Call for Papers

40th Anniversary Convention February 26-March 1, 2009 Boston, MA

This document may be subject to change.

The NeMLA Board of Directors is pleased to offer this wide range and high quality of proposed sessions for our 2009 Convention. Our local host Boston University is working with us to make the best of Boston available to you, in speaker, special programs and activities. 

Please include the following information with your abstract: name, affiliation, email address, postal address, telephone number, and any A/V requirements ($10 media handling fee). 

Deadlines for abstracts: September 15, 2008 (unless otherwise noted). 

You may submit an abstract to more than one session; however, for the convention, members may present on only ONE paper (panel or seminar), though they may participate in a panel and a roundtable or creative session. 

Accepted participants should renew and register no later than Dec. 1, 2008 for the 2009 membership year or risk being dropped from the convention program.

Panel Areas  (click on a link to go to that area's listings)

American	British/Anglophone	Canadian	Caribbean
Comparative Literature	Composition	Film	French and Francophone
Gay/Lesbian	German	Italian	Pedagogy
Popular Culture	Professional	Spanish/Portuguese	Theory
Women's Studies	World Literatures

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American

See also under: 

British "Gothic Excess"; "Playing Games with the Sacred"; "Reading a Poem Aloud"; "Realism and the Supernatural in the 19th C."; "Women and the City in Early 20th C. Literature"; 

French "Writing America in French"; 

Popular Culture "Lost at NeMLA" : Mapping TV's Most Elusive Island"; "History, Memoir, and Comics"; "Leaps of Faith"; "The Writing Self"; "Those Who Do Not Study History"; 

Theory "Towards a True Avant-Garde Poetics"; 

Women's Studies "American Suffrage Literature"; "Taking Stock of Women and Commodities"; "Transforming Spaces"; "Women Professing Modernism"

20th Century Soldier Narratives: The Intersection of Fiction and Non fiction. Marking the 40th Anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, this panel will consider the inherent quality of meta-fiction in 20th century solder narratives, such as seen in the works of Vonnegut, Stephen E. Ambrose and Tim O' Brien. Papers to be considered for inclusion should focus only on American soldier narratives (1st or 3rd person). Send 250 word-abstracts (MS word attachment) to Stacy Nistendirk, Bridgewater State College, snistendirk@bridgew.edu.

Activist Poetry / Poetic Activism How have poets continually proven Auden's claim that "poetry makes nothing happen" wrong? What happens when poetry and political activism intersect? The centrality of politics to spoken word and slam poetry-and their growing popularity-reminds us of the value of political poetry, despite critical claims otherwise. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts about the effects of poets' activism or about political poetry to Kirsten Ortega at kortega@uccs.edu.

Activist, Feminist, and Writer: Examining the Legacy of Maria W. Stewart This panel will examine the legacy of Maria W. Stewart as a feminist, social critic, and writer. We are seeking papers that focus on her works as literature (including evidence of her political and/or social activism) as part of the African American oral and written tradition. Please send inquiries or 250-500 word abstracts (MSWord attachments only) to Dr. Fran L. Lassiter, flassiter@netzero.net.

Affect and Technology: Connecting American at the Turn of the Century America at the turn of the 20th century is an interesting place and time to examine the way technologies affected and mediated different scales of social relations, whether political, personal, or both. Like other technological forms, literature was instrumental in both representing and itself 'affecting' populations across dispersed geographies. Submissions might be focus on: the affects of social change; mass politics; connecting/wiring bodies, populations, and spaces like the frontier; electrifying populations and/or electric affects; communication; illumination; telepathy and telegraphs; affective social networks. Send 250 word abstracts to justinrogerscooper@gmail.com

American Antebellum Print Culture and the Aesthetics of Consumption This panel considers the intersection between the socio-economic transformation of nineteenth-century United States into a consumer culture and corresponding trends in writing and reading. Does a new aesthetic emerge with wide-spread, "democratic" literacy? How does the booming market in newspapers, journals and magazines shape a mass readership? How might a mass readership shape the "literary" marketplace? What becomes of theoretical distinctions like "high/low," "canonical/popular" if all writers are working under the aegis of this 'new' market-driven mode-of-production? Papers may address any genre or writer. 250-300 word abstracts to Dean Casale at dcasale@kean.edu.

American Trans-Nationalism in the Nineteenth Century: Germany and America This panel seeks papers on the role of German writers on nineteenth century American literature and on ideas of an American national literary tradition. What kinds of access to intellectual resources did the study of German authors provide? How did the role of a potential language barrier reinforce or dilute the impact of German literature? How did American writers see Germany in relation to their own nation? Please send 300-500 word abstracts and brief biographical statements (via snail-mail or email) to Joy Bracewell, joyjohn@uga.edu, 254 Park Hall, Athens, Georgia, 30602-6205.

American Working-Class Literature Board-Sponsored. This panel invites papers on any era and aspect of American Working-Class literature. Papers that examine representations of work, class and labor in conjunction with place, race, ethnicity, gender and/or sexuality are especially welcome, as are papers that contemplate the boundaries and definitions of working-class literature. Please send one-page abstracts to Matt Lessig, SUNY Cortland, lessigm@cortland.edu

Art and Nineteenth-Century American Literature This panel will investigate the intersection of visual art and nineteenth-century American literature. We are interested, not only in the ways visual art provide the source for thematic materials in nineteenth-century literature, but also how the techniques and styles of visual art serve as the basis for understanding the formal innovations in literary production of the period. Sean Kelly slintphaze@aol.com

Art, Ekphrasis and Religion in Contemporary Jewish American Literature This panel seeks papers examining the relationship between art and religion in contemporary Jewish American fiction. Specifically, this panel would like to look at how authors such as Allegra Goodman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon and other, newer authors use art and ekphrasis-the verbal representation of a visual object- to negotiate the divide between the sacred and the secular. Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to Amanda R. Toronto at aqt8334@nyu.edu.

The Art of Deception in Vladimir Nabokov's Ada Vladimir Nabokov's novel Ada involves authorial deception on multiple levels. Nabokov believed that the job of the author was not to portray reality, but to create it, and that is what both he and his protagonist, Van Veen, do in Ada. Papers discussing the author's role in the relationship between art and reality in Ada will be considered. Please send submissions (as MSWord attachments) to Sarah Kingston, sarahesanislo@aol.com.

Asian American Literature: the Voice of Southeast Asian Diaspora This panel will discuss the voice of Southeast Asian diaspora in North America and various sociopolitical issues they encounter. Please send an abstract of 500 words as well as a brief bio in a single file to Dr. Brian Guan-rong Chen at grc0930@yahoo.com. (Note: Only PDF and MS Word .doc files, not docx.)

The "Breaking of Style" in Postmodern Poetry In this panel, papers will consider how Helen Vendler's phrase the "breaking of style" applies to postmodern poetry. Papers can extend beyond her original terms to explore how postmodern poets play with language, break from tradition, and, in a larger sense, represent postmodernism in poetry, perhaps even extending into the twenty-first century and new breaks with the tradition, new styles in form. Please send 500 word abstracts to Lisa Perdigao at lperdiga@fit.edu or Department of Humanities and Communication, Florida Institute of Technology, 150 W. University Blvd., Melbourne, FL 32901-6975.

Capturing Conflict: Reconciling the Mimetic and the Aesthetic in Multimedia Representations of the Civil War Papers sought that examine the relationship between the mimetic and the aesthetic in representations of the Civil War across various media. Potential topics might address the relationship between any popular media including photography, poetry, fiction, serial publications, or songs. Papers could address conventions of representation in multiple media, responses of contemporary audiences to representations of the war in various formats, technological influences on authors or audiences of the period, or other topics involving media and aesthetics during the war. Email 300 to 500 word abstracts to Michael Cadwallader at cadwallader@unc.edu.

Central Europe in Recent Jewish American Fiction Past President Session. The purpose of this panel is to examine fictions by recent (post Philip Roth) Jewish American writers who have written about Central Europe. These representations of Central Europe have taken two forms: an effort to reimagine the lost life (mostly of the shtetl) in the pre World War II era, or to represent life present day Central Europe. Send abstracts to Matthew Wilson: mtw1@psu.edu.

Changing Images of the Businessman in Literature We will be looking at the image of the businessman (or woman) to see how those images have changed throughout time and literature. Some important questions that may be asked are why do we trust different types of businessmen? What are the different types of businessmen? Why is the image of the businessman not flattering? When did that perspective change? Christa Mahalik: Christa.Mahalik@Quinnipiac.edu

The Child and the New Republic Past President Session. Papers are invited that explore roots of the nation in childhood, youth, and kinship. From Winthrop forward, writers have viewed the commonwealth as family and the family as commonwealth. They have also imagined the nation as child, full of youthful promise and energy. Writers as different as Franklin and Rowson advanced agendas of children as they worked for critical literacy and informed citizenship. The child also has metaphoric value for an infant nation wrestling with new divisions of political power domestically and internationally. 250-500 word abstracts to Carol Singley, singley@camden.rutgers.edu.

Connections and Community: Reinhabitory Principles in Bioregionalism and Literary Field Studies Bioregionalism and literary field studies have revolutionized the investigation of connections between human beings and their environments in the study of literature. Taking into consideration the seminal work of environmental writers like Aldo Leopold, Gary Snyder, Jim Dodge and Corey Lee Lewis, papers are invited which analyze bioregional literature, though preference will be shown to those which demonstrate first-hand personal experience of specific locales. Please send 250 word abstracts and contact information via e-mail to: Chris Hall, Teaching Associate, Humboldt State University; cgh11@humboldt.edu

Cool Writings: Theorizing Coolness in Twentieth-Century Literature This panel will seek to explore new directions in scholarship on the representations or manifestations of coolness in literary texts. It will eschew papers that concentrate solely on established "cool literature," such as the Beat poetry, and it will also not be limited to American literature specifically. Instead, the panel will examine coolness as a global phenomenon by emphasizing theoretical or historical approaches to development of coolness as both an emotional stance and a certain kind of relationship to knowledge. Abstracts 250-500 words. Alex Moffett, amoffett@providence.edu.

