Conference Calls for Papers

Click here to view the call for papers for ACCUTE's 2010 conference.

Page last updated February 26, 2010

Posted: February 26, 2010
Deadline: March 31, 2010

York University Graduate Student Colloquium: The Bawdy

"When I'm good I'm very good, but when I'm bad I'm better." - Mae West

Derived from "bawd," a word of uncertain etymology associated with practices of female prostitution, "bawdy" describes something that is boisterously or humorously indecent. Considering that one of the earliest known works of literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, with its many descriptions of the randy exploits of a Sumerian prince, can be considered bawdy, one might suggest that bawdiness is an intrinsic quality of literary discourse. From Rabelais's laughing pregnant hags, to Rochester's copious odes to genitalia, and Joyce's "obscenities" in Ulysses, the bawdy has titillated centuries of readers. Shakespeare's statement, "it is a bawdy planet," further suggests that bawdiness is in fact a condition of earthly existence, rather than a specifically literary phenomenon. One might wonder, however, if our hypersexual society, with its tendency to overexpose the body, is limiting our ability to engage in a form of expression that seems to be at least partially enabled by sexual restrictions. Or has this contemporary tendency to "bare all" created a unique environment in which bawdy forms like the burlesque can be all the more attractive, because we yearn for the mystery, the comedy, the provocation, and the tease-because for once, we want NOT to see it all, or at least NOT to see it all at once?

These are just some of the lines of inquiry that will be explored at the 2010 York English Graduate Students' Association Colloquium, Undressing the Bawdy, on May 14th and 15th. We invite participants from across disciplinary borders to present on any aspect of what is undoubtedly an exciting and daring field of inquiry.  Be forewarned, however, that the "bawdy is a Pandora's box," as critic Joan Hutton Landis writes, "once opened, it is hard, if not impossible, to close the lid."

Possible topics could be inspired by, but should not be limited to, the
following thematic concerns:

Gender and the body: Body/Bawdy; The connection with the dirty and abject; Bawdy genres and mediums (the dirty joke, folksongs, limericks, erotic cartoons, graffiti, the burlesque, etc); Performing bawdiness: bawdy as commodity; The bawdy in the Eastern and Western canon; The intersections of bawdy and grotesque, camp, and kitsch; Changing standards of censorship; Bawdy and satire; Eating, drinking, screwing: the bawdy and other appetites; The interaction between the erotic, the pornographic, and the bawdy; Famous bawds (real and fictional)

Please send a 400-500 word abstract and a 200 word biography by March 31st to our group email at egsa-colloquium-committee-2010@googlegroups.com.

Posted: February 10, 2010
Deadline: May 1, 2010

Blake In Our Time: A Symposium Celebrating the Future of Blake Studies and the Legacy of G.E. Bentley Jr.

Saturday, August 28, 2010
Victoria University in the University of Toronto

Speakers Include:

Featuring short illustrated papers and panel presentations.

We encourage papers which explore new directions and approaches to the study of William Blake using manuscript archives, new online resources, forgeries and oddities, Blake's commercial engravings, and varitions in Blake's illuminated books, as well as studies of the major collections amassed by private scholar-collectors. (Deadline May 1, 2010.)

Information and proposals for panel presentations to:

Professor Karen Mulhallen
Ryerson University
kmulhall@ryerson.ca

Posted: February 10, 2010
Deadline: March 15, 2010

DOUBLE DIALOGUES CALL FOR PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS
on the theme of

The Hunger Artist: Food and the Arts

Interdisciplinary Conference: 19-21 August, 2010
Victoria College, University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada

An initiative of Deakin University and the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Hosted by the Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

Underpinning arts is the complex dialectic of consumption and consummation of ideas, concepts, and forms. Since Plato, the artistic process has been associated with excess, but also with reining in of appetites. Franz Kafka’s short story, “The Hunger Artist” perhaps best delineates the author’s hunger for what Antonin Artaud called “an absolute space,” a soulful space beyond one’s physical self, wherein the artist like the wolf in Arthur Rimbaud’s poem, “Hunger”, “devours himself.” The theme underpinning this year’s conference is the relationship between desire and arts, appetite and hunger, space and the act of artistic creation. Of specific interest is the fact of food as a subject matter included in novels, myths, art-works, plays, poems, opera, dance performance, film etc. To what extent is this inclusion working on other metaphorical levels as much as literal ones? Performances and scholarly papers exploring how food and consumption figure in the arts (poetry, fiction, graphic novel, theatre, dance, opera, music, film, visual, and digital arts etc.) and across disciplinary boundaries are particularly welcome.

