Convention

2013 Call for Papers

This page is updated frequently as we receive changes. Check back often.

The 2013 informal convention theme is: Art & Artifice.

Possible sub-themes include:

authenticity and irony	masks, masking and masquerade	ekphrasis
documentary/mockumentary	autobiography and memoir	mixed media
fakery	aesthetics in criticism/theory	the art of [x]: teaching, criticism...
performance	art vs. criticism/theory	art vs. craft
passing (class, race, gender)	art/literary history	the history/culture of craft
rhetorics of advertising, marketing, PR, politics	art in literature and film	writing as craft

Deadlines Extended

The deadline for Individual paper proposals (250 words or less) on the general theme of the conference ("Art & Artifice") has been extended to June 7th, individual paper proposals should be submitted directly to the M/MLA office by June 7, 2013 via email (mmla@luc.edu). Those accepted will be organized into sessions.

The following list contains call for papers for:

Professionalizing Workshops

The Professionalizing workshops will be posted in the Spring.

Permanent Sections

African Literature

Topic: "If You Don't Like Someone's Story, You Write Your Own.": How Chinua Achebe Stories Create a Unique Reality

In "Hopes and Impediments", his collection of essays published over a quarter of a century ago, the late Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) defines art as "man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him." He was writing from the viewpoint of an African whose story was being told by people other than those who should tell that story.Achebe argued in subsequent scholarly essays and several creative narratives how the story would never be complete until it was told by the subject looking in. Achebe died in March this year, and in honor of his contribution to African literature , especially on debates regarding the authenticity of African Literature as a subject worthy of intense scholarly attention.

We invite papers on any work of Achebe that grapples with the dilemma of knowledge naturally acquired versus that forcefully imposed especially through foreign cultural intrusion by British colonialism, or the post-colonial conditions within the continent. We encourage proposals that question the attempts by Achebe's characters to redefine their own unique identities in spite of historical obstacles.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to both Olabisi Gwamna and Bitrus Gwamna at ogwamna@keiseruniversity.edu and bgwamna@iwc.edu

Chair: Olabisi Gwamna, Keiser University and Bitrus Gwamna, Iowa Wesleyan College

African American Literature

Topic: Maskin’ Ain’t Easy: Centuries of Masking and Performing In African American Literature

"We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise."
(Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask—1896)

For the past three centuries African American Literature has been a body of work that has shown the complex existence(s) of African Americans in a race and gender based society. Two of the core elements that African American writers have continually implemented in their work has been “masking” and/or “performing.” This panel seeks to address and consider how African American literature uses, critiques, engages, and displays elements of “masking” and/or “performing.” Papers may focus on any aspects or modes of African American Literature from 19th, 20th, and 21st century writers that utilize either “masking” and/or “performing. Essays may focus on, but are not limited to: class, race, gender, identity, religion, and any other subjects.

If we take into account the words of Toni Morrison and believe that “the ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power,” then what images of “ masking” and/or “performing” have African American writers familiarized and mystified for us? What have they taught us about the power of the African American self or selves? More importantly, what do we as scholars and critics of African American literature have to say about our writers and their narratives of “masking” and/or “performing”?

Please send 200-300 words abstracts to andre.johnson@asurams.edu by June 1, 2013. Please include your name, (institutional affiliation) contact information, including email address, and phone number.

Chair: André Stefan, Albany State University

American Literature II: Literature After 1870

Topic: The Education-Industrial Complex

The American Literature II panel seeks papers examining novelistic/poetic/artistic depictions of the corporate influence on public education policy, the "Free Market" in the classroom, and/or the effect of new technologies/modes of efficiency on pedagogy.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Mark Schiebe, mschiebe@qcc.cuny.edu

Chair: Mark Schiebe, Queensborough Community College

Animals in Literatue and Film

Topic: The Art of the Animal: Animals, Art and Artifice in Literature and Film

This section welcomes papers on the theme of animals, art and artifice in literature and film. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, illustrated texts about animals; animals in performance; animals in advertising; anthropomorphism (humanlike characters "masquerading" as animals); "artificial" animals; and "crafty" animals in literature and film

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Kathleen Doyle, doyle@rhodes.edu

Chair: Kathleen Doyle, Rhodes College

Applied Linguistics

Topic: Second/Foreign Language Learning/Teaching: Myths and/or Reality

Participants will explore the issues of second/foreign language learning/teaching within the context of a changing social global world as they apply to the learning and/or teaching of a second/foreign language. Topics on first language acquisition, language acquisition in general, language planning, bilingualism, language assessment, and/or applied linguistics in general are also welcome.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Kashama Mulamba, kmulamba@olivet.edu

Chair: Kashama Mulamba, Olivet Nazarene University

Art What Thou Eat

Topic: Open

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Arlene Cravens, acravens@slu.edu

Chair: Arline Cravens, St. Louis University

Bibliography and Textual Studies

Topic: Framing Race in Medieval Texts

This permanent section of the Midwest Language Association focuses on bibliography and textual studies, and traditionally explores points of intersection between the literary studies and history of the book disciplines. The Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing describes the history of the book discipline as work addressing the “composition, mediation, reception, survival, and transformation of written communication in material forms.”

The 2013 conference will fuse this ongoing interest with this year’s particular focus on art and artifice by welcoming paper proposals for a panel or group of panels exploring medieval pictorial representations of race in medieval illuminations and engravings. Papers addressing issues such as medieval pictorial depictions of Jews, Saracens, and/or Tartars, monstrous races, mappa mundi, constructing race in medieval Iberia, medieval Jewish and Christian polemical debates, manuscript marginalia, ritual murder narratives, and the construction of medieval national identities are encouraged.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Thomas H. Blake, tblake1981@yahoo.com

Chair: Thomas H. Blake, University of Iowa

Canadian Literature

Topic: Open

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Nathan Jung, najung@uwalumni.com

Chair: Nathan Jung, Loyola University Chicago

Central American Literature

Topic: The Art of Written Images in Central American Narrative

In 1966 Miguel Ángel Asturias stated that one of the defining characteristics of the Latin American narrative was the manner in which novelists imperatively rely on written images to expose ideas and feelings, so that they appear to be using purely images. He believed that when reading Latin American novels, it was not uncommon to almost visualize them cinematographically.

This panel asks scholars to respond to the tenet that artistic imaginary is an intrinsic, defining characteristic of the Central American narrative. Papers written in English or Spanish may address the following questions: What role(s) do written-visual effects play in the Central American narrative? What does it mean to write a novel through descriptive images? What are the artistic boundaries between narrative (literature), visual arts, and film? How do artistic creation, social awareness, and political commitment intersect?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to nestor.quiroa@gmail.com

Chair: Nestor Quiroa, Wheaton College

Children's Literature

Topic: Art and Artifice in Children's and Adolescent Literature

We invite papers exploring a variety of interpretations of art and artifice at work in children's and adolescent literature.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Megan Musgrave, memusgra@iupui.edu

Chair: Megan Musgrave, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

Comparative Literature

Topic: Representations of European Traumas in Film, Literature, and the Graphic Novel

The Comparative Literature section welcomes abstracts on how literary and filmic genres have given voice to historical trauma in different European contexts from the Armenian and Jewish Holocausts to the Bosnian War and other racial and ethnic events conflicts in different parts of Europe.

Please send one to two page abstracts by May 31st to Khani Begum, khani@bgsu.edu

Chair: Khani Begum, Bowling Green State University

Creative Writing I: Poetry

Topic: Poetry: The Art of Artifice

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Martha M. Vertreace-Doody, mvertreace-doody@ccc.edu

Chair: Martha M. Vertreace-Doody, Kennedy-King College

Creative Writing II: Prose - Section A

Topic: Prose - The Art of Artifice

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Amina Gautier, amina.gautier@gmail.com

Chair: Amina Gautier, DePaul University

Creative Writing II: Prose - Section B

Topic: Artifice as a Means to Art

This session will be focusing on the unreliable narrator and its importance to the artistry of a story. By "unreliable", it's not just meant that the narrators are lying, stories should have a genuine sense of ambiguity as to what is real and what is pure invention or artifice from the narrator. It's possible that the artifice is subtle or even minor, but a sense of the artifice that implies a richer backdrop should be integral to stories submitted for this session.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Ezekiel Jarvis, zjarvis@eureka.edu

Chair: Ezekiel Jarvis, Eureka College

Digital Humanities

Topic: Design and the Digital Humanities

With this year’s M/MLA topic of “Art & Artifice,” the new Permanent Section on Digital Humanities will explore issues of, experiments with, and provocations on design. Digital humanities (DH) is often equated with tool-oriented, procedural tasks like text analysis and data gathering. For example, the recent MLA open access publication Literary Studies in the Digital Age, focuses on textual databases, mining, analysis, and modeling. However, Johanna Drucker, Anne Burdick, Bethany Nowviskie, Tara McPherson, and others have argued that interface and systems design, visual narrative, and graphical display are not peripheral concerns, but rather important “intellectual methods” (Burdick et al. 2012). Likewise, DH projects and publications often segment (content first, design last) and/or outsource (hire a firm, select a template) the design process, overlooking the powerful and important dialectic of design and argument, at times to the great detriment of the project itself. In an effort to further the conversation, we invite papers related to any aspect of design and the digital humanities. Possible topics/questions may include, but are certainly not limited to:

design of interactive fiction, hypertext fiction, and electronic literature

games and virtual spaces

hybrid digital/analog fabrication practices and the ethos of hacking, making, and crafting that surrounds them

tensions between original designs and prefabricated templates and visualizations

the relationship between content and design in a scholarly edition, web archive, course website, or other digital content management project

design and affect, design and imagination

the tendency of DH project groups to separate designers and programmers on a team; tendency to divide design concerns from “technical” concerns

design standards, web standards, responsive & participatory design, and issues of accessibility of online publications and projects

skeuomorphism vs. born-digital design?

design and code as language art, code poetry, etc.?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to both Josh Honn (josh.honn@gmail.com) and Rachael Sullivan (sullivan.rachael@gmail.com).