Cribs: A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Home This panel will explore the twentieth-century American home in an interdisciplinary way, by illuminating the social and cultural aspects of domestic space as represented in writing, music, film, art, or television. Papers submitted should provide insight into the American home as a place where larger debates about race, class, gender, and sexuality rise to the surface. Participants might explore power, marginalization, and economics as they examine how humanities-based texts reveal a deeper insight into the complexity of American domestic culture. Submit 250-500 word abstracts to Sarah Holmes: sholmes@neit.edu.

Dynastic Modernisms This panel investigates the explosion of multigenerational dynastic family narratives during the modernist period as a literary-historical phenomenon. Although more canonical arguments place the stylistic and thematic aesthetic concerns of modernist authors outside of the political sphere of contemporary culture, here we will investigate the artifacts of high modernism alongside texts by their low counterparts. Why did authors exploit family histories to represent changes in culture? Which audiences were dynastic texts meant to reach, and for what purposes? Mail abstracts to coats@virginia.edu

"Echo and Origin": Critical Approaches to Native American Literature This panel invites papers that examine theoretical perspectives in the analysis of Native American literature, particularly concerns of "origin and echo"--i.e., authorial intention as opposed to actual literary effect. Especially welcome are papers that consider the recent critical work of David Treuer, Janice Acoose, Lisa Brooks, Craig Womack, and Robert Warrior. Please send abstracts of 250 words to: Ashley C. Hall at ashleycorwynhall@hotmail.com.

"The Face that Moves in My Mirror": Turning Rage Inside Out in American Literature and Culture How and why have American writers staged hateful voices? What progressive readings and empathetic leaps become possible when writers turn rage inside out? What challenges do scholars and students face to read between or across lines of difference and prejudice? Papers on the work of Patricia Smith, Anna Deavere Smith, Eudora Welty, Gwendolyn Brooks, Haki Madhubiti and other Black Arts and Jewish writers particularly welcome. Susan Gilmore: gilmores@ccsu.edu

From Suicide to Sublimation: Boston Poets 1950-2000 The purpose of this panel is to examine critical and aesthetic issues surrounding poets writing in and around Boston from 1950 to 2000. An examination of the major movements or schools present in Boston during that time period including Confessionalism, Neo-Formalism, The Dark Room Collective and Language Poetry will be considered in terms of the academy, the cannon, identity, the critical dialectic, linguistics and poetics. Participants are encouraged to address a variety of poets in their discussions. Please send abstracts to Christopher Bock, Lesley University; cbock@lesley.edu

Ghostly Men in Asian American Women's Narratives In the production and consumption of Asian American literary texts, the formula of mother-daughter relations have been immensely popular, while making Asian/American male figures ghostly. This panel explores the political significance of the conjuration of these male figures in Asian American women writers' texts. Do Asian American women writers simply describe male figures as a source of oppression and violence? How do women writers describe the relation between father and daughter or brother and sister? What is the cultural and political significance of the alternative bond? Please send 250-500 word abstracts to Yasuko Kase (ykase@buffalo.edu).

Heidegger in America This panel seeks 1-2 page proposals relating Heidegger's thought to American literature or American literary studies. One might perform a Heideggerian reading of a particular text or author, analyze the direct influence exerted by Heidegger on a literary work (e.g., Danielewski's House of Leaves), or perform an analysis of the significance of Heidegger within literary studies itself. Any paper relating Heidegger to American literature or American literary studies is welcome; papers reflecting on the institutional or political significance of Heidegger within the academy are particularly welcome. Adam Johns, University of Pittsburgh. jajst34@pitt.edu

Historical Memory in American Protest Literature This panel examines historical memory in American protest movements and their literature. For many years, scholars have argued that activists and protest writers reject history to embrace a series of fresh starts. But recent scholarship has begun to debunk prevailing assumptions that radical movements and their protest literature lack historical memory. The panel will expand upon this new conversation by debating the politics of memory and the presence of a palpable past in protest literature, whether the literature of abolitionism, women's rights, the labor movement, anti-lynching, civil rights, Black Power, and more. Send abstracts to Zoe Trodd, trodd@fas.harvard.edu

Historicizing Memory / Remembering History This panel seeks to investigate the relationship between history and memory in modern and contemporary American literature. Theoretical and cross-disciplinary work will be particularly welcomed, as will work focusing on how particular literary modes of representing history and/or memory serve to construct or deconstruct national and communal allegiances and identifications. Abstracts of 500 words should be emailed to Lisa Hinrichsen at lhinrich@bu.edu (before Aug. 1) and lhinrich@gmail.com (after Aug. 1).Questions or queries are welcomed before the deadline.

The History of the Book and Early American Literature Sponsored by the American Antiquarian Society. Few fields have featured more detailed studies of the production, distribution, and reading of literary texts than that of early American literature. We are seeking papers that either apply book history approaches to particular works of early American literature, or that examine the field more broadly in order to evaluate the impact of the history of the book on how works of early American literature are read, studied, and valued. Please send abstracts in the body of an email message to Paul Erickson, at perickson@mwa.org

In Stitches: Violence and American Humor Our cultural discourse on humor is filled with metaphors--dying with laughter, punch lines, a joke that "kills"--that link laugher and violence. The history of American humor has repeatedly literalized these metaphors in a variety of forms, from slapstick to comic gore. This panel seeks submissions that interrogate the links between violence and laughter in American literature and culture in order to assess what the combination of these two seemingly opposed discourses suggests about American national identity. Email submissions to Ryan Wepler, Brandeis University: rmwepler@brandeis.edu

Jewish American Literature: Identity and Generations This panel explores the trajectories, shifts and breaks between authors and in texts as Jewish American writers confront issues of identity, including, for example, the past, national, gender, sexual, religious, international identities and epistemological tensions. Possible topics include being a Jewish American writer in a time of increasing assimilation and multiculturalism. Are current authors influenced by earlier literature? How does a work explore being Orthodox and gay, or a female and a rabbi, or secular? mentzer@ccsu.edu

Julia Alvarez and Junot Diaz: Contemporary Dominican American Writers In 2007, Julia Alvarez and Junot Diaz published new works to popular and critical acclaim; Alvarez delved into investigative nonfiction with Once Upon a Quincea'era and Diaz's first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize this April. This panel will explore the works of these two Dominican American writers in conversation. Abstracts that address any text by either author are welcome; of special interest are abstracts that engage with both authors and/or the reception of their work. Please send 300-500 word abstracts to Jessica W. Cantiello, wells128@gmail.com.

Literature and Design in Twentieth-Century America Edith Wharton's The Decoration of Houses from 1897, a primer on interior design, shapes American design taste to this very day. This panel will focus on the legacy of Wharton: what are the connections between narrative fiction and architectural compositions including interior design, modern furniture, technological devices, other elements of domestic material culture, and even landscape design? How do aspects of modern and postmodern design shape the fabrics of fiction in twentieth century America? Send 300-500 word abstracts and brief bios to Julia Faisst, faisst@fas.harvard.edu.

The Literature of 9/11 This session will explore the literature of 9/11, primarily in an American context, focusing on specific works and also on larger thematic or formal trends. Proposals that examine specific authors or that encompass a comparative analysis are welcome, as are proposals that take a wider view to include other media, such as art, theater, or an American Studies approach. While this session primarily addresses writers in the American context, papers on international writers will also be considered. Please send a 500-word abstract and a brief bio to Justine Dymond: justinedymond@gmail.com.

Literature of the United States in a Global Context This panel seeks to examine some of the issues American literature faces in a global context: How is American literature viewed by non-Americans, in both the past and present? For example, how might reading novels by Hawthorne and Southworth, Douglass and Mitchell, suggest different views of the US to non-Americans? How have cultural situations, either past or present, produced different understandings of individual texts for non-Americans? In what ways has American literature participated in cultural production outside the US? Email abstracts of 350-500 words (including affiliation and contact info) to Martha Sledge, msledge@mmm.edu

Lolita at 50 Marking the 50th anniversary of the first American publication of Vladimir Nabokov's masterpiece, Lolita and its unabated cultural importance, this panel seeks to offer a selection of contemporary approaches to the novel. Papers engaging the most tenacious strands of Lolita criticism are certainly welcome (censorship/obscenity debates, Lolita as a pop fusion of "highbrow" and "lowbrow," the novel as the "Great American" whatever), but eclectic and original submissions on any aspect of Lolita are strongly encouraged. Please send abstracts of 250-500 words to Justin St.Clair, University of South Alabama jmstclair@jaguar1.usouthal.edu

Love and Marriage in Howells's Fiction This panel invites submissions on the treatment of love and marriage in the fiction of William Dean Howells. Proposals may deal with one or more works and may focus on a topic as it is relevant to the treatment of love and marriage, such as race, gender, sexuality, psychology, manners, social class, social codes and conventions, romanticism, and sentimentality. Please send 300-500 word abstracts to Elsa Nettels, College of William and Mary, exnett@wm.edu or to 211 Indian Springs Road, Williamsburg, VA 23185.