Further themes might be:

This list consists of mere suggestions and we welcome all variations of the theme.

Pavlina Radia & Ann McCulloch

Abstracts are to be sent to BOTH of the following co-ordinators. Please include both email addresses when sending your submission by March 15th, 2010.

A/Prof. Ann McCulloch at ann.mcculloch@deakin.edu.au AND Dr. Pavlina Radia at pavlina.radia@utoronto.ca

For call for papers and other inquiries, please contact Dr. Pavlina Radia at pavlina.radia@utoronto.ca.

See www.doubledialogues.com to access Double Dialogues publications and conference abstracts.

Posted: February 10, 2010
Deadline: March 12, 2010

Literature and Psychoanalysis Graduate Symposium
“Playing Doctor: Performance, Trauma, and the Ethics of Psychoanalysis”

Presented by the Studies in Psychoanalysis and Literature Reading Group and GRIT: The Group for the Reading of Incredible Theory
May 21, 2010
Department of English
University of Toronto

Keynote Speaker: Professor Naomi Morgenstern, University of Toronto.
"The University in Crisis: Teaching, Transference and Tenure in David Mamet's Oleanna."

In their exploration of the intersections between literature and psychoanalysis entitled Testimony, Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub turn to the classroom experience, asking, “[i]n a post-traumatic century, a century that has survived unthinkable historical catastrophes, is there anything that we have learned or that we should learn about education, that we did not know before?” Indeed, both trauma and pedagogy confront their subjects – doctors, teachers, patients, victims – with the difficulties of communication: not just of putting history into words, but of making past events present enough to do them justice without ignoring the contingencies of memory and hindsight. Meanwhile, performance, in all its outward spectacle, seems at first to contradict the difficulties of traumatic and pedagogical processes; tragedy in particular ostensibly promises a cathartic experience, centering around those very aspects of recognition and expression that often elude the traumatized victim in the context of psychoanalysis. And yet participants in both educational and therapeutic settings often find themselves troubling the boundaries between fact and narrative, memory and story, authenticity and theatricality – distinctions whose surprising fineness can cast ethical questions harshly into the spotlight.

The Literature and Psychoanalysis Reading Group invites proposals for papers that explore the convergences and divergences of trauma theory, literature, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, and/or performance. We welcome submissions from a range of disciplines within the humanities and Social Sciences.

Please send abstracts of 300 words in .doc format to 2010splrg@gmail.com. Please include your full name, contact information, and institutional and departmental affiliation. Accepted papers should be no longer than 8-10 pages or 20 minutes. The deadline for submission is March 12.

Posted: February 2, 2010
Deadline: March 15, 2010

Reasserting the National?: Questioning Origin(al)s in Canada

An open conference at the University of Toronto 
Hosted by the Canadian Literature Reading Group and supported by the Department of English
May 14-15, 2010

Keynote speaker: Kit Dobson (Mount Royal University)
Plenary speaker: Robert McGill (University of Toronto)

Canadian literature is often thought of as a belated or lesser version of European literatures.  Yet, how does Canadian literature write back to European literary traditions? Does Canadian literature assert an "original" national identity, or, is Canadian identity merely a "copy" of American, English, or French identities?  How do non-European cultures write themselves into this dynamic?  Revisionist literature - literature that writes back to dominant narratives or hegemonic ideologies - is simultaneously a retelling (or a copy) and a new piece of work (or original).  What are the literary methodologies for representing "Canada," Canadian identity, identities in difference, and nationalism?  How do concerns about representing selves and others in Canadian literatures and in editions of Canadian literature highlight the struggle to capture "Canadian identity"?

