• Call For Papers •••

[JaNell]

Some interesting topics to write about and present:

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The Cormac McCarthy Society is currently accepting paper and panel proposals for its "Suttree 25th Anniversary Celebration" to be held Oct. 14-17, 2004, in Knoxville, Tennessee. The conference will concentrate on McCarthy's novel Suttree, but subjects may also include his other Southern/Appalachian works such as The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, "The Gardener's Son," and The Stonemason. Possible topics are Suttree as Autobiography, Land and Nature in the Appalachian works, Suttree and Intertextuality, McCarthy as Humorist, Knoxville and East Tennessee as Setting, McCarthy as Southern Writer, but submissions of any topic relevant to these works are welcome. One page proposals for papers and panels should be submitted by April 1, 2004, to

The Cormac McCarthy Society
Suttree Conference Committee
13850 SW 100th Ave.
Miami FL 33176

or by e-mail to: info@cormacmccarthy.com
or by fax to: 305-378-1117

Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes in length. Panels may
consist of three full-length papers or moderated discussions.
Participants will be notified by August 15, 2004. Additional
information can be found on the "Conferences" link on the Cormac
McCarthy Home Page: http://www.cormacmccarthy.com

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CFP: Annual Graduate English Conference at Howard University
Conference: Exploring the Gothic in the Black Diaspora
Date/Time: Friday, March 26, 2004 / 9:30am to 4:30pm

This conference is designed to bring together new scholars to examine the gothic novel in the Black Diaspora. The Gothic, with its ambivalence and susceptibility to multiple interpretations, is a helpful way of reading and understanding Black texts that carry strong strains of taboo subject matters.

Some questions to consider in such an inquiry are: How is the Gothic related to post-modernist issues, such as transformations of gender and sexual identities? How does the Black Diaspora transform the "traditional" Gothic novel? What are some of the concerns and preoccupations inherent in Gothic novels of the Black Diaspora? What are the political and ideological issues present in Black Gothic novels?

We are seeking papers on any aspect of Gothic literature as well as papers on Gothic elements in works not generally considered as "gothic." Interdisciplinary papers are welcome on film, visual arts, etc. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

§ the gothic and the Black Diaspora
§ the gothic and the representation of eroticism
§ the colonial and post-colonial gothic novel
§ the gothic and representations of slavery
§ gothic myths, codes, and language
§ representations of the supernatural
§ gothic theories and myths
§ the black female and male gothic novel


200-word proposals should be submitted by 20 February 2004 via e-mail to a_m_taylor@howard.edu. Accepted applicants will be notified by 27 February 2004. The heading of your abstract should include your name, affiliation, e-mail address, phone number, and mailing address.

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Panel Topic: Mary Shelley
Rocky Mountain MLA Convention, 58th Annual Meeting
September 30 – October 2, 2004
Millenium Harvest House Hotel, Boulder, Colorado
Hosted by University of Colorado, Boulder
Submission Deadline: 1 March 2004

Few have attempted and even fewer have succeeded in taking a
comprehensive and balanced look at Shelley’s life and career beyond The Last Man. Indeed, literary critics and historians most often describe her long career in terms of specious shifts: a biographical shift from Romantic mistress-wife to Victorian widow and a political shift from radical liberal to conservative “hack”. Such attempts to contain Shelley to neat and tidy categories (before/after P. B. Shelley, Romantic/Victorian, radical/conservative) requires that one deny, omit, or oversimplify aspects—whole decades, in fact—of her biography and work.

This panel offers an opportunity to intensively examine the ambiguities and ambivalences implicit within Mary Shelley's long career. Any proposal that deals with some aspect of Shelleyean dichotomies is welcome. Special consideration will be given proposals critically addressing Shelley’s life and/or work of the 1830s and 40s, including her late novels, short stories, literary lives, and travelogues.

Email or send 300-word abstracts by 1 March 2004 to:
Dr. Erin Webster-Garrett
Department of English
Radford University, Radford, VA 24141
ewebster2@radford.edu

Please see the RMMLA Website for information regarding membership and
Conference registration: http://rmmla.wsu.edu

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CFP: The FBI Files on Literary Modernism (3/15/04; MLA '04)

For a special session to be proposed for the annual MLA Convention, December 27-30, 2004, Philadelphia, paper proposals are welcomed that analyze FBI Files on literary modernists such as (but not limited to): Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Ezra Pound, John Steinbeck. What has been the FBI's role in censoring or manipulating the literary reputations of certain figures? What do the files reveal about an author's cultural or historical significance? How did the FBI affect literary production in the 20th century?

500-word abstract plus brief vitae by 15 March 2004 to Karen Leick, Department of English, The Ohio State University at Lima, 4240 Campus Drive, Lima, OH 45804. Email: leick.1@osu.edu

Karen Leick
Assistant Professor of English
The Ohio State University
Lima OH 45804 USA
leick.1@osu.edu

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Counter- and Sub-cultures

INSCRIPTIONS '04: an arts and culture conference and festival at Eastern Mediterranean University in Famagusta, on the island of Cyprus June 3rd- 4th, 2004

The seventh annual Literature and Humanities Conference will be held at Eastern Mediterranean University as part of Inscriptions '04, an Arts and Culture festival taking place at the university and environs between June 3rd - 4th, 2004. In conjunction with a wide selection of music, performance and film events, discussion friendly papers are being solicited for our symposium. Although we will be publishing selected presentations from Inscriptions '04, we encourage participants to move away from the standard prewritten, "finished paper" format, towards a more open-ended presentation, which will provoke and contribute to a genuine exchange of research and ideas during the panel sessions. Our aim is to create a forum and publishing venue for inspiring work in progress, where the exchange of ideas with fellow academics participating in the conference will contribute to the final form of participants' work.

With this in mind, we invite papers and/or presentations that examine the current status of critical thinking on counter- and sub-cultures.

Possible topics might include but are not limited to:

- the intellectual as counter-culture icon
- the sub-cultural politics of music/fashion/art/literature/food
- resistance cultures: gay, lesbian and transgendered
- HMV cult classics: Irving Welsh, Kevin Sampson
- fashion as capital subversion/complicity
- sub-cultural prohibitions and counter-culture taboos
- civic duty\work ethic vs. the "idle hands" of sub-culture
- representations of youth in the media
- the poetics of sub-cultural identity
- sub-culture and alternative music: counter-culture or the new hegemony?
- counter-culture and questions of taste and value.
- urban and rural counter-cultures
- snuff films and serial killers
- literary theory/deconstruction as sub-culture
- Waco or Wacko? Evangelist extremes and counter-culture
- criminal cultures: organised crime, informers, money launderers etc.
- punk, rap, reggae, ragga, drum and bass, and jungle
- the politics of clubbing
- PlayStation II and the hyper-real
- drugs and sub-culture
- hackers and counter-cultural resistance
- sub-culture and age
- the revolutionary cell
- underground publications
- the fate of café culture
- skaters and (cyber)surfers
- sex in sub-culture
- the politics of smoking
- the legacy of Dick Hebdige
- Marilyn Manson and the gothic as sub-culture
- Slipknot to The Stooges? The longevity and performativity of sub-culture.

Please send 250 word abstracts by 31st January, 2004 to:
rodney.sharkey@emu.edu.tr
or
robert.dalonzo@emu.edu.tr
and please visit http://www.emu.edu.tr/elh/index_conference.html for more information.

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