Lydia Maria Child: Overlooked Heroine of Social Reform From her abolitionist writings to the founding of the first children's literature magazine in the United State, Lydia Maria Child dedicated her considerable talents to advocating equality and justice. Child's texts use concepts of racism and passing to subvert the notion that skin color alone should be used to measure the worth of another human being. This panel seeks to explore Child's messages and help them emerge from the shadows of the fathers of the American Literary Renaissance, because they helped shape the American literary landscape and the American identity. Amber Vayo: avayo@worcester.edu

Making Race in Modern America Characterized by economic and political upheaval, massive demographic movements, an expanding American empire, competing definitions of race, and nativist fears of mongrelization, the early decades of the twentieth century represent a critical period in the history of American racial formations. This panel invites papers that examine how literary, popular, filmic, or other visual texts participate in developments in American racial discourse during the period between the World Wars. Please send one-page abstracts to Matt Lessig, SUNY Cortland, lessigm@cortland.edu

Melville and Whitman: Barbaric Bards of the Nineteenth Century Works by Herman Melville and Walt Whitman dominate the literary landscape of the United States in the nineteenth century, but little or no critical work has been done tracing the thematic and textual linkages between these two authors. This panel invites papers that ask how Whitman's enormous "barbaric yawp" may originate in Melville's earlier, "mortal, barbaric smack of the lip" by investigating specific connections between the early novels of Melville (especially Typee, Omoo, Mardi, Moby-Dick, and Pierre) and Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Please submit your 250 word proposals by Sept. 1, to Zach Hutchins, The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: moremun@yahoo.com.

Methods of Literary Ecology in American Literature: The Constitution of Place This session invites studies of American literature of any period that highlight authorial and/or scholarly methods of doing literary ecology through a focus on place. Papers that consider means of representing environments and places as inextricable from economic, social, and cultural factors of human habitation are especially welcomed. Send abstracts to Karen Waldron, College of the Atlantic at waldron@coa.edu.

Milton in America This panel solicits presentations dealing with the influence and reception of the English poet John Milton in the United States. Papers may treat of Milton's influence on particular individuals, such as Phillis Wheatley, Herman Melville, Malcolm X, and Jamaica Kincaid. Papers may likewise deal with the American reception of the poet in relation to broader themes: freedom of the press, transcendentalism, Hollywood, the ivory tower. Send one-page abstracts to Wm Moeck: moeckw@ncc.edu

Modernism and Madness Papers are invited that discuss the affinities between madness and modernist literature and further extend the discussion to the nature of the modernist text as "literature," or manifestation of madness. E-mail abstracts to Dr. Nephie Christodoulides, Department of English Studies, University of Cyprus at nephie@cytanet.com.cy. Please include a short bio, academic affiliation and contact information.

Money and Economic Exchange in the American Theatre The theatrical performance is at once the most "real" of the arts and the most radically deceptive - qualities that have made it a uniquely suited medium for exploring the subject of money, itself a locus of anxieties concerning "hard" and "soft" value, presence and absence, the real and the symbolic. This panel will explore the subjects of money and economic exchange in American theatre. Please send 250-500-word abstract (in body of e-mail) to Jon Dietrick of Babson College at jdietrick@babson.edu

Native American Literature This session welcomes submissions on any aspect of Native American Studies, including literature, literary separatism, film, culture, spirituality, language, gender, tribal politics, race, and ethnicity. Papers addressing Native American literary separatism and the recent critical works by writers such as David Treuer, Robert Warrior, Thomas King, Craig Womack, Daniel Heath Justice, and Robert A. Williams,Jr. are especially welcome. Benjamin D. Carson benjamin.carson@gmail.com

New Approaches to Phillis Wheatley Board-Sponsored. This panel invites papers on any aspect of the works of Phillis Wheatley. Especially welcome are those papers that analyze her work in relation to Boston, but any and all approaches are welcome. Please send 250-500 word proposals to Jason Haslam: Jason.Haslam@dal.ca

New Uses for Representative Men? 150 Years of Emerson's "Representatives." How might we reconsider Emerson's "Representative Men" after 150 years? Papers might address the quality of the Emersonian Representative, the conditions of Emerson's composition of these lectures / essays, or propose a new Representative Man (or Woman!) to add to Emerson's pantheon. Abstracts due by Sept 15, 2008 to Dr Bill Scalia at bscalia@stmarys.edu.

The New Woman: Art & Politics This session will examine the intersection of politics in the creation of art by and about the New Woman during the Progressive Era. Papers are invited examining the limits and imperatives of this popular concept and ideal that was hotly debated in the press and various forms of art. We are especially interested in exploring how race, class, and economics may have inflected that discussion and cultural production. Please send inquiries and abstracts (limit 500 words) to Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, CDBL@Brown.edu.

Nineteenth Century Native American Literature This panel calls for papers that explore the works of nineteenth-century Native writers such as William Apess,John Rollin Ridge, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, Sarah Winnemucca, George Copway and others. We will consider the many ways in which these authors actively sought to reinscribe Native presence into the literary and historical archive of the nineteenth century. Send abstracts of 250-500 words to Drew Lopenzina, Sam Houston State University: ajl011@shsu.edu

Not Toeing the Hearing Line: Constructions of Deafness in American Culture This panel will expand upon Christopher Krentz's Writing deafness: The Hearing Line in Nineteenth-Century American Literature (2007). Papers will discuss early literary works by deaf and hearing writers, but also explore other, extra-textual cultural representations of deafness to the present day. Papers may address such questions such as: how have Americans used deafness to define both what it is to be deaf, and what it is to be hearing, in the past and now? How do cultural artifacts represent and misrepresent what it is to be deaf/not deaf? Please send 250-500 word abstracts to Pam Kincheloe at pjknge@rit.edu.

Off the Road: The Wayside in American Literature This panel will examine what is just off the road, what happens on the waysides of American literature, and who or what gathers at the taverns, motels, farmhouses, barbeque joints, diners, gas stations, shacks, barns, fields, and ditches that line the road. How do these sites, their placement on the wayside, and their cultural, chronological, and geographical positions, appear as significant themes or images in American literature? Where do they work with the road, and where against it? What do they tell us that the road can't? Proposals (300-500 words) to Colin Clarke at clarkeco@sunysuffolk.edu.

Paul Bowles Reconsidered The purpose of this panel is to reconsider the work of Paul Bowles from within and beyond the context of the American literary tradition. Papers on any aspect of his work are welcome, but I am especially interested in papers that examine his musical compositions, translations, as well as his problematic relationship with the Islamic world. Send Paper proposals by email to: Dr. Andrew Martino, Chair; Department of English; Southern New Hampshire University; a.martino@snhu.edu

The Poetry of Abolitionism and Print Culture in Boston Seminar. This panel invites scholars to submit papers on poetry by/about abolitionists W. L. Garrison, F. Douglass, John G. Whittier and W. E . Channing and other abolitionists in order to look back and explore the poetic continuities in Boston's abolitionist community. In exploring the relationships of abolitionists with the greater political issues that confronted them, we see poetry serving as an imbued literary venue between mainstream culture and the abolitionist community. Send one page abstract to: Nilgun Anadolu-Okur: anadolu@temple.edu

(Post)Colonial Readings of Native American Literature Incorporating a post-colonial framework into Native American studies has been a topic among scholars for some time. In some ways, post-colonial theory articulates Native American subjectivity; yet because of Native Americans unique historical relationship to the United States, Native American literature also seems to problematize a post-colonial reading. This session welcomes papers that incorporate post-colonial theories to analyze fictional depictions in Native American literature. Please email submissions to Danica Sterud, Fordham University, at sterud@gmail.com

Post-Feminist American Masculinity: Backlash and New Frontiers Seminar. In describing the American male protagonist in pre-feminist literature and popular culture, critics from D.H. Lawrence to Leslie Fiedler and Marshall McLuhan have remarked on his violence and isolation. However, social, political and economic changes of the 1960s and 1970s have resulted in new ideals of American masculinity. This seminar invites essays that examines the masculinity as constructed in specific American novels or films produced since 1980. Send brief abstracts in body of email to Elizabeth Abele: AbeleE@ncc.edu

The Posthumous Writings of Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison Past Executive Session. Several posthumous works by Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison have been published. Wright's A Father's Law and Ralph Ellison's After the Shooting in 2008; Wright's Juneteenth (posthumous novel) and Flying Home (collection of short stories), both edited by John Callahan, in the 90s. Papers or abstracts analyzing the posthumous works and their quality, or dealing with editorial problems, on either or both Wright's and Ellison's posthumous works are welcome. Send proposals or papers to Josephine McQuail, Box 5053 TN Tech U Cookeville TN 38505 or via e-mail at jmcquail@tntech.edu 

Potok's My Name is Asher Lev Past President Session. Parels are invited that address the complex issues, artistic, religious and cultural, in the core to core confrontation in Potok's My Name is Asher Lev. Contact: Daniel Walden, dxw8@psu.edu

A Reading by Poets Living in New England Creative Session. Poets living and writing in New England are invited to read their work that is specifically about New England. This may include poetry about the history, the geography, the traditions, the idiosyncrasies, etc. of the region, as well as poems about or addressing New England poets. Submit samples of your poetry for this creative session either as a word attachment to mary.bodwell@mcphs.edu, or in hard copy to Mary Buchinger Bodwell, Associate Professor of English and Communication Studies, Arts & Sciences, MCPHS, 179 Longwood Ave., Boston, MA 02115.