Co-chairs: Josh Honn (Northwestern University) and Rachael Sullivan (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Drama

Topic: Send in the clowns

Essays on the comedy, the comedic, the clownish, the buffoon, are all welcome.

Submit a 250-word abstract to Lynn Hall at halllj@miamioh.edu by May 31, 2013. Please include you name, address, email, and phone.

Chair: Lynn Hall, Miami University

English I: English Literature Before 1800

Topic: The Magic of Deception

The English Literature Before 1800 panel welcomes papers on the art and artifice of con artists, swindlers, and other deceptive villains in literature. Especially desirable are papers that explore the balance of aesthetics versus ethics in scenes and passages depicting parlor tricks, faked magic, sleight-of-hand misdirection, and other such shenanigans.

Please send 250-300 word abstracts by May 31st to Michael Sarabia, michael-sarabia@uiowa.edu.

Chair: Michael Sarabia, The University of Iowa

English II: English Literature 1800-1900

Topic: Open

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Mickey Toogood, michael.toogood@tufts.edu

Chair: Mickey Toogood, Tufts University

English III: English Literature After 1900

Topic: After Postmodernism

Is Postmodernism passé? If so, why? Has anything coherent replaced its aesthetic values? Or did it ever exist? Was it simply a later form of modernism? This panel seeks to explore such questions. Papers might address such issues through a critical-philosophical essay or from a more concerted literary analysis. Of particular interest are works that address the end of postmodernism or the advent of a new aesthetic development that somehow challenges the tenets of postmodernism.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Timothy J. Sutton, tsutton@fgcu.edu

Chair: Timothy J. Sutton, Florida Gulf Coast University

Fabricating the Body

Topic: Artistic Bodies in Literature

In what ways do artistic constructions of the body appear in literature? The Fabricating the Body permanent section of the M/MLA is soliciting proposals for conference papers that analyze artistic constructions of human and non-human bodies in literature. From paintings, to sculpture, to drawings literary works portray bodies as ideal objects d’art, and also as grotesque manifestations. How do aesthetic, phenomenological, ecocritical, feminist and even animal-other theories inform our understanding of the artistic body in literary works? We seek papers that analyze any genre or time period of literature

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Sophie Lavin, sophiadawn.christman-lavin@stonybrook.edu

Chair: Sophie Lavin, SUNY Stony Brook University

Film I

Topic: Passing as Human in Film

In Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, the slogan for the Tyrell Corporation, “More Human Than Human,” alludes to the ability of their bioengineered replicants to pass as humans and, perhaps, to supersede them. From Metropolis (1927) to Prometheus (2012), the concern over non-human entities passing for humans has appeared repeatedly in cinema, often forcing audiences to ask questions about how does one define humanity in the first place. This panel calls for papers that examine the issue of passing as human, and topics are not limited to artificial intelligence/robotic beings; papers that examine films featuring extraterrestrials, such as John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), or supernatural entities, such as Let the Right One In (2008), attempting to pass are welcome as well.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Paul Huggins, paulhuggins003@yahoo.com

Chair: Paul Huggins, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Film II

Topic: Ekphrastic Representations in Film

Laura M. Sager Eidt explores the relationship between image and text in Writing and Filming the Painting: Ekphrasis in Literature and Film, concluding that ekphrasis is "central to the filmic discourse and the hybrid, collaborative nature of the cinematic medium." While ekphrastic representations are typically characteristic of poetry and prose, films such as Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, with its homage to Goya’s black-paintings, display intertexuality through ekphrasis. This panel will investigate the significance of filmic ekphrasis, particularly as it pertains to Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertexuality. Questions to consider include the impact of art and artistic representations on filmic treatments of political, socioeconomic, and cultural conditions; how representations shape audience perception, and; how intertexuality influences interpretation.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Eva English, eva.english@rockets.utoledo.edu

Chair: Eva English, University of Toledo

Film III

Topic: Global Cinemas

The Film III Section is accepting proposals for papers on any aspect of Global Cinema. By global cinemas we are referring to films made outside of the U.S./Hollywood context. Papers can be related to the conference informal theme of “Art and Artifice”, but other themes are certainly welcome. We are interested in sparking broad discussions about the state of global cinema in the twenty-first century, though historical perspectives are welcome as well. Possible questions to trigger ideas include: Is the existing cultural and cinematographical intermediality between (inter)national cinemas giving way to a new definition of global film? Are adaptations, remakes, transfers, and/or metaphor ways of rearranging the cultural and cinematic traditions?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Luis Guadano, lguadano@odu.edu and Caryn C. Connelly, connellyc1@nku.edu.

Chair: Luis Guadano, Old Dominion University

French I: Advent of the Ancient Regime

Topic: Medieval and Early Modern Evangelism in Letters

Letter-writing allows writers to bear witness to history, and to self-history. The art or artifice with which a letter is crafted can indicate the writer’s sincerity or posturing, but the writer’s reasons for writing can be more challenging to discern. Early evangelists may have written to disseminate God’s word, but in the process they also tell us much about their worldly and spiritual travels, beliefs, doubts, and identities. Participants in this panel will discuss the context in which evangelism evolved, and will explore the letter as memoir or precursor to autobiography.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 5th to Jennifer Morrissey, jmorrissey@northpark.edu.

Chair: Jennifer Morrissey, North Park University

French II: Post Ancien Régime

Topic: Simulacra and Simulation in the French Postrevolutionary Novel

In "Simulacra and Simulation," Baudrillard asserts that "the simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth--it is the truth which conceals that there is none." By focusing on some 19th- and 20th-century characters whose actions may be read in relation to this notion, the participants in this panel will contemplate the ways in which truth and artifice converge in fictional prose.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Sylvie Goutas, sgoutas@dom.edu.

Chair: Sylvie Goutas, Dominican University

French III: Cultural Issues

Topic: La place du gouvernement de Vichy dans la littérature

Une période honteuse dans l’histoire française est celle de l’Etat français, ou gouvernement de Vichy, qui a fortement influencé la littérature. Comment les écrivains ayant vécu cette époque, ou ceux des générations suivantes, s’en sont-ils servi/s’en servent-ils dans leurs écrits ?

Cette session invite des communications sur les genres engendrés par le régime de Vichy : littérature collaborationniste, littérature pacifiste, littérature de l’exil ou de l’ombre. Plus proches de nous, il est des œuvres issues de l’anamnèse, c’est-à-dire de la prise de conscience sur un passé longtemps refoulé, se transformant même chez certains en une hypermnésie ou excès de mémoire.

Veuillez envoyer vos propositions de communication de 250 mots (en français ou en anglais) à Dominique Thévenin, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, thevends@uwec.edu avant 31 Mai.

