literature and Bioethics
Special Session
Proposals invited for short papers examining, perhaps interrogating, "literature" and "bioethics" and the possible relationships between these two variously definable fields. Abstract of 400-500 words, and one-page CV by 1 March 2013; Catherine Belling (c-belling@northwestern.edu)
Posted 24 December 2012
Hawthorne in 1864
Allied Organization: Nathaniel Hawthorne Society
In his last year of life, Hawthorne faced challenges on many fronts. All interpretations of this topic are welcome. 250-500 word abstracts and a short c.v. by 15 March 2013; Ellen Weinauer (ellen.weinauer@usm.edu)
Posted 20 December 2012
Imagery and Influence: Hawthorne and Melville
Allied Organization: Melville Society
This collaborative panel explores how Hawthorne and Melville shared influences, traded influence, and/or incorporated classical images, narratives, and sources into their work. Proposal and Short CV by 15 March 2013; Joseph Fruscione (josephk@email.gwu.edu) and David Greven (dgreven@mailbox.sc.edu)
Posted 18 December 2012
Romantic Adaptation
Allied Organization: Wordsworth-Coleridge Association
Essays should examine the purposes and techniques of textual adaptation in British Romantic literature, including translation, revision, retraction, bricolage, plagiarism, parody, forgery, hoax, lampoon, and caricature. Abstracts (250-300 words) by 15 March 2013; James C. McKusick (james.mckusick@umontana.edu)
Posted 14 December 2012
Independent Thinking: Scotland's Inscription of Separation
Discussion Group: Scottish Literature
Does possible independence inflect—or open a space for—literature? Discussion group welcomes considerations of Scottish and comparative moments of political independence. 200 word proposals (and vitae) by 7 March 2013; Matthew Wickman (Matthew_Wickman@byu.edu)
Posted 11 December 2012
Rethinking the Seminar Paper
MLA Committee: Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession
How can we reconsider the graduate seminar paper’s purpose, potential forms, and usefulness to students and teachers? 300-word abstracts – bio by 11 March 2013; Alexandra Valint (alexandra.valint@usm.edu) and Atia Sattar (azs183@psu.edu)
Posted 10 December 2012
Narrative Empathy for "the Other"
Allied Organization: International Society for the Study of Narrative
How do literary texts depict and/or elicit empathy that transgresses identity categories? What strategies do texts employ to elicit readerly empathy? Abstracts of 500 words or less by 1 March 2013; Patrick Horn (pathorn@unc.edu)
Posted 9 December 2012
Time to Degree
MLA Committee: Committee on the Status of Graduate Students in the Profession
Papers theorizing and analyzing how pressure to decrease time to degree (often without reducing requirements) affects Ph.D. students, scholarship, teaching, the future of the profession. 300-word abstracts – bio by 11 March 2013; Heather Steffen (hsteffen@andrew.cmu.edu)
Posted 26 November 2012, last updated 27 November 2012
What Makes a Modernist Plot?
Allied Organization: Modernist Studies Association
Modernism's resistance to plot needs reconsideration, given new modernist corpus and narrative theories. 250-word abstract and bio to richard.walsh@york.ac.uk. 1st March 2013. 250-word abstract and bio by 1 March 2013; Susan Stanford Friedman (ssfriedm@wisc.edu) and Richard Walsh (richard.walsh@york.ac.uk)
Posted 18 November 2012, last updated 21 November 2012
British South Africa, 1795-1919
Special Session
How was British identity constructed in or in relation to southern Africa? Abstract (250-500 words) and CV. by 10 March 2013; Melissa Free (mfree@binghamton.edu)
Posted 17 November 2012
Hoaxing Poe
Allied Organization: Poe Studies Association
Papers that deal with specific Poe hoaxes (e.g., “Hans Pfall,” “The Balloon Hoax,” “Valdemar”) and/or with the hoaxing impulse in other works are welcome. 250-word abstract and resume by 15 February 2013; Paul Lewis (paul.lewis@bc.edu)
Posted 17 November 2012
Chicago's Playwriting Renaissance
Special Session
Since 1950 a renaissance in playwriting has occurred in Chicago. Proposals about playwrights, workshops, ensembles, degree programs should address the subject's social and economic contexts. 300 word abstracts by 4 March 2013; Arvid F. Sponberg (arvid.sponberg@valpo.edu)
Posted 14 November 2012
What Makes a Modernist Plot?