Reclaiming the Comic Book Canon Comic books were once the near-exclusive domain of dedicated outsiders and fringe enthusiasts. Now, they are everywhere -- and being judged by almost everyone. Who holds the power now for anointing the greats? Has the medium gone irreversible corporate? Or does the Ivory Tower of Academia have more say than the local comic shop? Works largely identified as avant garde, such as Maus, Persepolis, Blankets, etc., are of particular interest here, as well as those serving as the basis for multimedia spectaculars (e.g. Iron Man, Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men). A. David Lewis: adl@bu.edu

Revisiting (Re)Memory: Re-evaluating Trauma and Nostalgia in Contemporary Multiethnic Literature The work of many contemporary authors strives to reconcile the difficult cultural and historic memories of the past with the complex identities and perceived amnesia of the present. This panel seeks investigations into the ways contemporary writers have conceived of and negotiated these multiple sites of memory, relating contemporary ethnic literature to current theories of memory, nostalgia, commemoration, memorialization, cultural memory and trauma studies. Send 250-500 word abstracts (MSWord) as email attachments to Shari Evans, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (sevans@umassd.edu).

"Should I Stay or Should I Go?": Metaphors of Motion in Contemporary American Women's Poetry Being able to move, and being constrained from moving, have always been important metaphors for female poets. Thus it comes as no surprise that motion is a recurring theme in women's poetry in the 20th and 21st centuries. This panel will examine how contemporary American women poets use metaphors of motion in their work and what that motion - or the lack of it - says about the lives of women as experienced within their poetry. Send proposals to Wendy Galgan at wgalgan@stfranciscollege.edu.

"'The simple fact of having lasted': America's Poet-Elders" This session will explore the status and achievement of the generation of living American poets now in or fast approaching their eighties-Ashbery, Bly, Hall, Kinnell, Kizer, Kumin, Levine, Rich, Snodgrass, Wilbur, for example. What has lasting meant, for any of these poets, artistically? What are the challenges that have defined the achievement? What seems to have been handed on? Rather than career surveys, think instead of telling comparisons, apt juxtapositions-among poets, among poems-or of poems dealing explicitly with aging or retrospection. Proposals (300-500 wds) or inquiries to Bill Waddell at bwaddell@sjfc.edu.

Talking Back in Contemporary American Poetry This panel considers the ways in which contemporary American poetry "talks back" to the world and ways that contemporary American poets engage with current political issues/events in an attempt to draw readers to individual and/or communal action. Papers may consider the work of an individual poet or compare several poets at once; commentaries by poets or about the state of contemporary poetics today; the role of the reader in creating meaning out of poetry that "act[s] as part of the world." Please send 500-word abstracts to Jen Riley, jen.riley@umassd.edu, as a Word document attachment.

'To the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet': Food and Identity in Early American Travel Writing To what extent do early American travel writers embrace--to quote Heidi Oberholtzer Lee--a "hermeneutics of appetite"? Actuated by a Galenic theory of assimilation travel writers truly believed "you are what you eat": eating, they felt, altered the body's composition and the eater's identity. This panel welcomes papers examining fictive and non-fictive travel writings up to about 1830 that deal explicitly with questions of food and identity. Also welcome are papers linking food and identity to race, gender or class. Send abstracts to Tim Strode, Nassau Community College, strodet@ncc.edu.

Transatlantic Decadence This panel will focus on transatlantic literature and visual culture of the "fin de siècle," and/or and the 19th-century work that set the stage for it. Discussions might explore and debate transatlantic conversations, exchanges, or intellectual and cultural networks that helped to produce and disseminate "decadence" as an aesthetic and literary category. Papers would focus on nineteenth-century transatlantic literary exchanges between, say, Poe and the Pre-Raphaelites, Chopin and Maupassant, Wharton and Wilde. Emily Orlando, Fairfield University (eorlando@mail.fairfield.edu)

The Transnational of National(ist) Discourse in Asian/American Literature When might national-even nationalist-discourse hold transnational dynamics? How are multiple national(ist) loyalties/histories "layered" in a transnational palimpsest? Do multiple national(ist) affinities always translate into transnationalism? The literature of Asian/America has long been marked by the perils of multiple national affiliations. How might the national(ist) rhetoric of one country be employed to express national(ist) sentiments for another? Proposals should assess Asian/American texts marked by the tensions of the national and transnational. Email 250-500 word abstracts to Susan Moynihan, sm246@buffalo.edu

Twentieth-century American War Narratives: Trauma and Representation Seminar. This panel seeks to expand the category of American "war literature" by considering texts that narrate the trauma of war and its aftermath rather than the violence of the conflict. What traces of violence does war leave on bodies and psyches, and how do authors make those traces visible in post-war narratives that represent the effects of war? What are the strengths and weaknesses of trauma theory as an interpretive lens for reading post-war texts by American authors? Please send 500 word abstracts, via email, to Trisha Brady, Dept. of English, SUNY at Buffalo, tmbrady@buffalo.edu.

War and American Literature Papers may address the response of individual writers, such as Freneau, Whitman, Dickinson, Crane, Bierce, Melville, Hemingway, and Dos Passos, to war, or they may address works that deal with the aftermath of war and the disillusionment that results. Papers may also focus on works, such as those by Stowe and Paine, that preceded war and possibly contributed to the country's unrest. Papers, overall, will demonstrate war's effect on society and how a particular writer deals with war, whether during the period that precedes it, during the actual war itself, or during the aftermath. Send proposals as Word documents to bjensen@gpc.edu

Wretched Refuge?: The Postmodern Immigrant Novel Recent literary expressions of the postmodern immigrant experience reveal the limitations of realistic narrative to reflect, in the words of Junot Diaz, the "actual flows" of third world bodies in this universe. This panel will pose an inquiry into contemporary intersections of postmodernity, immigrant experiences in fiction, genre wanderings (fantasy, detective, and graphic novels, and degenerate or wretched riffs on the notion of "progress" in U.S. literature. Discussion of films or texts are welcome. Jessica Datema: jdatema@bergen.edu

Writing the Region: Readings from Writers Rooted in Place Creative Session. Creative writers writing in English, with work focused in a particular US locale, are invited to submit a sample of their work for this reading. Panelists will also discuss writing about place, influences on their work, and how the parochial might lead us to the universal. Contact: Jerry Wemple, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. jwemple@bloomu.edu

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British/Anglophone

See also under: 

American "Dynastic Modernisms"; "Milton in America"; "Modernism and Madness"; "The 'Breaking of Style' in Postmodern Poetry"; "Transatlantic Decadence";

Canadian "Writing on the (Eastern) Edge"; 

Comparative Literatures "Dulce et Decorum Est?";Gay-Lesbian "Provisional Bliss"; 

Popular Culture "Fins-de-siecles"; 

Theory "New Psychological Approaches to Literature"; "Religion, the Secular, and Literary Studies"; 

Womens Studies "Modernist Mothers"; "Taking Stock of Women and Commodities"

At Home and Abroad: Hospitality and the 19th-Century British Subject At the beginning of the 19th century, when it was common for European countries to assert hospitableness as a defining national characteristic, their proclamations were often accompanied by a violent countervailing impulse. This panel will explore hospitality (the dynamic encounter between host and stranger) from a wide variety of theoretical approaches and across a series of thresholds, personal, domestic, and international. Topics may include but are not limited to: itinerancy, homelessness, and empire; home visiting; welcoming the foreign other; nostalgic hospitality; industrialization and displacement. Please email 300-500 word abstracts to Cynthia_S.Williams@tufts.edu.

Body Building: Empire, Gender and Disability in Victorian Literature Disabled bodies appear again and again in Victorian literature. This panel seeks to explore their political and cultural significance. Papers are welcomed that consider how disabled bodies inform questions of empire and nation building in the nineteenth century; their relationship to definitions of gender and sexuality; or their emotional or sensational value as literary artifacts. The panel ultimately hopes to question how disabled bodies challenge our understanding of Victorian normality. 500-word proposals to Elizabeth.anderman@colorado.edu.

Celebrating Commonwealth Literature: 40 Years of the Booker Prize Created to recognize the best English-language writing, the Booker Prize <www.themanbookerprize.com> has promoted the wider reading of Commonwealth fiction, from well-established authors (Peter Carey, Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer, JM Coetzee) to first time novelists. This panel invites papers on Booker Prize novels, with a particular interest in the development of a Commonwealth community and the expansion of Anglophone literature. Send 350-500 word abstracts & short bios to Raji Singh Soni, 4rss1@queensu.ca

A Clean Home is a Happy One: Victorian Depictions of Home Sanitation This panel will address the common assumption that a clean home is reflective of a clean heart, moral fortitude and a strong family life. Possible paper topics include: household management guides; advertisements for cleaning products or methods; the lives of servants who were responsible for cleaning duties; sanitation reform; literary representations of cleaning or the lack thereof; the medical influence on disease-prevention through cleaning; the Victorian origins and/or rise of bureaucratic practices for domestic management. Please send abstracts to Leslie Graff at leslie.graff@gmail.com.

Colonial and Postcolonial Bildungsroman This panel will consider papers that explore colonial and postcolonial novels of formation and/or development. The structure of the bildungsroman often suggests individual development as incorporated within and moving toward identification with a normative national community. I welcome panel submissions that expose the tensions inherent in this form of individual/nation building and consider the effects of Imperialism on the "coming of age" narrative. Please send paper abstracts to Sarah Gray at sluckey2@uiuc.edu

Comedy and Violence in the Fiction of Charles Dickens This panel will examine the fiction--early, middle, and late--of Charles Dickens,and in particular, the relationship between violence and comedy in his novels. Given his interest in the Punch and Judy show and its presence as a recurrent image in his novels, it is not surprising that his novels are fascinated with the ways in which the comic is often disturbed by violence and by the ways in which violence is often closely associated with comedy or comic impulses. Robert Lougy <rxl1@psu.edu>

Constructions of English Renaissance Comedy Past President Session. Renaissance tragedy utilized distinct definitions derived from Aristotle's Poetics, but classical authors did not offer such clear-cut definitions for comedy. This panel invites papers concerning comedy as a genre, its historical development, and construction. Potential topics include the relationship of comedies to their source texts; theories of comedy and tragicomedy as genres; the use of wit and rhetoric in comedy; materialist and economic accounts of drama (esp. city comedies); stage comedy; "translation" of Renaissance comedy for modern audiences. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts to Timothy Zajac (tzajac@english.umass.edu).