Chair: Dominique Thevenin, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Gender Studies: Male

Topic: Artful Declarations in Early Modern Drama

In the opening scene of King Lear, Shakespeare's ultimate patriarch demands his three daughters perform their love for him. Cordelia's infamous "Nothing," her refusal to play her father's hypocritical--and profoundly theatrical--"love game" sets into motion the whirring wheels of tragedy. Her honest negation of Lear's manipulative request is a powerful example of a theatrical technique that proliferates in Early Modern drama: what we might call the "artful" declaration. That is, a performative statement or assertion that, when articulated onstage, effects dramatic change--although not always the change intended by the speaker. This session seeks papers that explore how artful (and/or artificial) words--especially those delivered within the context of solicited speeches--exfoliate our interpretations of Early Modern drama. Papers addressing the panel's theme within the context of Early Modern masculinity are particularly welcome.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Jessica Tooker, jtooker@indiana.edu

Chair: Jessica Tooker, Indiana University, Bloomington

German Literature and Culture I

Topic: Open

Submissions are invited on this year's theme (Art & Artifice) or on any topic.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to James W. Jones, jones1jw@cmich.edu

Chair: James W. Jones, Central Michigan University

German Literature and Culture II: German Language Poetry

Topic: German Language Poetry and the Arts

Many poems in German depict works of art (Mörike's "An eine Lampe"; C. F. Meyer's "Römischer Brunnen"; Rilke's "Archaischer Torso Apollos" and "Römische Fontäne"); many deal more abstractly with the artist or the arts (Goethe's "Künstlers Abendlied"; Hölderlin's "Natur und Kunst"); and many works of art reflect poetry (Kiefer's series on Celan's "Todesfuge"; Christoph M. Frisch's "Trakl-Zyklus"). In keeping with the MMLA Convention theme of "Art and Artifice," this section invites abstracts (max. 250 words) on any aspect of the interplay between poetry and visual arts or aesthetic theory from any period. Proposals on other topics involving poetry will also be considered. Format will be oral delivery of papers.

Please send abstracts to section chair Geoff Howes at ghowes@bgsu.edu by June 7, 2013.

Chair: Geoffrey C. Howes, Bowling Green State University

German Women Writers

Topic: Open

We are seeking papers which deal with the literary texts and lives of German-speaking women writers from any period and in any genre. Papers that address the informal Convention Theme of Art and Arifice are especially welcome.

Please submit 250-word abstracts and 50-word bio blurb as email attachments to both Dr. Ekaterina Pirozhenko, epiroz2@uic.edu and Dr. Daniela M. Richter, richt2dm@cmich.edu by May 31, 2013.

Chair: Ekaterina Pirozhenko, University of Illinois at Chicago

History of Critical Reception

Topic: Open

This section is organized by the Reception Study Society (RSS), an association that promotes cross-disciplinary dialogue among all areas of reception studies, including reader-response criticism and pedagogy, history of reading and the book, reception history, and audience, communication, and media studies. The RSS is interested in the institutions that shape reception as well as the dimensions of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion in the study of audiences and reading.

The RSS welcomes papers that offer new insights into the reception of works, authors, or genres or that reflect on theories of reception more generally. Papers that address the conference theme, “Art and Artifice,” are especially encouraged. Prospective panelists could approach aesthetics and craft from the vantage point of audiences, for example, or consider culturally and historically situated responses to art as performance.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Matthew James Vechinski, mjvechin@uw.edu

Chair: Matthew James Vechinski, University of Washington

Illustrated Texts

Topic: The Art and Artifice of Illustrated Texts

This section welcomes papers that examine illustrated texts of any period or genre in terms of art and artifice. Possible topics might include, but are not limited to: the artistic quality of illustrations; collaborations between artists and writers; the inclusion of images in later textual editions; textual-visual balance or imbalance; and the artifice/artificiality of illustrations. Visual, multi-media presentations are especially encouraged.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Joshua M. Murray, jmurra24@kent.edu

Chair: Joshua M. Murray, Kent State University

International Francophone Studies

Topic: Art and Artifice in World Literature in French

This session welcomes papers in French or in English on ART and ARTIFICE in texts by authors from or about the French-speaking world. Other topics on international FRANCOPHONE studies will also be considered.

Please submit proposals (about 250 words) and brief introductory paragraph in French or in English on related topics, or direct any question, to Professor Hélène Brown, at helene.brown@principia.edu by May 31st.

Chair: Hélène Brown, Principia College

Irish Studies

Topic: Artistic Ireland

From The Book of Kells to the seaside ditty in Ulysses to the Abbey Theatre’s Countess Cathleen, Ireland boasts a history replete with visual and performing arts. The Irish Studies permanent section of the M/MLA is soliciting proposals for conference papers that use critical methodologies to analyze artworks that appear in Irish novels, poems, and cinema, as well as essays that examine Irish plays and music (traditional, classical, and choral) and their subsequent performances. We seek papers that analyze any genre or time period and presentations that include images, film clips and sound files will be prioritized.

Please send 500 word abstracts with subtitle “M/MLA Irish” in message header by May 31st to: sophiadawn.christman-lavin@stonybrook.edu.

Chair: Sophie Christman-Lavin, SUNY Stony Brook University

Italian

Topic: The Artistry of Articulation in Italian Studies

Objects of art and the use artifice appear throughout Italian literature and film. Paolo and Francesca’s demise over the pages of the Galeotto, Goldoni’s Teatro comico, the obsession of Fogazzaro’s femme fatale Marina di Malombra with foreign novels, and the film of the Passion within Pasolini’s film La ricotta are just a few examples of how artists articulate ideas about art and express forms of artifice within the diegetic universe. How does the artistry of writers, playwrights, and directors articulate philosophical, social, cultural, political, and critical ideas about the medium of art itself and beyond? Why and to what ends do literature, theater, and film assume and demonstrate auto-referential and self-critical lenses? Any topic from the conference sub-themes (listed on the convention’s home page) will also be considered. Contributions from all centuries and interdisciplinary approaches are welcome.

Please send abstracts of 200 – 300 words to Christina Petraglia, cpetragl@gettysburg.edu by May 31, 2013.

Chair: Christina Petraglia, Gettysburg College

Literary Criticism

Topic: The Genre Turn

This session will be devoted to assessing the state of the conversation about the genre turn in contemporary fiction epitomized by works like Colson Whitehead’s zombie novel Zone One, Michael Chabon’s alternate-history detective story The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, much of Kelly Link’s short fiction, Karen Russell’s collection Vampires in the Lemon Grove, and Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road. What
are we saying about the modes, possibilities, problems, origins, meanings, and politics of the literary turn to genres (as opposed to the postmodern incorporation of genre elements)?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Michael Horton, mah989@mail.missouri.edu

Chair: Michael Horton, University of Missouri

Luso-Brazilian Studies

Topic: Art & Artifice in Luso-Brazilian Literature and Culture

The Luso-Brazilian Section invites papers that engage with the concept of art and artifice in Luso-Brazilian literature and culture. We especially welcome comparative approaches (e.g. Luso-Hispanic, Lusophone African, Transatlantic, Transnational, etc.). Selected panelists may present in Portuguese, English, or Spanish.

Abstracts of 250 words should be submitted by e-mail to Zak Montgomery (zak.montgomery@wartburg.edu) or Sandra Luna (lunasand@uol.com.br) by May 31, 2013.

Chair: Zak K. Montgomery, Wartburg College

The Mezzuzah and the Mestizaje

Topic: Open

We invite proposals for papers on all topics related to Jewish Latin American cultural production. Open to all historical periods and theoretical approaches. Scholars from other disciplines welcome.

Please send one-page abstracts abstracts by May 31st to Joanna L. Mitchell, mitchell.mowrey@gmail.com

Chair: Joanna L. Mitchell, Ohio University

Modern Literature

Topic: Aesthetics and Ethics in Modern Literature

This panel calls for papers devoted to works and authors from the 20th and 21st centuries. Preference will be given to papers exploring the conference theme of art and artifice, especially as it pertains to the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. What is the relationship between art and artifice and the representation of deeply human or personal experiences? Is there an ethical mode of representing war, trauma, violence, sex, intimacy, or other extreme experiences? What are the narrative and ethical implications of these literary representations?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Sarah Eilefson, seilefson@luc.edu

Chair: Sarah Eilefson, Loyola University Chicago

Multicultural Literature in the Classroom: Politics and Pedagogy

Topic: Poetry & Identity in Ethnic American Literature

In her text, Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature, Sonia Saldívar-Hull states that “[r]eading Chicana feminism . . . makes certain demands on the audience. We ask the reader to learn our histories, to read our literature, and finally, to understand that we have established arenas of discussion” (56). Though Saldívar-Hull is specifically referring to writing by and about Chicanas, the idea that inexperienced readers may not have the adequate background to contextualize writing from subaltern, or merely unfamiliar, cultural positions is a relevant and necessary issue to address as more academic institutions begin to value multicultural and ethnic studies curriculum. To layer this issue further, it may be difficult enough when introducing prose, a genre most students feel they have competence with, but what about poetry? This panel is interested in addressing intellectual, epistemological, and pedagogical approaches to teaching multicultural and ethnic American poetry.