Allied Organization: International Society for the Study of Narrative
Modernism's supposed resistance to plot needs reconsideration, given an enlarged modernist corpus and new cognitive and rhetorical approaches in narrative theory. 250-word abstract and short biographical statement by 1 March 2013; Richard Walsh (richard.walsh@york.ac.uk)
Posted 8 November 2012
Indigeneity and Diaspora: Exploring Intersections Through Canadian Literature
Discussion Group: Canadian Literature in English
How has Canadian literature refracted questions of alliance and difference between Indigenous and diasporic subjects? Proposals of no more than 400 words. by 1 March 2013; Pauline Wakeham (pwakeham@uwo.ca)
Posted 4 November 2012
The Future of Close Reading
Special Session
This panel will examine emergent practices of close reading. We particularly seek papers addressing the ethics of close reading non-canonical texts, including queer/traumatic work. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Meridith Kruse (meridithkruse@gmail.com) and Katherine Wilson (katherinefmw@gmail.com)
Posted 27 October 2012, last updated 29 October 2012
The Project of a General Poetics
Special Session
Including but not limited to the theory of poetry. Broad or specific discussions on where we stand, what needs doing. by 4 March 2013; David J. Gorman (dgorman@niu.edu)
Posted 24 October 2012
20th-Century South Asian Literatures - Without English
Division: Comparative Studies in Twentieth-Century Literature
Seeking papers on writers of South Asia who publish in indigenous languages of the region. Abstracts of ca. 250 words, plus CV by 17 December 2012; Thomas Oliver Beebee (tob@psu.edu)
Posted 23 October 2012
Native American Memoir in the West: Historical Trauma and Healing
Allied Organization: Western Literature Association
This panel considers how Native authors negotiate healing of their personal histories in the context of historical trauma. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Patrice Hollrah (hollrahp@unlv.nevada.edu)
Posted 22 October 2012
D. H. Lawrence and the Poetry
Allied Organization: D. H. Lawrence Society of North America
On the brink of the Cambridge University Press publication of the Poems, we invite papers on the poems and their contexts. 250-word abstracts or 8-page papers by 4 March 2013; Holly A. Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu)
Posted 15 October 2012
William Morris, Arts and Crafts, and the Midwest
Allied Organization: William Morris Society
Papers are invited on the influence of Morris and his associates on Midwestern culture. 1 page abstracts; please send by e-mail by 15 March 2013; Florence S. Boos (florence-boos@uiowa.edu)
Posted 14 October 2012
¿Terror feminista/femenina?
Allied Organization: Feministas Unidas
We will engage the language of terror(ism) in creative works by Spanish-speaking/U.S. Latina women writers, film makers and visual artists. How is terrorism related to women's experience/creativity/in)visibility? 250 word abstracts by 1 February 2013; Maria DiFrancesco (mdifrancesco@ithaca.edu)
Posted 8 October 2012
Death and Affect in Chaucer
Special Session
How does Chaucer’s literature confirm/counter medieval ‘norms’ of emotions related to death? How do Chaucer’s affects of death work on listeners and readers, medieval to modern? Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Rebecca McNamara (rebecca.mcnamara@sydney.edu.au)
Posted 4 October 2012
Using the Corpus of Historical American English for Literary Study
Special Session
Papers are invited exploring ways to use COHA (http://corpus.byu.edu/coha/) for historical research and/or undergraduate and graduate literature classes. Abstracts (300 words) by 1 March 2013; Peter J. Schmidt (pschmid1@swarthmore.edu)
Posted 1 October 2012
Doris Lessing and D.H. Lawrence
Allied Organization: D. H. Lawrence Society of North America
Lessing's reading of Lady Chatterley's Lover as an anti-war novel suggests important intertextual relations between these authors. 250-word comparative abstracts and bio by 10 March 2013; Holly A. Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu) and Alice Rideout (dorislessingsociety@gmail.com)
Posted 1 October 2012
Doris Lessing and D.H. Lawrence
Allied Organization: Doris Lessing Society
Lessing's reading of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" as an anti-war novel suggests important intertextual relations between these authors. 250-word abstracts and bio by 10 March 2013. by 10 March 2013; Alice Rachel Ridout (dorislessingsociety@gmail.com) and Holly Laird (holly-laird@utulsa.edu)
Posted 1 October 2012
Transnational Indigeneities against the Law
MLA Committee: Committee on the Literatures of People of Color in the United States and Canada
Position papers on racial profiling, settler colonialism, and indigenous politics in Canadian and US institutions. State regulation and defunding of ethnic studies. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Cheryl Suzack (cheryl.suzack@utoronto.edu)
Posted 24 September 2012
Global Ed?