Contemporary British Masculinities This session welcomes abstracts or completed essays on any topic related to the fictional depiction of contemporary British masculinity. Abstracts of 250-500 words including affiliation and contact info should be emailed to Theodore Miller at millertheodore@gmail.com.

Contemporary Scottish Fiction and Film The issue of borders has been a particularly vexing matter and potent metaphor in Scotland but manifests itself in different ways in the devolutionary (1979-1997) and post-devolutionary periods. Send proposals (330-500 words) or completed papers on any aspect of this "Scottish borders" idea in contemporary Scottish fiction or film to Robert Morace (rmorace@daemen.edu) by 1 Sept. 2008.

Crime in Representation: Contemporary Literary Scandal Today, literary technologies including "E-texts" and blogs blur the boundaries between author and reader; private and public; and text and context. In addition, such discursive shifts collude with cultural shifts that realign parameters of race, gender, sexuality, and class. Such shifts might be read in the recent preponderance of literary fraud/imposture. This panel invites papers commenting on such literary scandal as a reflection of changing poetics and cultural values. Send 500-1000 word abstracts to Erika Willams, Emerson College (erika_williams@emerson.edu).

Cultivating Sympathy: Embodiment in George Eliot's Realist Aesthetic This panel will focuse on the extent to which bodily practices inculcate cultural dispositions, particularly sympathy, in George Eliot's novels. We welcome body-centered approaches to Eliot's engagement with any of the many cultures of her day-from the physical and biological sciences across the spectrum to the visual and performing arts. Please send 250 word proposals to both Genie Babb (afgnb@uaa.alaska.edu) and Peter J. Capuano (capuano@virginia.edu).

Dangerous Pedagogy and Alternative Literacies in the 19th-Century English Novel In 19th century England, novelists often wrote books about books, narratives about the rise of mass literacy and the dangerous varieties of education that often marginalized at-risk readers such as the working classes, women, and colonial learners. This panel will explore novelists' treatments of dangerous pedagogical praxes, such as rote memorization, "payment by results," the catechistic method, oppressive conduct books and primers, and other educational tactics. In addition, we will scrutinize the alternative literacies in these novels which sought to read and expose the hegemony implicit in "book-learning," both inside and outside of educational institutions. Eric Lorentzen: elorentz@umw.edu

Disabling Texts/Enabling Culture Disability is everywhere, permeating any number of texts and academic criticisms, but what does disability do? This panel invites proposals and full papers exploring the textual use of disability as it critiques, and constructs, the culture in which it is cast. Please send abstracts to kmonteith@aol.com or kmonteith@lagcc.cuny.edu

Doris Lessing: Begging for Books Past President Session. Looking back over Lessing's entire career, after the Nobel Prize, how do we now assess her contribution? How has her individual talent redefined the anglophone tradition? What relations exist between Lessing and world literatures? Her Nobel Prize lecture evaluates the future of world literature with considerable pessimism, yet concludes optimistically: "I think it is that girl, and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us." Lessing re-centers literary history on the African woman as subject. Send papers to Judith L. Johnston <johnston@rider.edu>.

Food for Thought: Literary Impact of Food on British Culture, Gender, and Ethnicity This session provides an opportunity to analyze the role food has played and continues to play in British literature, film, theater, visual arts and/or other aspects of British culture. This session is particularly interested the role food plays in texts in constructing gender and ethnicity. Please send e-mail or snail mail panel paper abstracts with your name, affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail address to: Annette Magid <a_magid@yahoo.com> OR mail to: Professor Annette M. Magid, Erie Community College, English Department, 4041 Southwestern Boulevard, Orchard Park, NY 14127.

G. K. Chesterton: The Man Who is Today This panel invites papers exploring any aspect of Chesterton's works, as well as those discussing his influential predecessors and/or his inspirational influence on his literary descendants. Please send abstracts to Jill Kriegel at jill1227@bellsouth.net.

Gothic Excess The Gothic is a genre frequently associated with the idea of "excess," but the idea of excess is under-explored and under-theorized in scholarship on the Gothic. This panel will explore Gothic excess in all of its permutations, exploring excess in relationship to language, form, audience, narrative, genre, etc. The question this panel will hope to answer is, what exactly is 'Gothic excess' and what does it accomplish? British and American Gothic texts from across all time periods will be considered. Submit abstracts to claudia.stumpf@tufts.edu.

Jane Austen and the Contemporary World While Jane Austen's novels have always commanded a devoted following, recent allusions and adaptations have captivated a much wider group of readers and viewers. This panel seeks to explore the contemporary popularity of Jane Austen's life and works as they are translated into popular culture through print, film and other media. Ideally, papers will examine AustenÕs work as well as contemporary references, allusions, and adaptations while seeking to answer the questions: "why Jane Austen? Why now?" Email 300-500 word abstracts to Pat Elliott at patricia.elliott@regiscollege.edu

Kings and Kingship in Medieval Literature This panel invites papers dealing with any aspect of kingship in medieval literature, including the representation of kingly power, the limits of royal authority, the development of legendary kings, kingship and masculinity, the succession of kings and/or the rhetoric surrounding kingship. Erin Mullaly: mullalee@lemoyne.edu

Laughing Matters: Gender and Humor in 20th-Century Literature This panel will explore how twentieth-century texts, literary or theoretical, convey the relationship between gender and humor. How do gender norms help determine a text's invitation to laughter, and how does humor shape, preserve, and/or disrupt these concepts of gender identity? Might there be a categorical alliance between the queer and the comic? How has humor functioned as a gendered liability or advantage in modern canon-making? Please send 300-word abstracts, along with a brief scholarly bio or CV, to Lauryl Tucker at ltucker@ithaca.edu.

The Medieval English Anchoritic Tradition The topics of anchoritic literature, spirituality, and mysticism have become very popular in discussions of the Middle Ages, particularly with respect to English figures and texts. This session will focus on texts that were produced by anchorites or for them during the Middle Ages. Susannah Chewning: chewning@ucc.edu

Modernism, Artifacts, and the Collected Identity This panel explores the spatial practice of collection and exhibition in Modernist literature. Of particular interest are papers that consider how identity is mapped through and among material objects. Papers that consider artifacts and collections in twentieth century texts of any narrative form are welcome. Submit abstracts of 250-500 words to Shayna Skarf at sskarf@brandeis.edu.

Neither a Borrower nor a Lender Be: Debtors and Creditors in Literature This panel invites papers on the experiences of debtors and creditors in English or American literature from any period. Topics to consider include the shame and anxiety of the hopelessly indebted, the relationship between borrowers and lenders, and debt as an instigator of rash and destructive actions. Also welcome are papers that use the literary experience of debt to reflect upon our modern debt crisis. Daniel Salerno: dansalerno@gmail.com

New Directions in Eighteenth-Century Studies What new insights, approaches, and modes can be proposed for the 21st-century study of 18th-century literature? What influences, technologies, and/or interdisciplinary conversations (with science, visual arts, history, etc.) are shaping the future of the field? Papers are invited on any subject that addresses new directions for eighteenth-century studies. Please submit a 250-word proposal with name and affiliation to Cecilia Feilla (cfeilla@mmm.edu)

New Studies in Early Modern Book History This panel will explore confluences between the material and social lives of early modern books and book culture. Paper proposals are invited on a number of book history issues, including authorship and collaboration, readership and reception, printing, publication, the book trade (new and used), binding, paper, ink, importation, translation, censorship, the Stationers' Company, political/religious control of printing, illustration, manuscript culture, provenance, and libraries. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts to Phil Palmer (ppalmer@english.umass.edu).

New Views of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: The Rhetoric of Mary Wollstonecraft Seminar. Mary Wollstonecraft's increasing presence in academic teaching and scholarship, as well as on the best seller lists, calls for ongoing reassessments of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Wollstonecraft's best-known text has often been analyzed in terms of a gripping biographical narrative, which has limited analyses of the work as it emerges in a particular political and linguistic context. This panel invites studies of the religious, political, social or literary critical rhetoric appearing in this work and in closely related texts. Please contact Fiore Sireci: SireciF@newschool.edu

Pining for Nature: Representations of Nature in Early Modern Texts Often at the center of new movements in theory and criticism, early modern texts have the capacity to re-energize eco-critical approaches to literature; the reverse is likewise true of eco-criticism’s potential to stimulate fresh readings of early modern literature. We are seeking papers which treat the ethics and politics of representing nature in early modern texts, particularly those building on the work of critics such as Robert N. Watson, Anne McClintock, and Sylvia Bowerbank. Please submit abstracts to Elizabeth Gruber at egruber@lhup.edu and Jennifer Forsyth at forsyth@kutztown.edu.