Papers on African, Asian, Central and South American, Mexican, and Native American poetry (as well as related genres such as flash fiction, fairy tale and folklore, or lyrical flash memoir), and all historical periods will be considered. The panel is especially interested in questions regarding voice and dialect, constructions of identity, form and function, the politics of politics, pedagogical tools to ease or confront unfamiliar literature and papers that explore the process, difficulties, and/or rewards of teaching ethnic American poetry in mono-cultural and/or multicultural classrooms, and why should it matter to students?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Sarah A. Chavez, schavez@huskers.unl.edu

Chair: Sarah A. Chavez, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Native American Literature

Topic: The Art and Artifice of Multiple Narrators in Native American Literature

A hallmark of contemporary Native American literature is the use of narrative
strategies involving multiple voices. From seminal works such as N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain with its tripartite structure and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony with its inclusion of passages from oral tradition, to revisionist accounts such as Joseph Bruchac’s Sacagawea and Diane Glancey’s Stone Heart interweaving historical documents such as journals from the Lewis & Clark expedition, and the complex, interlocking novels of Louise Erdrich, Native American authors continue to explore the art and artifice of multiple narrators in prose fiction. We welcome papers addressing the use of such multi-voiced narrative strategies in the works of contemporary Native Americans writers.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Christian Knoeller, knoeller@purdue.edu

Chair: Christian Knoeller, Purdue University

Old and Middle English Language and Literature

Old and Middle English Literature is full of examples of art and artifice; this session welcomes papers that examine either of these topics, or the intersection of the two. Of particular interest may be the roles of art or craft in this literature, as well as the history of craft, and writing as a craft. Other topics on Old and Middle English language or literature will also be considered.

Please submit 250 word abstracts by May 31st to Greta Smith, smithgl@miamioh.edu

Chair: Greta Smith, Miami University

Peace Literature and Pedagogy

Topic: Open

In his Vietnam memoir The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien writes: “I want you to know why story-truth is truer sometimes than happening-truth.” O’Brien is interested in how to “tell a true war story”; but does his model also apply to texts that portray the process of peacemaking and the struggle for justice? What, for example, is the relationship between “story-truth” and “happening-truth” in autobiographical writing that addresses peace and justice? Further, what are the ethics of deception as a tool of resistance to injustice? How legitimate are strategies such as presenting a united front when a movement may have deep divisions? Papers are invited on literature that addresses any of these topics or that examines legal fictions about race or justice or that constructs or analyzes peacemaking visions or language. The session is also open to papers on any other aspect of the literature and pedagogy of peace, justice, and conflict resolution.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to John Getz at getz@xavier.edu

Chair: John Getz, Xavier University (Cincinnati)

Popular Culture

“Remember: all I’m offering is the truth, nothing more.” – Morpheus, The Matrix

Appearances can be deceiving, as the adage goes, meant to warn us against those who would present a false image in order to take advantage, like the machines who control the Matrix in the Wachowskis’ 1999 film. But is fabrication always a question of deception vs. truth? Invention can also be beautiful and empowering, allowing us to see something we otherwise would not see, to conceive of possibilities hitherto inconceivable. And artfully constructed performance can enable us to express aspects of ourselves no less authentically than we do through less intentional presentation of our identities.

This session invites proposals for papers on the theme of illusion in any aspect of popular culture from any region or period. Papers might draw on representations that interrogate the fake/real binary, that challenge notions of illusion as bad and reality as good, or that showcase the potential of illusion to create something meaningful irrespective of its truth value.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Marla Arbach, marla.arbach@gmail.com

Chair: Marla Arbach, University of Santiago de Compostela

Science and Fiction

Topic: Literary Darwinism

What are the links between evolutionary psychology/biology and fiction? In what ways might evolutionary theory assist in the understanding and analysis of fiction? This panel will focus on fiction through biology and evolutionary theory.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Kevin Swafford, swafford@bradley.edu

Chair: Kevin Swafford, Bradley University

Shakespeare and Shakespearean Criticism

Topic: The Artist Shakespeare

Proposed papers on Shakespeare are welcome, with particular attention to those on Shakespeare’s artistry. Papers are not limited to these suggested topics: Shakespeare’s artistic habits of mind; literary and theatrical techniques and styles; rhetoric and sound; the history of taste and reception; aesthetics and aesthetic theory; scene and play construction; art and commerce; art and ideology.

Send brief bio and 250 word abstract by to Donald Hedrick, hedrick@ksu.edu by May 31st.

Chair: Donald Hedrick, Kansas State University

Short Story

Topic: Open

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Katy L. Leedy, katy.leedy@marquette.edu

Chair: Katy L. Leedy, Marquette University

Spanish Cultural Studies

Topic: Open

Proposals dealing with any aspect of Spanish Cultural Studies will be considered for the panel but proposals closer to the M/MMLA 2013 topic of Art & Artifice will be preferred. Works may be presented in Spanish or English.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Sohyun Lee, sohyun.lee@tcu.edu

Chair: Sohyun Lee, Texas Christian University

Spanish I: Peninsular Literature Before 1700

Topic: Open

Abstracts are invited for papers on any topic related to Spanish literature and culture before 1700.
Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31, 2013 to Brys Stafford, brys.stafford@utoronto.ca

Chair: Brys Stafford, University of Toronto

Spanish II: Peninsular Literature After 1700

Topic: Open

Abstracts are invited for papers on any topic related to Spanish literature after 1700.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31, 2013 to Pilar Martínez-Quiroga, pquiroga@illinois.edu

Chair: Pilar Martínez-Quiroga, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Spanish III: Latin American Literature

Topic: Open

Abstracts are invited for papers on any topic related to Latin American literature.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31, 2013 to Nancy Bird-Soto, birdsoto@uwm.edu

Chair: Nancy Bird-Soto, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Teaching Graphic Narratives

Topic: Art and Artifice in the Teaching of Graphic Narratives

How do instructors utilize the art and artifice of graphic narratives to teach visual literacy? How do you use graphic narratives to teach visual rhetoric? What other innovative uses have you found in your classrooms for the art and artifice of graphic narratives?

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Susanna Hoeness-Krupsaw, hoeness@usi.edu

Chair: Susanna Hoeness-Krupsaw, University of Southern Indiana

Teaching Writing in College

Topic: What is “college English” and what role does teaching writing play?

In recent issues of the journal College English, scholars have sought to answer the question “What is college English?” (See http://goo.gl/ywivf and http://goo.gl/CiWdN ) In this year’s section on Teaching Writing in College, we’d like to add to this question a focused consideration of writing instruction. That is, how does writing instruction help to define the field of “college English?” Possible topics include but are not limited to:

First-year composition

Advanced composition

The viability of a writing studies major

The labor of teaching writing

Teaching writing in literature courses

“Transfer” from composition courses to other courses

Composition inside and outside of English departments

Professionalization of non-tenured writing instructors

Graduate students and teaching writing

Basic writing and the English major

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Andre Buchenot at buchenot@iupui.edu

Chair: Andre Buchenot, Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

Travel Writing/Writing Travel

Topic: The Arts of Travel

One might consider traveling well to be an art in and of itself. While there is a lot of logistical planning, organizational skill, and practical preparation that must go into a trip, the art of traveling well--one might argue--is the ability to adapt, even to thrive, when the planning fails. This panel invites papers that consider traveling from perspectives that move beyond the merely practical. Does the art of traveling vary by location? By time period? By cultural perspective? What kinds of arts and artifacts are encountered by travelers, and what qualities are necessary to appreciate them? Is it possible to understand "foreign" arts as a traveler, or must one remain forever distanced from art objects that are produced by a culture that is not one's own? What might be the definition of an "artificial" traveler or an "artificial" destination or an "artificial" artwork? What are the implications of seeing a replica in a museum, for example, instead of the "real thing"? Why do so many people consider it an artificial or inauthentic experience to go on a packaged tour, but not so if they strike out on their own with a guidebook and itinerary? This panel welcomes papers on any time period and any travel destination, so long as they frame the process or product of travel through the lens of art and/or artifice.

Inquiries and proposals should be directed to Professor Andrea Kaston Tange <akastont@emich.edu>. Please send 500-word proposals by May 31, 2013.

Chair: Andrea Kaston Tange, Eastern Michigan University

Women in Literature

Topic: Gender as Art and Artifice in Women’s Literature

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir famously states that “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” suggesting that gender, unlike sex, is learned and an aspect of identity that is acquired over time based on socio-cultural influences. Judith Butler’s takes this idea even further in her landmark text Gender Trouble by asserting that gender is a culturally constructed performance complicated by factors such as class, sexuality, race, and economics. If gender is a socially constructed performance then it can and is employed in women’s literature as both art and artifice. Using these concepts of gender as a learned performance, this panel seeks papers that explore the issues of the art and artifice of gender within women’s literary texts. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: aesthetics, authenticity and irony, autobiography and memoir, challenges to gender, historical representations, issues of passing, language or linguistics, representations of gender and its roles within narrative and/or authorial influence, themes of performance, and theoretical influence.

Please submit 250-word abstracts and a brief bio to Catherine Ratliff at caratli@ilstu.edu by May 31, 2013.