This conference invites a wide variety of papers that engage with the process of revising and editing identities in Canadian literature. You may also want to consider editorial or pedagogical issues relating to the capturing of "Canadian literature" through an edition or course syllabus.  We welcome papers related to any genre, such as poetry, drama, fiction, or film.  Proposals may respond to one or more of the related topics:

Please submit abstracts of no longer than 300 words to canlitconference@gmail.com by March 15th 2010. Please also direct requests for information to the above address.

Posted: February 2, 2010
Deadline: October 1, 2010

Conference on "Aging, Old Age, Memory, and Aesthetics," University of Toronto, March 2011

Complete CFP available here:
http://sites.google.com/site/agingoldagememoryaesthetics/.

This conference is interested in theorizations and analyses of literature and the arts that consider how aging is portrayed and experienced in light of social, political, scientific and cultural contexts that support diverse speculations about old age, aging, memory and aesthetics.  In using the term aesthetics, we are drawing attention to the arts, aesthetic practices, theories of art, and modes of representation as they pertain to aging and memory. We look forward to presentations that analyze a variety of theoretical, thematic, and disciplinary approaches that remain linked by the consistent placement of old age and aging at the centre of concentrated investigation.

Please send your 300-word proposal to andrea.charise@utoronto.ca by Friday October 1, 2010.  This event is supported by the Graduate Department of English and the Institute for Life Course and Aging, Faculty of Medicine, at The University of Toronto.

Posted: February 2, 2010
Deadline: October 1, 2010

“Romanticism & Evolution”

www.uwo.ca/english/evolution

The Romanticism Research Group at The University of Western Ontario invites paper and special panel proposals for an international conference, “Romanticism & Evolution.” The meeting will convene at Windermere Manor next to Western’s main campus in London, Ontario, 12 - 14 May 2011.

Plenary talks by
Gillian Beer (Cambridge University)
Tilottama Rajan (University of Western Ontario)
Robert J. Richards (University of Chicago)

Special Seminars Conducted by Alan Bewell (University of Toronto), Denise Gigante (Stanford University), Noah Heringman (Unviersity of Missouri), Thomas Pfau (Duke University), Matthew Rowlinson (University of Western Ontario), and Joan Steigerwald (York University).

Though Romanticism is often imagined as the “age of revolution,” recent criticism has seen renewed interest in the general theme of “Romantic Evolution,” including the resurgence of such topics as organicism, vitalism, natural history, and natural philosophy. The objective of “Romanticism & Evolution” is to defamiliarize prevailing notions of evolution by tracing their origins to literary and scientific discourses of the transitional period 1775-1850, a time that witnessed the genesis of the modern idea of “literature” alongside the emergence of specialized disciplines, such as geology, biology, physiology, chemistry, psychology, and anthropology. Disenchanted with mechanistic science and Enlightenment rationalism, Romanticism also introduced a new organic image of the world, which displaced the older atomistic and static idea of nature with one that was dynamic and evolutionary. However, whether the organic mode of explanation replaced the mechanical philosophy as a radically incommensurable paradigm, or whether both coexisted in creative tension during and beyond the Romantic period, remains a matter for debate.

Revisiting important events and developments in the history of evolution prior to the publication of The Origin of Species, “Romanticism & Evolution” will focus critical attention on earlier, less recognized theories of change and transformation emerging in the cultural, literary, philosophical, and scientific debates of the Romantic period. Instead of searching through eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century science for “forerunners” to the Darwinian revolution, this conference aims to explore British and European Romanticism’s liminal position between the classical idea of an immutable “great chain of being” and the rise of modern discourses of historiography.

Suggested paper topics include (but are not limited to):

Proposals for papers and sessions should be limited to 500 words. The deadline for the submission of abstracts for 20-minute presentations is 1 October 2010. Please include with your paper or session proposal, your name, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation. Abstracts should be e-mailed to romanticism@uwo.ca. For further information and conference updates, please visit the conference website listed above.