Playing Games with the Sacred: Post-secular Perspectives in Postmodernist Fiction The concept of the post-secular has received increasing critical attention in the recent years, pointing towards a desire to reexamine categories traditionally associated with religious discourse in the context of a post-religious culture. While most contemporary novelists reject theological orthodoxy, many return to religious tradition in search of ontological models and narrative paradigms. This panel proposes to map the theoretical frameworks and textual manifestations of the intersection between postmodernist fiction and the emerging post-secular sensibility. Please send abstracts to Magdalena Maczynska, mmaczynska@mmm.edu

Portrayals of the Poor: Dickens to Danticat Past President Session. The intention of this panel (as well as papers within it) is to consider writers in the larger Atlantic and Caribbean cultures over the last three centuries. The focus is on writers with an agenda of sympathy with poor folks and working classes with whom the writer seems to in some sense identify and on behalf of whom to attempt to avoid, or counteract, objectification. Genres choices include imaginative works that attempt to pull the severely disfranchised, marginalized, even demonized into an arena of meaningful social awareness and public discourse.Annette Benert: annettebenert@yahoo.com

The Presence of Absence: Coming to Terms with the Holocaust in Contemporary European Literature This panel seeks to explore the different ways in which writers in contemporary Europe address, directly or indirectly the paradox, the impossible necessity, the necessary impossibility to witness, to talk and write about the Holocaust. Please send abstracts to Gregor Thuswaldner (gregor.thuswaldner@gordon.edu) or Emmanuelle Vanborre (emmanuelle.vanborre@gordon.edu)

Reading a Poem Aloud To read a poem aloud is to make myriad decisions about how to vocalize the text of the poem. As Dickinson said, "a Pen has so many inflections and a Voice but one." This panel seeks papers that identify and analyze specific ways in which the text of a poem (preferably by a well-known author) presents different options for oral delivery. Panelists will also distribute the text of the poem as a hand-out and demonstrate through reading the poem aloud how at each step the voice chooses one of several textual options. Please send abstract in body of email to <debrasan@massart.edu>.

Reading Genre in the Works of Philip Pullman Over the past two decades Philip Pullman has emerged as a leading writer of fiction for children and young adults, a success fostered in part by his experimentation with multiple genres: high fantasy, epic, fairy tale, detective fiction, even Victorian penny dreadfuls. Paper proposals are invited for a panel exploring the role of genre in any aspect of Pullman's work. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts to Shelley King at kings@queensu.ca.

Realism and the Supernatural in the Nineteenth Century This panel solicits papers on British and American nineteenth-century literature that problematize the realism/supernaturalism dichotomy. How is realism not just inflected and subverted but also perhaps constituted by the supernatural, paranormal, and occult? Where and when, how and why do "realism" and "supernaturalism" cease to be useful or valid designations? What theoretical frameworks might one use to reconceptualize the relationship between supernaturalism and realism? Submit 250-500 word abstracts to Srdjan Smajic at srdjan.smajic@furman.edu

Romantic Education The Romantic literary vision of teaching, of education, so often informed by an impulse to reform, sought not only to redress social ills but also to shape minds, young and not-so-young alike. Paper proposals are invited on topics that explore how various texts published between roughly 1760 and 1825 employed strategies aimed at reform. Of particular interest are papers that examine the ways in which the private and/or familial sphere became implicated in the public sphere as a result of pursuing social or political reform. Email 300-500 word abstracts to Scott Krawczyk at scott.krawczyk@usma.edu

Samuel Beckett and His Legacy Board-Sponsored. Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of his Nobel Prize for Literature, this panel invites abstracts on any aspect of the works and influence of Samuel Beckett. Send abstracts in body of email to nemlasupport@gmail.com, with "Beckett" in subject line.

Sexual Betrayal in Shakespeare's Major Tragedies In Troilus and Cressida, Thersites says that the whole story of the Trojan war is just about a "cuckold and a whore," with Troilus's betrayal by Cressida mirroring the betrayal of Menelaus by Helen. This theme of sexual betrayal likewise extends beyond Troilus to Shakespeare's other tragedies. This panel welcome papers exploring sexual betrayal in Shakespearean tragedy; all approaches welcome. Send 200+ abstract & vita via eMail to Dr.Ted Price, English Dept., Montclair State U, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043: pricet@mail.montclair.edu

Shakespeare,Language and Translation: An Inquiry into National Identity in the Global Context This panel will explore Shakespeare and language as a means to examine national identity and the ways that translation can play a role in both its destabilization and creation. Paper proposals are welcome on case studies of translation, production, imitation or reception of Shakespeare worldwide, as well as on the impact of these phenomena on the interpretation of Shakespeare's texts. The panel can integrate theories of identity, political perspectives, translation, readership, reception and censorship. Please submit 250-500 word abstracts to Marie Blackman: marie.blackman@comcast.net

Social Justice, Religion, and Violence in the Works of William Blake This panel will explore issues of social justice and religion as they intersect with violence in Blake's writings. Topics might include Blake's attitudes towards revolutionary violence as a means of achieving social justice, social injustice as violence, or the relationship between Blake's apocalyptic religious vision and violence. Ultimately, panel presentations should leave us with a better understanding of Blake's perception of violence, and what he may have to say to our own violent age. Submit 250-500 word abstracts (MS Word attachment) to Laura E. Rutland at rutland001@gannon.edu.

The Uses and Legacies of Harold Bloom This panel invites papers that return to some of Harold Bloom's most influential and original work-especially from The Anxiety of Influence to Agon -to consider the places he may occupy in contemporary literary criticism.. What remains alive or inspiring in his writing? What is dead? What can we continue to learn from him? What today is worth recalling or revising in his work? What can we make of Bloom's relations to other thinkers or concepts (e.g., Rorty, Romanticism, Modernism, moral philosophy, religion, pedagogy, etc.)? Christopher Jackson: cnj8w@virginia.edu

Victorian Fathering The role of father changed considerably during the Victorian period, due to the growing separation of fathers from their homes for work, the dominance of the cult of motherhood, the erosion of God the father through theories of evolution, and changing understandings of the masculine ideal. Papers on this topic could analyze changing fathering attitudes, depictions and practices in the novels, poetry, conduct books, journal articles and art of the Victorian period. Connections to current fathering practices are welcome. 250 word abstract to Natalie McKnight, njmck@bu.edu.

Victorians and Their Relation to the Unconscious Though often celled realists, the Victorians didn't lack for theories of sleep, dreams, hypnosis, mesmerism, hysteria, memory, fantasy, and other unconscious phenomena. This panel invites papers that reflect on the Victorians' insights into the unconscious and its influence on artistic expression. Especially welcome are papers that take into account questions of representation. Possible topics include: the role of dreams in literature; the role of fantasy in visual representation; histories of the unconscious; representations of the body and fetishism or symptom in literature, art, or nonfiction; the role of jokes, laughter, or group psychology; the uncanny. Alexander Bove: aabove@buffalo.ed

Victorians Down Under This panel explores the relationship between Victorian English literature and the Australian context that it struggled to portray. Why was it easier to fictionalize the journey to or from the colony; how did novels figure the "unknowability" of colonial life? What English mores, literary tropes, or social structures could not be contained within an "Australian" setting? Finally, how did nineteenth-century Australian authors-often writing for an English audience-reconfigure the problem of narrating colonial space? Send 250-500 word proposals to Christie Harner [c-harner@northwestern.edu].

The Victorians in the New Millennium Nearly twenty years after A.S. Byatt's Possession won the Booker Prize, and Gertrude Himmelfarb theorized the appeal of Margaret Thatcher's "Victorian values," the Victorian Era continues to exert a strange fascination on the British and American publics. The panel invites papers exploring this continued attraction: has the cultural resonance of the Victorian Era changed since the 1990s, and if so, how? Papers welcome on any contemporary manifestation of the Victorian (literature, film, design, gardening). Please email 250-500 word abstracts to Dana Shiller at dshiller@washjeff.edu.

We Love the '80s: Nostalgia and Empire in Contemporary British Culture Using a cultural studies lens, this panel is interested in exploring the dialectical role literature and popular culture played in (re) establishing Britain's imperialist identity in a post-imperial climate. Rather than face the consequences of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative policies, the British culture industry chose to look back to periods of colonial domination, power, and prestige. This panel will examine this convergence of nostalgia, empire, and media to analyze how the contemporary British culture industry sought to (re) articulate British identity through the period's literature and popular culture. Ann McClellan: akmcclellan@plymouth.edu

Where Do We Go from Here? Brontë Studies in the Twenty-First Century "How little know we what we are/How less what we may be!" Reflecting on the nature of potential, Anne Brontë had little chance in this 1841 diary paper of predicting the Brontës' literary impact. But is there more potential? This panel seeks papers that find "newness" in traditional ideas or traditional ideas in new places in both better and lesser known Brontë writings. How does one reenvision the Brontës' works, their inspirations or their legacies? What new theoretical interpretations broaden or restructure our understanding of their literary connections? Email 250-500 word abstracts to Kristin.LeVeness@ncc.edu.

Women and the City in Early Twentieth Century Literature This panel will explore the literature of women's relationship to and experiences in the city during the early Twentieth Century up to World War II. Papers dealing with female flânerie and/or commodity culture are particularly desirable. Although papers focused on British, Irish, and Anglophone texts are preferred, consideration will also be given to analyses covering American novels and short stories. Please send a brief abstract to lizfoley@gmail.com.

Women Producers and the Politics of the Aesthetic in the Interwar Period This panel will examine how women filmmakers, journalists, and writers engage aesthetic contexts-the avant-garde, high modernism, mass culture, popular culture, and folk culture-as sites of cultural politics in the 1920s and 1930s. Papers might consider the influence of war on the formal strategies and language of women producers; women producers negotiating multiple genres and media as sites of cultural politics in their work; theorizations of class, location, and race as they intersect with gender; and the elaboration of communities of women producers in the interwar period. Please submit one page abstracts to Laurel Harris at laurel_e_harris@yahoo.com.