Chair: Catherine A. Ratliff, Illinois State University

Writing Across the Curriculum

Topic: The Craft of Writing Across the Curriculum

When considering the topic of “The Craft of Writing Across the Curriculum,” the panel suggests participants consider the construction of the field of Writing Across the Curriculum and how the craft has changed, and continues to change, to meet the demands of evolving disciplines and the art of multidisciplinary writing.

Please send 250-word abstracts or less by May 31st to Cassandra K. Isenberg, cjacobs3@kent.edu

Chair: Cassandra K. Isenberg, Kent State University

Young Adult Literature

Topic: Art and Artifice in Young Adult Literature

We invite papers exploring a variety of interpretations of art and artifice at work in young adult literature.
Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Kevin Spicer, kspicer@stfrancis.edu

Chair: Kevin Spicer, University of St. Francis

Associated Organizations

American Dialect Society

Topic: Representations of Language Variation and Language Attitudes

We welcome papers dealing with varieties of English and other languages spoken in the United States and Canada. Presentations may be based in traditional dialectology or in other areas of language variation and change, including sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, anthropological linguistics, folk linguistics, language and gender/sexuality, language attitudes and ideologies, pragmatics and politeness, linguistics in the schools, or critical discourse analysis.

Please send 250-word abstracts by May 31st to Erica J. Benson, bensonej@uwec.edu

Chair: Erica J. Benson, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment

Topic: Postmodern Farmer-Citizen

Iowa poet laureate Mary Swander's play Farmscape: The Changing Rural Environment, co-written with graduate students at Iowa State University, addresses the tensions inherent in changing demographics and market place structures in the world of farming. Echoing the spirit of the Chautauqua adult education movement of the early 20th century which encouraged adult education programming to enliven rural communities and foster engaged citizenship and cultural discourse, an integral part of the play is discussion: audience members are encouraged to make their voice part of an exchange of ideas at the end of the play. Farmers' markets are embracing a similar philosophy: while the economic impetus is certainly at work, farmers also see their roles as agents of social education, holding workshops on 'Buying Local' and discussions about the demise of bees. University extension projects support this idea of the citizen/farmer, addressing not only grafting techniques but also the consequences of the kinds of citizenship supported by our nation's farming practices.

Discussions about farming, then, are dependent to some extent on discussions of community and community education. This panel seeks to create a dialog that explores the different concepts of community and education inherent in conversations about the Midwest farming world in a postmodern and potentially posthuman era. Papers might address the concept of biospheres and their integration with philosophies of citizenship as they appear in science fiction; the rhetoric of environmental perspectives on changing farm practices; the voices of migrant workers in contemporary fiction; the depiction of community in rural art; or the role of the farmer's market in building community and promoting education.

Please email breyan.strickler@loras.edu a 300 word abstract by May 31, 2013 for consideration.

Chair: Breyan Strickler, Loras College

The Henry James Society

Topic: Art and Artifice in Henry James

In keeping with the conference theme the Henry James Society invites proposals (abstracts) on art and artifice in Henry James's writing. Papers might focus on the role of art and/or artifice in James's fiction or perhaps on issues of James’s own art and/or artifice. Other approaches welcomed, too. Send proposals to Leland S. Person, lee.person@uc.edu by May 31st.

Chair: Leland S. Person, University of Cincinnati

The International Harold Pinter Society

Topic: Open

Essays on Harold Pinter, his influences, his style, his films, politics, and his role in contemporary drama are welcome.

Submit a 250-word abstract to Ann C. Hall at Halla@ohiodominican.edu by May 31, 2013 . Please include your name, address, email, and phone.

Chair: Ann C. Hall, Ohio Dominican University

International Raymond Carver Society

Topic: Art and Artifice in the Works of Raymond Carver

Carver is known for his deceptively realistic fiction that has been termed variously as autobiographical and hyperreal. He has been compared to painters such as Edward Hopper and Robert Adelman's iconic book CARVER COUNTRY has captured the essence of his writings in photgraphs. Carver's widow Tess Gallagher has noted that in her introductory essay to A New Path to the Waterfall that his “poetry involved a dismantling of artifice to a degree not even [William Carlos] Williams, whom he had admired early on, could have anticipated.” In this panel we invite topics on any form of art and artifice related to the works of Carver, and/or comparisons of his works with other art forms.

Please send 200-word abstracts by May 31st to 200-word abstracts to ircs@internationalraymondcarversociety.org

Chair: Sandra Kleppe, Hedmark University College, Norway

Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature

Topic: Art, Artifice, and Contradiction in Midwestern Literature

On a coffee mug distributed by the Columbus Museum of Art is printed “Real Art Has the Capacity To Make Us Nervous” (Susan Sontag). A Chicagoan, Sontag must have intuited what James Joyce also knew when he wrote “Clarence Mangan” in honor of a nineteenth century Irish poet: “Poetry, even when apparently most fantastic, is always a revolt against artifice, a revolt, in a sense, against, actuality.” What Midwestern writers explore the relations between art and artifice, the contradiction within creativity? Are they engaged with metafiction, with the postmodern? Are Midwestern writers split at the root? And how do they demonstrate this complexity, this double vision? Theodore Dreiser, Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Richard Wright, Patricia Hampl and Gwendolyn Brooks all come to mind.

If you are a current SSML member (or are willing to join) and would like to participate in our panel, please send your title, a short Vita, and a one page abstract to Marilyn J. Atlas atlas@ohio.edu by May 31, 2013.

Chair: Marilyn J. Atlas, Ohio University

Women in French I

Topic: Worth a Thousand Words: The Art and Artifice of the Photo-Text in Contemporary French and Francophone Women’s Writing

For a number of contemporary French and Francophone women writers including Sophie Calle, Hélène Cixous, Annie Ernaux, Nathalie Gassel, Camille Laurens and Marie NDiaye, to name a few, the art of photography brings to the text its own set of complications and alternate readings. Yet it can be said that the photo-text offers an alternative mode of self-expression in relation to a number of thematic concerns that pertain especially to female-authored narratives today. This panel engages with the above-mentioned writers and others for whom photography, perhaps necessarily, enhances textual commentary on memory, trauma and sexuality. By opening a space that is both separate from, and yet dependent on, the written word, in what ways, and to what ends, does the image either confirm or contradict the textual frame? Does this photographic appendage illuminate, thus adhere to, or mask, thus depart from, the written word? Do photographs outvalue their textual counterpart? How might we contextualize these contemporary examples of photo-texts bearing in mind the increasing fluidity of private and public identities? Finally, does the space of photography serve to capture visually what words fail to represent or, conversely, do these visual components contradict the written word and offer another type of storytelling?

Please send 250-word proposals in English or French to Adrienne Angelo (ama0002@auburn.edu) along with presenter’s academic affiliation and contact information May 31, 2013.

Membership of both Women in French and M/MLA required to present

Chair: Adrienne Angelo, Auburn University

Women in French II

Topic: “Ceci n’est pas mon autobiographie”

Decades of theorizing on the vexed issues of autobiography and referentiality have taught commentators of life writing to hold at arm’s length the basic assumption equating the writer and her autobiography. We have given up on “autobiographical pacts” where the author’s signature guarantees truth. Instead, we have learned to understand autobiography as the “myths we tell about our first lives” (Pamuk, 8). This session proposes an exploration of the strategies French and Francophone women autobiographers have used to suggest their life experience. Can we speak of performance of an identity? Do autobiographers rely on relationships to others in order to describe “themselves”? Do they substitute other narratives, images, readings, cultural phenomena, historical events, etc. to convey lived experience? Most importantly, what is the effect of such artifice? Proposals featuring autobiographical novels, memoirs, film, autofiction, gender benders, graphic novels, photo texts, and poetry are all welcome.

Please send 250-word proposals in English or French to Professor Eilene Hoft-March at eilene.hoft-march@lawrence.edu and Professor E. Nicole Meyer at meyern@uwgb.edu along with presenter’s academic affiliation and contact information by May 31, 2013.