Posted: February 2, 2010
Deadline: March 31, 2010

3rd annual New Narrative conference:
Narrative arts and visual media

An interdisciplinary conference at the University of Toronto
6 – 7 May 2010

In keeping with the spirit of sequels, we are again soliciting papers on a wide range of graphic novels, comic art, and related visual media. Comics, whether in the form of novelistic illustrations, newspaper serials, animated films, film adaptations, graphic novels, or sequential art narratives, have been with us since the rise of literature itself, yet until recently such media have never been considered “serious”—or at least, serious enough to be considered novels that might be on university syllabi. But are illustrated novels and live action films really about the pictures and not the narrative? How can the history of the form be reconciled with consumer culture and the ill-defined categories of “high” and “low” culture? Papers which examine and interpret these narratives in interdisciplinary forms are most welcome. Essays on novelistic illustrations, newspaper serials, animated films, film adaptations, graphic novels, or sequential art narratives may consider the following (incomplete) list:

Proposals should be 400-500 words and must clearly indicate significance, the line of argument, principal texts considered, and relation to existing scholarship (or originality). One email copy of the proposal, and a 50 word bio note must be included, as an attachment in MS Word.

Deadline for proposals is 31 March 2010 (responses by 08 April 2010)

Jeff Parker, Assistant Professor, and/or Dr Andrew Lesk
Department of English, University of Toronto
E-mail: andrew.lesk@utoronto.ca

A full colour version of this CFP: http://andrewlesk.com/nn3poster.jpg
Feel free to distribute widely, print off the poster, or put the image up on your site.

Prior year conferences are at http://andrewlesk.com/conferences.html

(The Toronto Comics Arts Festival takes place on May 8 and 9. See http://Torontocomics.com)

Posted: January 26, 2010
Deadline: March 15, 2010

System Crash: Risk, Crisis, Literature
2010 SFU English Graduate Student Critical & Creative Conference

Simon Fraser University: (Thursday June 10th –Saturday, June 12th)
Submission deadline:  March 15th (gradconf@sfu.ca)

•

We are surrounded by the language of crisis: financial meltdown (economic systems), environmental catastrophe (ecological systems), terrorist attack (nation-state systems). These crises permeate our discourses of global, regional, institutional, and personal experience. The university is no exception; it too faces crises of disintegrating disciplinary boundaries, collapsing departments, reduced funding, and radical shifts from textual to visual culture. Despite the material (and discursive) specificities of these recent crises, the language of crisis and concomitant sense of immediacy are nothing new; authors, theorists, cultural producers, and readers have always struggled with the crises of their times. Some attempt to contain crisis, while others attempt to incite it; all make reference the fragility of socio-economic, socio-political and ecological systems that are precarious by their very nature. The 2010 SFU English Graduate Student conference asks the question of how literature and culture engage with crisis now. Thematic streams and suggested panels include: Neo-liberalism and the University, Canadian Literature and Borders, Historical Representations of Crises, Subject Matters, Crises of Form. We welcome submissions on these or on related topics addressed in the questions/keywords below:

KEYWORDS: etymology and history of the crisis – economic history – medium/form/genre – language/linguistics – media and technology – mimesis – copyright – property (private and public) – capitalism – the culture industry – the body – food and food production – sustainable development – consumption – faith/belief – subjectivity – neoliberalism – the nation-state – citizenship – immigration – borders – disciplines/divisions/departments – education.

QUESTIONS: What is the history of crisis? How has crisis been represented? What were/are the mediums, forms, and genres used to represent crisis? How has technology altered form, content, and subjective experience? How has capitalism altered our understanding of the subject and its body? How is the body consumed and commodified? How are geo-political borders, crossings and exiles represented in literature, art or film?

•

The 2010 SFU English Graduate Student conference is pleased to present two events designed to inform, compliment and expand upon the formal panels of Friday and Saturday. The first encourages creative submissions that deal with the art(s) of crisis and the second is an activist plenary (Saturday, June 12th) that will explore possibilities of social activism in the university. Below is an outline and prompt for creative submissions:     

Creative Presentations, Discussions and Investigations: Friday, June 11th:
Reading, rousing, and responding to categorical crises, creative texts may incorporate any or all of the above critical classifications. Conversely, submissions to our creative cluster may seek to challenge or disrupt whatever is holding these theories in place—stirring textual crises that tremble from the level of the word and shake loose the binds of social order. Writers should consider: how do we write “going wrong”? And more importantly, why do we try?