Wordsworth, Pedagogy, and Social Justice Papers sought that address relationships between Wordsworth's poetry, social responsibility, and teaching. How do we teach elements of poetry in terms of aesthetics, and also promote a poetics of social and economic justice? Do poetry and social responsibility lie in separate, but related spheres? What kinds of assignments can help students reconcile the gap between literary history and our own contemporary social problems? Lolly Ockerstrom: lolly.ockerstrom@park.edu

The Works and Influence of Christopher Ricks This panel invites papers on any aspect of Christopher Ricks's literary criticism, editorial work or practice, or professional influence. Please e-mail abstracts of fewer than 500 words to Eileen Abrahams at eileen.abrahams@gmail.com and Yaser Amad at yamad@mail.utexas.edu.

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Canadian

See also under: 

British "Celebrating Commonwealth Literature"; 

French "Canadian and Quebec Literature"

Beyond Green Gables 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Anne of Green Gables. Anne is currently the focus of much attention, but Montgomery's works number many more. This panel seeks critical papers on other works by Montgomery, including her Journals; all critical approaches are welcome. Topics might include the presentation of Anne in subsequent books; comparative studies to American and British literature; non-series works, among others. Proposals should indicate awareness of Montgomery scholarship. Please send queries and 1-2 pages abstracts to Rita Bode (email: rbode@trentu.ca)

Canadian Literature and the International Literary Prize Market Why have Canadian literary texts received an increasing number of international literary awards recently? Do these texts share particular features in common (plots, themes, conventions) that tell us why they have enjoyed such popular success outside Canada? What does their success say about the expectations or preconceptions of Canada that international readers bring to bear on Canadian texts? Is Canada's international reputation as a "multicultural" nation a determining factor here, or does Canadian literature's international appeal rest more strictly with "traditional" representations of regional idylls such as L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables? Andrea Cabajsky <andrea.cabajsky@umoncton.ca

Literatures of Montreal Literatures of Montreal: In anticipation of the 41st NeMLA convention, which will be held next year in Montreal, this panel seeks to explore the unique literary voice of one of North America's most vibrant cities and UNESCO's 2005 World Book Capital. We will explore the varying voices of its multilingual and multicultural communities and ask how the city's literatures reflect its history of conflicts, challenge, and concord. Papers can be in either English or French. Send 200 word proposals to Kelly MacPhail, Universite de Montreal, kelly.macphail@umontreal.ca

Writing on the (Eastern) Edge: Atlantic Canadian Literature This panel will examine the evolving culture and identity of Atlantic Canada as it is presented and questioned by contemporary literature from that region. Proposals are invited that focus on literary treatments of Atlantic Canadian history, the perpetuation or deconstruction of nostalgic narratives, or the reaction to perceived notions of pastoral "quaintness" by authors striving to portray more modern, urban and ethnically diverse versions of Atlantic Canada. As one of the goals of this panel is to prove the existence of various Atlantic Canadian literatures and identities, a broad spectrum of proposals is desired. Please send 500-word proposals to: Paul Chafe <paulchafe@sympatico.ca>

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Caribbean

See also under: 

American "Julia Alvarez and Junot Diaz"; 

Caribbean Poetry : Tradition and Innovation Roundtable. Caribbean poetry is an exciting and diverse field of excellently achieved work, both oral and scribal. This panel addresses what we mean by the term "Caribbean poetry", its relation to various other poetic traditions, and its unique contribution to world poetry. Elaine Savory: savorye@newschool.edu

Cuban Revolutionary Literature and the Literature of the Cuban Revolution This panel will position the Cuban Revolution within the Cuban imaginary of writers in the Diaspora and from the Island who have written--in English and Spanish--a wide range of literary texts, in all the major literary genres, both critical and supportive of the revolutionary experience. Scholars are invited to submit a 250-500 word abstract, as a word attachment, to Francisco Soto, College of Staten Island/CUNY Graduate Center: soto@mail.csi.cuny.edu

Frantz Fanon Past President Session. This panel will investigate the legacy and influence of the iconic postcolonial thinker and writer Frantz Fanon on contemporary authors and critics. How does Fanon's status as an icon of postcolonial studies speak to our era of globalization? Carine Mardorossian: cmardoro@buffalo.edu

Laughter's Reason: The Comic in Caribbean Literatures Seminar. Maryse Conde once described irony "as a kind of ruse that allows the reader to laugh at himself or a situation that he could not otherwise accept." This seminar will explore humor in Caribbean literatures, and, in particular, the function of the comic as a mode of knowledge or "socially embedded philosophizing" (Critchley). Participants may wish to consider topics such as: humor as theory and theories of humor; humor and opacity; reception; the comic and the body. Please email abstracts of 250-500 words to Nicole Simek at simeknj@whitman.edu.

 

Comparative Literature

See also under:

American "Activist Poetry / Poetic Activism"; "Changing Images of the Businessman in Literature"; "Paul Bowles Reconsidered"; "The Literature of 9/11"; "Wretched Refuge?";

British "Colonial and Postcolonial Bildungsroman"; "Doris Lessing"; "Shakespeare,Language and Translation"; 

Canadian "Literatures of Montreal"; 

Caribbean "Frantz Fanon"; 

Film "Genre Trouble"; 

French "Masculinities in Recent Francophone Literature"; "Pascal's Pensées"; 

Gay-Lesbian "Sexology, Emancipation and Literature"; 

German "Modernist Animals"; "Literary Translation in Praxis"; "Lost (and found) in Translation"; 

Italian "Beyond the Commedia"; "Italian Futurism at One Hundred"; "Italian Literature and Translation"; "Literary Futurism 2009"; "Nature in Italian Literature and Cinema"; "Primo Levi as Writer"; "Table Talk"; "Image of America in Italian Culture"; "Travel Literature"; 

Pedagogy"Thinking Outside the Box"; 

Popular Culture "The Future of Text and Image"; 

Professional "Why Literature Matters"; 

Spanish "Cultural Encounters in Cervantes' Don Quixote"; "Early Hispanic Culture in New York City"; "Monstruos y monstruosidades"; 

Theory "Alternative Ethics"; "Imagination, the Commons, and Enclosures"; "Intersections between Orality and Postcolonial Theory"; "Literary Modernism and Modern Art"; 

Womens Studies "Global Perspectives on Women and Myth"; "The Power of Marginal Spaces"; "The Novels of Elif Safak"; "Works of New African Writers"

Body Traffic: Contained Mobility and (Trans)Migrations in Cinema and Literature The goal of this panel is to examine the ways in which post-2000 literary and cinematic texts contemplate the dislocations of individuals from North to South and East to West. What are the cultural consequences of illegal and legal body trafficking in the new globalized marketplace? Do certain literary and cinematic texts foreground the blurring of legitimate and corrupted or openly exploitive forms of labor? Submissions may consider any of these questions in regard to portrayals of identities that are redefined or created by the restrictive or partially regulated movement of migrant labor. Alexander Mihailovic: cllazm@hofstra.edu

The City as a Space of Exile The session will examine texts that present the city as a space of exile, be it Paris as viewed by Polish World War II exiles or by Latin American writers seeking refuge from the horrors of dictatorships or New York as seen by immigrants. The text can be fiction, poetry, song, essay or letters and personal accounts of the encounters with a city - a place of exile. The text, however, has to reveal a city whose design is not limited to a mere geographical reference and whose function is not confined to a static setting. Electronic submissions to: Agnieszka Gutthy - agutthy@selu.edu

Commerce in Colonial Literatures: Avarice or Opportunity? Throughout history, colonialism has been inexorably linked to the economics of politics and to the politics of economics. In literature, this mercantilism manifests as a greed which is typically either celebrated or censured by colonial authors. This cross-disciplinary panel welcomes papers in English on the presence of commerce, trade, treasure, and avarice in colonial literatures of the Americas. Please send 500 word abstracts via e-mail to Dr. Sara Lehman, Fordham University; E-mail: slehman@fordham.edu

Comparative Literature: Pedagogy and Curriculum Building Comparative literature is an evolving field. How have the recent developments in the field affected our pedagogy? How do our pedagogical choices (content of courses, models of teaching, curriculum building) reflect our understanding of the field? Is there a "transnational", "transatlantic", or "comparative" pedagogy, distinctive from the pedagogy involved in teaching national literatures? We encourage submissions about curriculum building, comparative pedagogy, and experiences with team teaching. Please send abstracts to Belén Atienza, Clark University. batienza@clarku.edu

The Continuing Challenges of Negritude This panel reconsiders Negritude as an expression of a radical modernist poetics and an enduring relevant call for liberation from (post)colonial intellectual constraints and political hegemonies. Please send abstracts on any issue of Negritude poetics and politics, in Africa and/or the Caribbean, and beyond, to Prof. Christopher Winks, Queens College/CUNY, christopher.winks@qc.cuny.edu.

Crazy Women: Healing Post-Trauma The aim of this panel is to further examine the connections among gender and writing and healing-post-trauma. Papers offer insight in attempts to better understand the possibilities and limitations as well as affirmations and contradictions of female authors transforming their traumatic experiences to text. Rachel Spear: rspear1@lsu.edu

Dulce et Decorum Est?: Twentieth Century War Poetry Dulce Et Decorum Est?: This panel examines the history and relevance of the poetry of war, inviting considerations of well-known and lesser-known poets of WWI, reflections on the evolution and differences of war poetry across the different theaters of war, and observations on the continued relevance of war poetry for our own own time. Andrew Mulvania: amulvania@washjeff.edu

Dylan, Cohen, Young: North American Song as International Literature This panel will consider the international literary nature of Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. The panel will explore their work's inherently international elements (e.g., songs that evoke multinational settings or imagery or musical influences) as well as the diverse aspects of its global reception. The panel will consider also the larger question of whether Dylan, Cohen and Young offer in the aggregate a literature of globalization. Papers welcome on one or more of the artists. Please send abstracts of 250 words to Adam Lifshey at AML58@georgetown.edu between Sept. 1-10.