Membership of both Women in French and M/MLA required to present

Chair: Eilene Hoft-March, Lawrence University and E. Nicole Meyer, University of Wisconsin—Green Bay

Special Sessions

Aesthetes and Perverts: Decadence and the Artifice of Gender

This panel will explore Decadence in all its forms—literary, artistic, philosophical, cultural—of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century, focusing particularly on the dynamic between art and artifice in the construction of gender. As examples of this international phenomenon of fin de siècle which crossed disciplinary boundaries and introduced taboo subjects, the provocative writings of Oscar Wilde and Joris-Karl Huysmans, as well as the eroticism of artist Félicien Rops, took advantage of aesthetic expression and experimentation while going “against the grain” of normative social behavior. We are interested in papers that discuss varied interpretations and legacies of Decadence in order to examine artifice as the means to redefine gender—from the cult of the Dandy, fashion, and cultural refinement to perversion, mysticism, and the occult.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Scott Sheridan, sheridan@iwu.edu

Chair: Scott Sheridan, Illinois Wesleyan University

Aesthetics, Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Novels and Stories of Langston Hughes

Critics have long established the importance of aesthetic structural elements, such as the blues aesthetic, within the poetics of Langston Hughes. While there is an ongoing conversation among critics with regard to the relationship between aesthetics and race, gender, and sexuality in Hughes's poetry, they appear to neglect to give the same amount of consideration to the aesthetic elements which can be seen to function in Hughes's novels and stories as well. This panel seeks to present papers that will create a space in which the aesthetic structural elements that inform Hughes's poetics might be shown to also inform and work with the aesthetics of his novelistic or fictional discourses to address and complicate issues of race, gender, and sexuality.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Aaron Hubbard, ahubbar2@binghamton.edu

Chair: Aaron Hubbard, Binghamton University

Ambiguous Rhetoric: Monstrous Leadership and the Representation of Political Figures in Hispanic Literature

Since the first literary accounts of Lope de Aguirre’s mythical attempt to achieve independence from Spain in 1561, the monster—a being whose displaced identity manifests itself as the embodiment of difference—became a synonym of cruel, treacherous, and irrational power. Conquistadors, caudillos, dictators, colonial powers, and more recently, political intervention, foreign capital, multinationals, and leftist revolutions are characterized as entities which, while promising profits and transformation, bleed dry the wealth of a feminized continent. Caught at an allegorical crossroad, leadership in Latin America carries the promise of awaited social and political change all the while being rejected, due to its association with greed and immorality. This panel also welcomes submissions that explore the monstrous representations of leadership and power in Spain and other regions of the Hispanic world.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Julio Quintero, jquinter@waynesburg.edu

Chair: Julio Quintero, Waynesburg University

American Cultural Studies

This panel considers papers on any aspect of American Cultural Studies, but particular attention will be paid to papers that discuss the theme of the conference, Art and Artifice. Papers may examine the topic in television shows, film, art works, literature, cultural objects and the negotiation of art and artifice among media and genres.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Elizabeth Klaver, etklave@siu.edu

Chair: Elizabeth Klaver, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

Archiving the Epidemic: Cultural, Literary, and Visual Responses to HIV/AIDS in Latin America

This session will explore cultural, literary, and visual responses to the AIDS epidemic across Spanish America that, taken together, create a representational archive of the epidemic for future generations. What are some of the ways that writers have chosen to codify HIV and AIDS in their literary texts, and how do they “write” the epidemic on their protagonists’ bodies? How is language used to make this epidemic visible to readers? This panel will also focus on visual representaitons of AIDS in Spanish America and how the metaphors and taboos about the disease are translated visually. Does this representation differ from that seen in fiction? Does the silence inherent in visual images help perpetuate or destroy the metaphors and stereotypes that predominate in written representation?

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Jodie Parys, parysj@uww.edu

Chair: Jodie Parys, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Art: Times of War, Pathways to Peace

This session invites presentations on the role of the arts, broadly conceived including literature, film, drama, music, visual art, public art, etc., in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. Both in theory and in the work of applied peacebuilding, the use of creative approaches is significant. The arts provide expression of the identities, values, shared experiences and vision of a group, and therefore can be a tool for moving from violence to peacebuilding, but also as a lens to interrogate the bases of war and peace in the human social system.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Andrea K. Hilkovitz, hilkovia@mtmary.edu

Chair: Andrea K. Hilkovitz, Mount Mary College

Arte, artificio y autenticidad en la orba de Maria Rosa Lojo

María Rosa Lojo is one of the most distinguished voices in Argentine today. Praised for her polyphony and multiplicity of registers, she has devoted her fiction, poetry, and essayistic work to delving into issues of gender, the construction of national identities, and links among history, fiction and self-fiction. Translated into several languages, she has been the subject of books, dissertations, and over one hundred academic papers in Argentina and abroad. Lojo has received numerous prizes and awards, the most noteworthy of which are the Fondo Nacional de las Artes Prize (1987), the Eduardo Mallea Prize (1996), the Esteban Echeverría National Prize (2004), the Silver Medal of Merit of the Legislature of the Province of Buenos Aires (2002), the Hispanidad Medal (2009), and the Bicentennial Medal of the City of Buenos Aires (2010).

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Rosa Tezanos-Pinto, rtezanos@iupui.edu

Chair: Rosa Tezanos-Pinto, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Artifacts of History: The Napoleonic Era in Germany and Italy

This panel invites papers that engage with the presentation, portrayal and performance of history in the literary, figurative and dramatic arts with special focus on Germany and Italy, and their emergence as nation-states between the 18th and 19th century. How is history represented in literature, theater and the arts? What message is it intended to convey? What relationship, if any, does it establish to myth? Comparative approaches (but not only) are especially welcome. Scholars from other disciplines are encouraged to apply. In view of the panel's interdisciplinary perspective, papers shall be presented in English.

Please send 250-word abstracts in English, with a brief introductory paragraph by June 14th to Maria Giulia Carone, carone@wisc.edu

Chair: Maria Giulia Carone, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Artifice and Controversy: The Poetry of Michael Robbins

This session brings together papers about the poetry of Michael Robbins, whose book "Alien vs. Predator" was a best-selling poetry book of 2012, and the source of a great deal of press coverage both positive and negative. The panel will describe the unusual nature of Robbins' work in terms of its formal aritifice—a combination of knowing, sly Byronic rhyming and allusions to the classics and pop culture in equal measure—an its controversy, including a paper by Robbins' editor at Poetry magazine regarding the outcry over his work. Robbins' frequent prominent publication and high profile in the press mark him as among the most likely poets of his generation to have a lasting reputation; while the stylistic features and controversial contents of his work pose special challenges for the reception of his work in the current academic context. It is hoped that this panel will bring us closer to a paradigm for the reception of this important body of work.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Robert Archambeau, archambeau@lakeforest.edu

Chair: Robert Archambeau, Lake Forest College

Bernard Shaw

Sponsored by the International Shaw Society, this session seeks papers on any aspect of Shaw's writings. While the session topic is open, this year's conference theme of "Art and Artifice" offers some prospective directions of inquiry, including Shaw and aesthetics, Shaw and masks/masquerade, Shaw and irony, Shavian notions of authenticity, Shaw and performance, and of course the myriad ways in which these topics resonate provocatively in his plays, reviews, and essays.

Please send 300-500 word abstracts via electronic attachment by June 14th to Christopher Wixson of The International Shaw Society, cmwixson@eiu.edu

Chair: Christopher Wixson, Eastern Illinois University

Bridging Art and Scholarship in Theory and Practice

How is theory/scholarship embodied? When and how is thinking a performative act? How can art theorize? This session is a space for scholars to theorize together about the artistic and performative dimensions of their scholarly practice, and discuss the possibilities and challenges presented by the institutional framework of the academy. Is there room for artistic play within scholarly research? How does performance-as-research reconfigure the terms and generic expectations of scholarly research and artistic practice? What theoretical and practical problems, issues, and possibilities does border-crossing between disciplines pose in terms of audience and reception? How is the interior-oriented space of cognition related to the exterior-oriented space of the performance event? How can we problematize the interior/exterior, thinking/doing, contemplative/active binary with an active theorization of the cognitive event, of thinking-as-doing and doing-as-thinking?

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to both Katie Schaag at kschaag@wisc.edu and Andrew Salyer at jsalyer@wisc.edu

Chair: Katie Schaag and Andrew Salyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Corpse in Contemporary Hispanic Crime Fiction

At the heart of all crime fiction there is an investigation into an act of intentional violence. The variance, evolution, splintering, and reimagining of the genre all lie in the method and outcome of the investigation and the dynamic between investigator, criminal, and victim. The understanding and portrayal of the relationship between criminal, victim, and investigator often reflects current social concerns, perceptions, and realities: we can trace the emergence of psychoanalysis, the changing face of post-Franco Spain, the rise of terrorism, and the tensions of globalization through the evolution of crime fiction. While the narratives themselves, as well as the scholars who study them, have tended to focus on the nature and identity of the criminal and the investigator, the victims and their bodies also reflect the changing social and political landscape. This panel proposes to explore the victim in contemporary Hispanic crime fiction, and may examine how the definition of “victim,” the identification of the body, the nature of the assault, and the treatment afforded the corpse by the authorities and/or by the narrative, reflect societies coping with rapidly changing demographics, economic crises, and political corruption and instability.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Renée Craig-Odders, rcraigod@uwsp.edu

Chairs: Renée Craig-Odders, University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point

Cosmetics as Art and Artifice

How far will a woman go to be beautiful? What defines beauty in her lifetime? We welcome manuscripts on the roles cosmetics and beauty preservation play as themes in narratives about women’s lives. Topics can include mirrors in literature and art, ingredients for mythical and real cosmetics, the relationship between beauty and evil, the relationship between youth and beauty, the role of beauty in fairy tales and myth, and the history of cosmetics. Studies of work by Velasquez, Umberto Eco, Betty Friedan, Susan Faludi, and Naomi Wolfe are especially welcome.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Ellen M. Tsagaris, etsag1998@aol.com

Chair: Ellen M. Tsagaris

Creative Writing Programs in the University

In The Program Era, Mark McGurl has argued the rise of creative writing programs in the university “stands as the the most important event in postwar American literary history” (ix): they have provided writers steady employment, training in their craft, and a buffer from the vagaries of the commercial marketplace. This panel explores the practices and influence of creative writing programs from an institutional perspective. Papers might address questions such as: Do creative writing workshops promote artfulness or artifice in their participants writing? How do creative writing programs discipline students into a body of knowledge or set of practices? Do literary works emerging from creative writing programs bear an imprint of their institutional creation? How have creative writing programs engaged the literary market?