The 2010 SFU Graduate conference is also pleased to announce this year’s Keynote speaker, Dr. Marc Bousquet, author of How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low Wage-Nation (2008). Dr Bousquet will be speaking during the first day of the conference, Thursday June 10th. 

Proposals for complete panels are encouraged.
Please submit a 300 - 400 word abstract by MARCH 15, 2010 to gradconf@sfu.ca.

Posted: January 23, 2010
Deadline: February 20, 2010

ATTENTION SCHOLARS, STUDENTS, WRITERS, AND ARTISTS

Inaugural Literatures of Modernity Symposium,
Ryerson University, March 29, 2010

"I am inclined to think that we want new forms, as well as thoughts. The old gods are dethroned," the British poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote in a letter in 1845, while less than a century later, American poet Ezra Pound's "Make it New" became the motto for Anglo-American Modernism. There are numerous historical entry points into studying literatures of modernity, just as theories of modernity are manifold. For example, does modernity constitute a breakage with the past that results from unprecedented migration patterns? Or does modernity constitute a revision of past cultural trends, or the rise of new forms of media and audience? This conference invites proposals on any aspect of modernity as expressed in literature and culture. In addition to academic proposals, the committee welcomes proposals for creative projects including creative writing, art installations, audio/video projects, or performance pieces.

Topics may include but are not limited to:

Submission Guidelines: Please include the following as a single Word document: an abstract of 500 words, MLA formatted Works Cited, and a brief author's biography. For creative submissions, include low-resolution images and/or electronic links. For all queries and submissions: modernity@english.ryerson.ca.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:

FEBRUARY 20, 2010.

Early submissions are encouraged.

This symposium is sponsored by the Ryerson English Department, the Literatures of Modernity Graduate Program, the Modern Literature and Culture Research Center, and the Faculty of Arts. The symposium is organized by the graduate students in LM8912: Modernity as a Public Event. For more information: http://lomsymposium.blog.ryerson.ca/

"Modernity is the transient, the floating, the contingent; it is one half art, the other being the eternal and the immovable" - Baudelaire

Posted: January 23, 2010
Deadline: February 15, 2010

2010 Marxist Literary Group, Institute on Culture and Society
Special Topic: "The Dialectic"

Deadline for Proposals: February 15, 2010.

The 2010 Marxist Literary Group's Institute on Culture and Society (MLG-ICS) will convene this summer in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, June 15-20, on the campus of St. Francis Xavier University. The (particularly timely) special topic of the 2010 ICS will be "The Dialectic."

The Institute will feature consecutive (as opposed to parallel/simultaneous) sessions, consisting of traditional panels, roundtables, film screenings, performances, and social events. Additionally, intensive daily reading and discussion groups will be held on "Adorno and the Materialist Dialectic" led by Rich Daniels, on Fredric Jameson's Valences of the Dialectic led by Nicholas Brown, and on other facets of dialectical thought (volunteers are invited to submit proposals for further reading groups).

Well-known for its intellectual rigor and collegial atmosphere since being founded by Fredric Jameson and a number of his graduate students in 1969/70, the ICS brings together emerging and established scholars each year for 5 full days of dialogue and collaboration. As is custom, the Institute's organizers attempt to keep critical production high and participants' costs low. In 2010, participants will, once again, be able to select from several on-campus housing options, which at StFX are cost-efficient, new and beautiful, and will contribute to the friendly and social environment the Institute thrives upon. Housing options include individual rooms, shared apartment-style residences, hotel-style residences, and more-each option will include generous common spaces and close proximity to the conference center. Detailed information regarding housing, travel, and further logistics will be sent out to all participants. For general information on St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia and the facilities the Institute will utilize, see: http://stfx.ca/ (StFX has just launched a new website, so please excuse potential glitches as our webmasters streamline content and infrastructure).