MLA Committee: Committee on the Literatures of People of Color in the United States and Canada
Position papers on impact of global education. Considerations may include relations among historically underrepresented ethnic groups, the local and the global, and ethnic studies in the face of austerity. Abstracts by 1 March 2013; Sue Kim (sue_kim@uml.edu) and Sharon Holland (Sharon.Holland@duke.edu)
Posted 24 September 2012
Write on Your Own Time: Scholarship and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty
MLA Committee: Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession
Managing expectations for scholarly and professional activity by non-tenure-track faculty members. Papers highlighting tensions for faculty members and departments. 300-word abstracts. by 22 February 2013; Karen Madison (kmadison@uark.edu)
Posted 21 September 2012
Off the Tenure Track, On Our Radar
MLA Committee: Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession
Practices to improve the professional lives and working conditions of non-tenure-track faculty members. Reports invited from chairs, tenure-track and non-tenure-track colleagues. 300-word abstracts by 22 February 2013; Karen Madison (kmadison@uark.edu)
Posted 21 September 2012
Spectatorship and Reception in Early Drama
Allied Organization: Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society
Roundtable session on the audience's role in early drama, with attention to theories of spectatorship applied to medieval performance. Brief abstracts to initiate a conversation amongst by 1 January 2013; Carolyn E. Coulson-Grigsby (ccoulson2@su.edu)
Posted 9 September 2012
Native Voices in Genre Fiction
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
Session seeks papers analyzing American Indian voices in genre fiction; will explore the possibilities these texts create within and beyond genre boundaries. Abstracts or full papers and c.v. by 8 March 2013; Ryan Winn (rwinn@menominee.edu )
Posted 4 September 2012
Native American Memoir in the West: Historical Trauma and Healing
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
This panel considers how Native authors negotiate healing of their personal histories in the context of historical trauma. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Patrice Hollrah (hollrahp@unlv.nevada.edu)
Posted 3 September 2012
American Indian Gothic
Allied Organization: Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures
Panel seeks to investigate the recent prevalence of this genre within contemporary Indigenous literature and to describe its uniqueness within the Gothic. Abstracts (250 words) by 15 March 2013; Amy Gore (agore@eastern.edu)
Posted 3 September 2012
Deliver Us To Normal: Children’s Literature and the Midwest
Allied Organization: Children's Literature Association
This panel considers how children’s literature and the American Midwest mutually construct one another through geographic and discursive exchanges. Abstracts by 15 March 2013; Kate Slater (kslater@ucsd.edu)
Posted 14 August 2012, last updated 28 August 2012
Epistolary Children’s & Young Adult Literature
Allied Organization: Children's Literature Association
Analyses of epistolary Children’s and Young Adult literature even as these epistolary modalities become obsolete. 2-page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Robyn Schiffman (rls@fdu.edu)
Posted 14 August 2012
Pre-Raphaelites and Children's Literature
Allied Organization: Children's Literature Association
On any aspect of text, illustration, or design of Pre-Raphaelite, Aesthetic, or Fin de Siecle children's books. Co-sponsored with the William Morris Society. 1-2 page abstracts by 15 March 2013; Florence Boos (florence-boos@uiowa.edu)
Posted 14 August 2012