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Robert Wells Addington, rwa7@case.edu

Chair: Robert Wells Addington, Case Western Reserve Univeristy

(Dis)Identification: Migration, Metropoles and the Maghreb

This panel examines movement between the Maghreb and metropoles as well as the ways in which theses migrations change our ways of thinking about identity in contemporary French and Francophone literature. We welcome papers that explore the multidirectional movement of migration between metropoles (whether they be Maghrebian, European or other). The notion of (dis)identification with these spaces (i.e., geographical, urban, home, nation-state, etc.) engages the tensions between alignment and resistance as subjects position themselves (or are positioned). This focus on positioning foregrounds the questions of (in)visibility, belonging and power that are present in these texts, thereby challenging dominant cultural narratives within a transnational frame.

Please send 250-word abstracts in English, with contact information by June 14th to Kristina Kosnick at kosnick@wisc.edu and Ryan Schroth at schroth@wisc.edu

Chairs: Kristina Kosnick and Ryan Schroth, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ekphrasis in American Poetry

American poets have always been fascinated with art, and sometimes artists have been inspired by poems as the germ for their works. In this session we invite papers examining the mutual influence between poetry and other art forms and we encourage panelists to adopt a broad interpretation of the term "ekphrasis."

Please send 200-word abstracts for 15-20 minute talks by June 14th to Sandra Lee Kleppe, sandra.kleppe@hihm.no

Chair: Sandra Lee Kleppe, Hedmark University College, Norway

Estados Unidos Representados: The Representation of the United States in Hispanic Fictions

From the very processes of independence of the American colonies in the 19th Century to the modernistas authors at the turn of the century or the Spanish exiles after the Civil War the United States have always been a point of reference or confrontation, a source of fascination or hatred, a friend or a foe for Hispanic nations and their artists. This panel explores contemporary representations of the United States in Hispanic film and literature. We are interested in papers that address artificial or fictional constructions of the United States in Hispanic novels, films, poetry, etc. to examine current relations between the US and other nations and to illuminate the complex political, economic and cultural practices embedded in any form of art.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Vicent Moreno, vmoreno@astate.edu

Chair: Vicent Moreno, Arkansas State University

Fact and Fiction in Renaissance Satire and Polemic

The use of art and artifice is a common practice in Renaissance satire and polemic, but how do fabrication and rhetorical choices enable or compromise the truth value of these documents? Do these texts ultimately illuminate or obscure political, religious, and cultural realities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? To what degree are writers of satire and polemic intentionally misleading and to what degree is the "deceptivness" of these texts a product of the conventions of genre?

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Melissa M. Caldwell, mcaldwell@eiu.edu

Chair: Melissa M. Caldwell, Eastern Illinois University

From Science to Sensation: Art and Artifice in Wilkie Collins

Wilkie Collins was a vastly popular writer of fiction in the Victorian period, but because of this, much of his work has been critically neglected in the current field of Victorian studies. Accused of such literary crimes as sensationalism and dilettantism, Collins is too often dismissed as a writer of lighter fare, passed over for studies of the period's more serious writers - like Dickens, for instance, with whom he worked closely as a journalist for Household Words and as a a dramatist. This session puts Collins and his work in the critical spotlight, looking from an interdisplinary perspective at how Collins's writing explored deeper social issues - marriage, sexuality, ethics and science, to name but a few - while catering to his audience's taste for art and artifice.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Erika Behrisch Elce, erika.behrisch.elce@rmc.ca

Chairs: Erika Behrisch Elce, Royal Military College of Canada and Elizabeth Anderman, University of Colorado Boulder

Immigration, Authenticity, and Artifice

How do representations and discourses of immigration draw upon or undermine conceptions of authenticity and artifice? From the cultural demands upon immigrants to perform both difference and belonging to the legal language of naturalization, documentation, and fraud, the “immigrant’s life is experienced in the zone where the authentic is put to a test,” as Ilan Stevens has noted. This session invites proposals that interrogate notions of authenticity and artifice through representations of borders, migrations, and immigrants. All temporal and geographical foci welcome.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Kristin E. Pitt, kepitt@uwm.edu

Chair: Kristin E. Pitt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Irony and Authenticity in Contemporary Artistic Production

Is there room for earnestness and authenticity in contemporary media? This panel explores the intersection of authenticity and irony in literature, film, music, and other media. While stable irony depends upon fixed meanings intended to elicit specific interpretations from an audience, contemporary theories of language, identity, and community emphasize the ultimate contingency and instability of meaning. Thus, the possibility for irony is thrown into question; is irony impossible, or is irony all-pervasive? Likewise, is any form of authenticity or earnestness possible in artistic production? What happens when an earnest art form is treated ironically? How can we interpret irony or authenticity as such? Papers that explore at least two different media will be particularly useful for this discussion, though single-media discussions are also welcome.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Janessa Toro, jltz85@mail.missouri.edu

Chair: Janessa Toro, University of Missouri

Las vicisitudes del artificio en el barroco ibérico e iberoamericano

The Baroque period in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds has been largely associated with a high degree of "artifice," but on the Peninsula and in the New World colonies both literary theory and literary practice struggled with problems of "artificiality" vs. "naturalness", with the dangers and glories of artifice, and with other related problems. For this session, we invite contributions dealing with Baroque texts that either theorize about these issues or provide illuminating examples of them.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to David J. Hildner, dhildner@wisc.edu

Chair: David J. Hildner, University of Wisconsin-Madison

(Mis)Representing Disability

This panel will address how disability has been represented and, especially, misrepresented in American culture (literature, popular culture, film, television, social media, etc.) Papers may consider the following: How do texts perpetuate stereotypes of people with physical and/or intellectual disabilities and what are the effects of those stereotypes? How can alternative texts counteract stereotypes and misinformation? To what degree is misinformation about disability accepted by the general public? Is disability being intentionally or unintentionally misrepresented? Panelists are invited to consider literary representations of disability as well as less traditional modes (television, documentary film, commercials, websites, telethons, Public Service Announcements, viral videos, blogs, other social media texts, etc.).

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to John Allen, allenjn@matc.edu

Chair: John Allen, Milwaukee Area Technical College

New Geographies for the French Atlantic Triangle

The French Atlantic Triangle, as elaborated by Christopher Miller, was originally organized around the African Slave Trade and its relationship to French ports and the plantations of the Americas. As the "Triangle," has been updated and applied in contemporary criticism, it has also come to identify a movement of ideas from New York and Paris to Africa. This panel looks for papers that challenge these geographies in one of two ways: first, papers should look to inland locations of cultural production as part of this exchange; second, papers will also challenge the traditionally centripetal model (centered on New York and Paris) of the Triangle. Contributions dealing with literature in relationship to music and the visual arts are encouraged

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Keith Poniewaz, kaponiew@gmail.com

Chair: Keith Poniewaz, Urisnus College

Nineteenth Century French Aesthetics and the Coming of Modernism

We are seeking papers that explore or analyze French cultural aesthetics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as they relate to various interpretations of modernism. Preference will be given to papers that focus on the relationship between literature and other forms of art. Essays may focus on authors such as Baudelaire, who was a highly regarded art critic or other authors such as Mallarm, whose poetry influenced composers like Claude Debussy. More important than analyzing any particular author, this session aims to focus on the evolution of the modernist aesthetic in France with attention to the role of various mediums, including but not limited to literature music, paint, and the plastic arts, as their combinations and recombinations formed our understanding and usage of the word modern. Papers may be in English or French.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Richard Eichman, richard.eichman@svcc.edu

Chair: Richard Eichman, Sauk Valley Community College

Ode to Joy: The Career of Camden Joy

This panel will be devoted to the work of the conference’s keynote speaker, Tom Adelman, who under the name Camden Joy attained notoriety in the mid-nineties for his New York City postering projects and street manifestos and went on to write rock criticism and fiction that blurred the lines between music criticism, memoir, and fiction. Proposals to discuss any and/or all aspects of Joy’s work welcome. Possible topics include considerations of his work in the context of genre, the history of rock criticism, literary history, social history, and the conference theme, Art & Artifice.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Samuel Cohen, cohenss@missouri.edu

Chair: Samuel Cohen, University of Missouri

Pastoral Artifice

Recent publication of The Arcadia Project, an anthology of "North American postmodern pastoral," highlights the interest of contemporary writers in pastoral artifice. In highly original compositions, these writers repurpose and self-consciously misuse pastoral conventions to evoke simulations of pastoral in the contemporary world. Paradoxically, these simulations are more real than the pastoral fantasies on which they are based. For example, the pastoral simulation called suburbia continues to expand in unsustainable ways, and to degrade our environment.