Confirmed speakers for the 2010 ICS include:

Ian Balfour (York University)
Karyn Ball (University of Alberta)
Timothy Bewes (Brown University)
Nicholas Brown (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Eric Cazdyn (University of Toronto)
Ainsworth Clarke (University of Illinois at Chicago)
Rebecca Comay (University of Toronto)
Rich Daniels (Oregon State University)
Len Findlay (University of Saskatchewan)
Barbara Foley (Rutgers University)
Jason Gladstone (Wake Forest University)
Peter Hitchcock (City University of New York)
Neil Larsen (University of California, Davis)
Leerom Medovoi (Portland State University)
Justin Paulson (Carleton University)
Modhumita Roy (Tufts University)
Imre Szeman (University of Alberta)
Daniel Worden (University of Colorado)

(this is only a preliminary list)

The organizing committee is now accepting proposals for individual presentations and panels (3 presentations plus respondent/4 presentations). We are particularly interested in work that engages with any facet of dialectical critique and dialectical thought (including antecedents and rigorous refutations thereof). However, as always, any work that engages seriously with the Marxist tradition will be considered. Selected papers of each Institute will be published in Mediations, the journal of the Marxist Literary Group (http://mediationsjournal.org/). As indicated above, we also accept proposals for reading groups, roundtables, film screenings, and cultural performances that deal with the Institute's special topic.

Proposals for individual papers should be 250 words in length, include A/V requests (if necessary), a short bio sketch, and contact information.  Panel proposals should include a brief rationale for the panel (100 words or less), bio sketch and contact information of the panel organizer, as well as presenters' names, bio sketches and contact information, paper titles, and abstracts of no more than 250 words each. Proposals for all other events should follow the same formula (descriptions should also not exceed a length of 250 words for each presenter/performer). Please send submissions as .doc, .docx, or .pdf files by Monday, February 15, 2010 to: 2010mlgics@gmail.com.

For questions about the ICS, logistics, travel and other concerns, contact: nilgesm@gmail.com.

Posted: January 18, 2010
Deadline: March 1, 2010

Writing Survival: Coping with and learning from violence in literature

RMMLA Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association October 14-16, 2010
Albuquerque, NM
Special Topic Session (Gender Studies and General Topics)
Submission deadline: March 1, 2010

Session Chair: Kim Fordham kfordham@augustana.ca

Description: This session will focus on what we can learn from violence in literary texts written by women since 1960.

I seek fellow scholars exploring the myriad of complex issues inherent in acts of violence as well as in the resolutions to violence offered by female authors. Although these authors may attend to some of the graphic details of violent acts, they more importantly challenge us to think more critically about the roots and effects of violence.

I am particularly interested in papers that address the following themes, though I welcome submissions on other related topics as well:

I look forward to your response. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you very much,
Kim

Kim Fordham, PhD
Associate Professor of German
Augustana Campus, University of Alberta
4901 46 Ave Camrose, Alberta T4V 2R3
tel 780 679 1162 fax 780 679 1590 kfordham@augustana.ca

Posted: January 18, 2010
Deadline: March 15, 2010

Canadian Women Writers Conference: Connecting Texts and Generations

An Interdisciplinary, International Conference
Canadian Literature Centre, University of Alberta
30 September - 3 October 2010

The Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC, pronounced “quirk”) will provide a digital platform for new collaborations in humanities research. Supporting team-based scholarship, digitization and editing, and embedding its material in political, commercial and cultural contexts, CWRC brings digital arts into dialogue with other artistic practices that are part of a contemporary landscape of imaginative and creative work and critical research. CWRC has been successful in securing, under the leadership of Dr. Susan Brown (University of Alberta / University of Guelph), substantial funding from both the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and provincial funding bodies.

CWRC’s centerpiece is a Canadian Women Writers project, a radically interdisciplinary, collaborative and bilingual research initiative that will be developed across three primary modules: 1) a virtual archive of textual, visual, and audiovisual materials relevant to research in women’s writing in Canada; 2) a searchable, expandable, user-producer textbase of historical, bio-critical data on women’s writing in Canada; 3) an interactive forum/salon for the circulation of discussion, new textual, audio and visual material, and readers’ and writers’ communities.
This gathering will be the first of up to three conferences planned around this flagship project of CWRC.