The Epistolary Novel in World Literature This session will explore the "correspondences" in the development of epistolary novels in different linguistic and cultural traditions. Epistolary fiction has been redefining the complex relationships between fiction and verisimilitude from Roman times to today's e-pistolaries or novels written as a series of email messages. Comparative papers are especially welcome. Please submit 150-word abstract to Chiara Frenquellucci, Harvard University, cfrenq@fas.harvard.edu

The Ethics of Translation Roundtable Roundtable. In a conference largely devoted to languages and culture, translation plays a fundamental, though often invisible, part. The goal of this roundtable is to emphasize the importance of translation in the dissemination of culture, and to discuss the ethics that must necessarily accompany its practice. Topics may include, but not be limited to, the relationship of translation to censorship, post-colonialism, gender, and politics. E-mail 250-word abstracts for the roundtable discussion by Sept. 15 to Marella Feltrin-Morris, Ithaca College, mfeltrinmorris@ithaca.edu

Günter Grass and Salman Rushdie: Comparative Perspectives This panel seeks to engage comparative perspectives on authors and public intellectual figures Günter Grass and Salman Rushdie. How does their work represent world history and the universal vis-à-vis individual experience and the particular? What narrative techniques do they employ to construct the anti/-hero's subjectivity, identity and consciousness, and how are they linked to narratives of national identity and history? How are time and space constructed? What literary traditions and innovations inform their work? 1-page abstracts to Maria Grewe, Columbia University (msg52@columbia.edu).

Narrating Multiple Modernities This panel will explore the concept of "alternative" or "multiple" modernities without retracing the relations between modernity and the Shoah or the Sublime. Papers responding to contemporary debates on modernity (Habermas, Giddens, Jameson, etc.) are particularly welcome. Topics include, among others, modernity and globalization, allegories of the modern, historical time and modernist tropes, colonialism and postcoloniality. Abstracts of 500 words, including affiliation and contact information, should be emailed to David D. Kim at ddkim@fas.harvard.edu.

Original Poetry Creative Session. Submissions welcome for a creative session in which NeMLA members will read their own original poetry. Each poet will have 10-15 minutes to read her/his work. Please send a sample of 4-5 poems to Adam Lifshey at AML58@georgetown.edu between Sept.1-10.

Pathology and Modernity: Medical Discourse and its Fictions This panel will explore the role of medical discourse in shaping literary modernity. All literary genres and linguistic backgrounds from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries will be considered, especially examining the relationship between European medical theories and the literatures of Europe and Europe's former colonies (Latin America, Africa, and Asia). This panel will discuss how the clinical and the literary intersect to forge modernity? How do medical and scientific theories impact literary aesthetics? Does a relationship exist between medical pathology and literary modernity? Please send 250- 500 words abstract to charlotte.rogers@yale.edu and mmimran@princeton.edu

Representing the 21st Century City Critics (Huyssen, Alter, Lehan, among others) have argued that literary experimentation is central to the modernist project of representing the city. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the tensions that drove modernist texts-class disparities, global exchange and communication, and chance encounters-have only exponentially increased. How are contemporary literary and artistic interpretations of the city reinventing this familiar modernist trope? International examples and multimedia projects are especially encouraged. Send abstracts to Martha Kuhlman: mkuhlman@bryant.edu

(Re) Theorizing Revolution: Radical Culture in the Contemporary Period What does it mean to be a "committed artist" in the contemporary period? What are the global aesthetic and political movements that attempt to move beyond the "flexibility" of postmodernity? This panel will focus on the enduring necessity of historical materialism in literary and cultural criticism and the possibility of rethinking collective responses to globalization, the "new" imperialism, and the neoliberal agenda. John Maerhofer: jjmaer@aol.com

Speaking Our Stories: Cross-Cultural Orality This panel invites papers on all aspects of orality and its connection to culture. Your analysis need not be cross-cultural in itself. Dimensions of orality explored may include, but are not limited to oral storytelling; literary uses of oral voice/structure/aesthetics; connections/tensions between orality, print, visuality, and/or musicality; oral texts in postcolonial contexts; oral history in/through narrative; community as defined through oral narrative and its offshoots. 500-word abstract and 2 pg CV to Trinna S. Frever, dr_frever@yahoo.com by Sept 10.

The Sublime Today From the Peri Hypsos of Longinus through formulations by Burke, Kant, Hegel, de Man, Lyotard, Nancy, Jameson, Badiou, and others, where do we stand today in relation to this ancient aesthetic category? Is the sublime a "cultural dominant" in a postmodern mediascape of simulation and simulacra or rather an aesthetic "event," in Lyotard's sense? What are some other ways to consider the relevance of the sublime in a post-9/11 world? Proposals considering any aspect of the history, theory, and politics of the sublime as well as examples from literature, art, and popular culture are welcome, as are comparative approaches. 300-word abstracts to Gillian Pierce, Boston University, gpierce@bu.edu.

The Survivor Story in Contemporary Literature and Culture Emerging across national literatures, often thematizing transnational migration, contemporary survivor stories are "bottom-up" narratives of globalization's afflicted subjects. They flourish in popular subgenres, including film and television, but are also represented by prominent authors (Lessing, DeLillo, McCarthy, Eggers). They feature too in recent political discourse, as ecological concerns and financial "meltdowns" drive a perception that global leaders lack solutions to a range of crises which stand to face disparate communities with common strategic and ethical challenges. Papers will explore the presence and significance of these narratives; send 250-word abstracts to Cornelius Collins: corneliuscollins@rocketmail.com.

Transnational Modernism This panel seeks papers exploring how modernist writers re-imagine issues of the nation and national identity via transnational models. Is a modernist aesthetic fundamentally opposed to the modern nation-state? Or does modernism, in its search for narratives and symbols of origin and renewal, contribute to its development? Is transgression a necessary element of modernity? How do narratives of suppressed minorities call attention to the deficiencies of the modern state? Send inquiries or abstracts (as MS Word attachments) to Daniel Shea, Mount Saint Mary College: shea@msmc.edu.

Women Writing Trauma Seminar. This session examines how historical trauma is made present in women's writing as a way to signify women's experiences of modernity and postmodernity. How might the historical traumas of the 20th and 21st centuries provide a way of understanding women's experiences across national and cultural borders? This seminar invites articles in process that focus on how women authors represent trauma in all genres of world literature. Please send abstracts to Jamie Carr, jcarr@niagara.edu, via MS word e-mail attachments. Papers will be circulated before the conference.

Writing the Adventure: The Rhetoric of Peril in Travel Literature Travel and the dangers of adventure go hand in hand, and yet very few scholars have thus far drawn a connection between travel writing and the rhetoric of peril as a fundamental trope of adventure stories and travel literature. This interdisciplinary panel solicits contributions to investigate how the rhetoric of peril has been employed stylistically in both fictional and non-fictional travel writing, and how it has ultimately impacted travel historically, politically, and culturally. Please send proposals of 200-300 words and a brief CV (approx. 100 words) to Ulrike Brisson, ubrisson@wpi.edu.

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Composition

See also under:

Pedagogy "Assessing Writing in English Programs"; "The "Person" in the 21st Century"; "The Big Idea";

Theory "Writing on the Inside"

Creative Stories for "Beloved Community": Teaching/Learning in Writing Classrooms Creative Session. Seeking to move beyond binaries of lore/theory, this creative roundtable encourages presenters to submit theorized stories of composition practice. Imaginative presentations, including performance, multimedia, multilingual, and collaborative work are invited concerning any dimension of Basic Writing, ESL, and First-Year Composition for non-traditional and/or first-generation college students. Building on bell hooks' idea of "beloved community" the session advocates for students considered most at-risk for successful college matriculation. Susan Bernstein <susan.naomi@gmail.com>

Gertrude Stein and Composition Recent developments in composition studies, in particular the focus on students as the site of meaning constitution in the classroom, suggest the usefulness of innovative literature as privileged classroom texts. Gertrude Stein's explicit reflections on grammar, syntax and composition suggest the usefulness of her writing, theoretical and literary, in particular. This panel will explore uses of Stein's writing and thinking in the ongoing process of remaking composition studies and pedagogy. Adam Katz: adam.katz@quinnipiac.edu

The Idea of the Composition: Digitizing Writing Instruction When we ask students to compose or to make a composition, what do they hear? For them, the study of English composition is not effectively what instructors think it is. Students suggest that composition is more visual than what is traditionally expected by instructors. In short, they identify themselves more closely with iconic and digital interfaces than textual referends. It may be that it is instructors' perceptions and notions of what composing means that needs to be challenged. This panel will explore new sequences for teaching academic writing that avail of new media and potential digital discourses. Ethna Dempsey Lay: engedl@hofstra.edu

Philosophy as Advanced Composition Wittgenstein's post-Tractatus rethinking of philosophy in terms of grammar offers a new perspective on composition studies. If meaning is governed by tacit rules of language that are changing and open-ended, then philosophy might be resituated within composition. This panel invites papers that model the composition of philosophical texts, discuss the pedagogical implications of teaching philosophy as advanced composition, or in some way reconsider composition as "one of the heirs of the subject we used to call philosophy" (Blue & Brow