This special session asks contributors to consider how contemporary authors write and represent pastoral simulations. How do their techniques stem out of past writers and works? What is the relationship between pastoral artifice in literature and environmental activism? How can we conceptualize of pastoral artifice with reference to postmodernism, or even to the “post-pastoral,” as theorized by Terry Gifford?

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Peter Monacell, plmonacell@ccis.edu

Chair: Peter Monacell, Columbia College, Columbia MO

The Pedagogy of Poetry

When Emily Dickinson wrote, "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry," she most likely did not consider how that principle could be applied to teaching poetry in the undergraduate classroom. How can teachers of poetry cultivate close reading skills while still preserving a sense of wonder and ambiguity? This panel invites papers that discuss innovative teaching practices of poetry, both reading it and writing it, and papers that consider the benefits of a more sustained poetry curriculum for students in English Studies.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Andrea Gazzaniga, gazzanigaa1@nku.edu

Chair: Andrea Gazzaniga, Northern Kentucky University

The Postcolonial Subject in Transit: Migration, Borders and Hybidity

Recent postcolonial writings across different cultural locations address the concept of "belonging or not belonging" in metropolitan spaces. Writers capture the complex ways in which subjects rooted from their homelands must search for place and space in disputed borders and locations in the metropolis. Such travel across different geographical, social, national, cultural, class, racial, and language boundaries reveal how subjects must navigate disputed spaces as they struggle to reconstruct their subjectivities in fluid and multiple terms. This panel calls for papers from previously colonized non-western regions that address issues of loss and belonging, fragmented and fluid identities, transatlantic subjectivities, and border crisscrossing .These concepts are not limited to the construction of identity in literature, but also the crafting of multi-genres texts that capture the different levels of multiplicity that define diasporic writing.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Delphine Fongang, fongangd@uww.edu

Chair: Delphine Fongang, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Prison in Literature - Literature in Prison

Bruce Franklin has asserted that “just as we now assume that one cannot intelligently teach nineteenth century
literature without recognizing slavery as context, one cannot responsibly teach contemporary American literature
without recognizing the American prison system as context.” This round-table will explore the relationships between literature and incarceration. We seek papers that relate incarceration to the study, teaching, or production of literature. Possible topics include contemporary or historical prison texts as well as teaching literature or writing in prison. Although we are especially interested in papers that include and honor the voices of prisoners themselves, in the spirit of our convention theme “Art & Artifice,” we also welcome papers on fictional representations of prison.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to William Andrews, wandrews@ctschicago.edu

Chair: William Andrews, Chicago Theological Seminary

Queering "la Francophonie": Autofiction and the Body

This panel focuses on the relationship between autofictional literary productions and the body in contemporary Francophone queer writing. We welcome papers that examine problems of sexuality, intimacy, violence and agency while exploring queerness as a positioning in relation to (hetero)normative literary and cultural narratives. Works of autofiction often present ontological experience alongside otherwise (im)possible realities through innovative textual mechanisms. Within this space, the body emerges at the intersection of performativity and the reality of lived experience. In this way, queer textual bodies can change in interesting ways the very nature of “Francophonie” through their stretching and reworking of its boundaries.

Please send 250-word abstracts in English, with contact information by June 14th to Kristina Kosnick at kosnick@wisc.edu and Ryan Schroth at schroth@wisc.edu

Chairs: Kristina Kosnick and Ryan Schroth, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Reclaiming a Barbarous Artifice: Creative Research into the Work of Rhyme

When Milton refers to rhyme as “the Invention of a barbarous Age,” rejecting it as “being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem,” he expresses a sentiment with a long critical history. This panel seeks to explore rhyming not as a constricting artifice but as creative, generative method. This roundtable panel will bring together creative writers and literary scholars (so often we are both) to talk about rhyme as a methodology for creation, analysis, and research. Short presentations on the role of rhyme current research/writing projects will be followed by ample time for discussion with the goal of learning from each other’s creative methodologies.

Please send one-page abstracts (and inquiries) by June 14th to Meredith Neuman, meneuman@clarku.edu

Chair: Meredith Neuman, Clark University

Redescribing Iberian National Identities in a Time of Financial Crisis

In a period of 500 years, Portugal and Spain experienced the height and demise of their colonial empires, endured isolationist regimes, embraced social democracy, joined the European Union and became proud members of the Euro zone, only to find themselves again on the verge of bankruptcy. Particularly in the last forty years, paralleling changes in ideological trends and demographic patterns, different national identities were proposed, such as being primordially "European" vs. a more historically recurrent "Iberian." The Euro-Zone crisis therefore begs the question of identifying the current vocabularies created by these societies to redescribe national identity. This panel invites papers in English, Portuguese or Spanish that engage this theme by focusing on contemporary Iberian literature, film, music and visual arts, from different theoretical approaches.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Ricardo Vasconcelos, ricardov@uwm.edu

Chairs: Ricardo Vasconcelos, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and Lauren Applegate, Marquette University

20th Century Chicano/Chicana Literature

This session invites papers focusing on representations of the border, immigration, and identity in 20th century Chicano/Chicana Literature. How does the border function as reality and as artifice? How does art engage with the political and social issues that surround the border? We welcome a variety of theoretical approaches.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Rachael Barnett, rbarnett@uwsp.edu

Chair: Rachael Barnett, University of Wisconsin Stevens Point

Techne: Women's Art and Artifice in Early Modern Iberia and the New World

As wives, mothers, servants, and slaves, women were responsible for such essential domestic tasks as food preparation and family medicine in early modern Spain and the New World. Their labor required extensive knowledge and practical skill—techne—that discomfitted uninitiated men, including authors, doctors, and agents of the law. Inquisitors, for instance, tried a disproportionately large number of women for Judaizing precisely because they prepared suspicious family meals. In literature, figures like Celestina bespeak profound anxiety over skilled women’s potential to undermine the patriarchal lineage system by remaking virgins. We solicit papers on how women used both art and artifice to create their own cultural spheres of influence, alleviate oppression, or challenge men’s readings of them. We are particularly interested in papers that consider the contributions of racial and religious minorities.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to both Bradford Ellis, brad.ellis@snc.edu and Madera Allan, madera.allan@lawrence.edu.

Chair: Bradford Ellis, St. Norbert College

Welcome Distractions: Portable Technology in the Literature Classroom

Students, even the most earnest and well-intentioned, find it difficult to resist the siren song of their smart phones, tablets, and laptops during class. They will listen, they will discuss, they will analyze — but they will also text, update, and surf at the same time. Some have suggested that our 21st century students can manage, and even benefit from, this hyperactive multitasking; however, others fear that mobile distractions dilute the classroom experience and compromise the integrity of literature coursework. Is there a way to channel the power of mobile technology to enhance rather than complicate instruction? This panel invites papers that creatively re-imagine the presence of portable technology as a boon rather than a curse to Literature studies.

Please send 250-word abstracts by June 14th to Anne Roth-Reinhardt, anne.rothreinhardt@gmail.com

Chair: Anne Roth-Reinhardt, University of Minnesota

Auxiliary Conferences

Festival of Language

Topic: The Art of Hybridity

Hybridity negotiates boundaries between artistic and academic, between poetry and prose, between theory and practice, between sides that traditionally do not converge, working to renegotiate understandings of genre and expectation, of what is (not) considered artistic, working to move the act of writing forward. Hybrid works challenge audiences in ways that ask them to step outside their comfort zones and (re)consider limitations of traditional boundaries.

Proposals of 500 words or less should explain why the work you wish to present is hybrid and how it challenges genre/expectation (samples may be included). Works that are imaginative and/or presentations that move outside the ordinary will be given preference. Presentations can be mashups of critical and creative work, of various genres of art (painting plus writing, poetry plus narrative,song plus literature, etc.), or traditional “academic writing” and any form of art, etc. There is no limit on the ways in which presenters can blend/distort/reconfigure ideas of what a traditional paper or presentation might include.

Send proposals to festivaloflanguage@gmail.com with MMLA 2013 in the subject line by midnight on May 31, 2013.

Organizer: Jane L. Carman, Illinois State University

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