This venture with multilingual, multi-genre, and multi-media content is anchored in the premise that digital and electronic instruments are key to enabling and producing new meanings in embodied, experiential, participatory ways. In coordinated collaboration with related major projects partnered with CWRC (TransCanada Institute; Editing Modernism in Canada; canadiana.org, among others), this Canadian Women Writers initiative aims to bring into alignment established and emergent histories, to integrate divergent perspectives on history, and to engage users as producers in a variety of textual, visual, and audio formats.

The conference will bring together scholars, writers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, and software designers, along with invited keynote speakers, to catalyze discussion -- particularly on women’s writing in Canada, literary history, historiography, collaborative methods, and digital and feminist scholarship -- through papers, panels, readings, and online hook-ups and demonstrations.

Plenary Speakers:

We invite papers that illuminate the vast diversity of Canadian women’s writing, past and present, in all genres and formats (printed text, manuscripts, journalism, screenwriting, graphic novels, songs, music, performance art, artists’ books), of all cultures, regions, and linguistic groups. Papers should be relevant to CWRC’s emphasis on collaboration and digital scholarship. They may:

Forward abstract (500 words), along with a one-page CV, in English or in French, to: clccollo@ualberta.ca

Deadline for submission: 15 March 2010

Members of the conference committee:

Address all mail inquiries to:
Canadian Women Writers Conference/Colloque écritures des femmes du Canada
Canadian Literature Centre/ Centre de littérature canadienne
Humanities Building 4-115
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
T6G 2E5

Posted: January 18, 2010
Deadline: March 1, 2010

SCSC Proposal for Panels: Early Modern Women and their Mentors and Tutors

Montreal, Oct. 14-17, 2010

Organizers: Julie Campbell, Anne Larsen, and Diana Robin

We would like to propose a series of panels on Early Modern Women and their Mentors and Tutors:

While the subject of early modern women and their educations has been fruitfully addressed by many scholars during the past two decades, the emphases have especially been on issues of literacy and class. We would like to propose panels that explore educational relationships for women. In keeping with the transnational approach of our recent book project, /Early Modern Women and Transnational Communities of Letters/ (Ashgate 2009), we are also interested in work that illuminates the cross-national and cross-cultural elements of women?s education during this period when travel and publishing practices began to make Europe a very interconnected place.  Below are suggested areas for panelists to consider; we also welcome proposals on the subject that lie outside the scope of this list.

Please send abstracts of no more than 150 words by March 1, 2010, by
email attachment, to each of the following:

Julie D. Campbell
Professor of English
Eastern Illinois University
jdcampbell@eiu.edu


Anne R. Larsen
Professor of French
Hope College
alarsen@hope.edu

Posted: January 18, 2010
Deadline: March 1, 2010

"A Living Example": The Early Modern Bishop

Call For Papers: Sixteenth Century Studies Conference 2010
Montréal, PQ, Canada, 14-17 October 2010

Throughout the sixteenth century the episcopacy occupied a challenging place in the Catholic Church hierarchy. To reformers the bishops were a "living example" that was the key to establishing a vibrant and orthodox Church focused on the local community but led by clergy.

To the local community the bishop was the primary conduit for orthodox knowledge, salvation, justice, charity, and (moderate) ecclesiastical wealth and patronage. To clergy the episcopate was the first step into higher ecclesiastical governance and thus was a coveted benefice with real prestige and authority. To the papal court the bishop was a well-educated and connected figure that fulfilled numerous necessary bureaucratic, judicial, liturgical and diplomatic tasks.

While the ecclesiastical multitude depended on the bishop to "work" the
Church, the episcopacy was heavily criticized for its sustained absenteeism and involvement in activities outside the dioceses.

This Call for Papers embraces all aspects of the study of bishops, and hopes to attract presenters with a broad interest in this group and their relations, both personal and institutional, with the wider world in Europe and beyond. Presentations could focus on the following aspects of the office or individual bishops throughout the long sixteenth century:

Please send a title and 200 word abstract of the proposed presentation to *both* Jennifer Mara DeSilva (desilvaj@easternct.edu) and John Christopoulos (john.christopoulos@utoronto.ca). Please detail any AV
requirements for your proposed presentation.

The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 1 March 2010.

Posted: November 30, 2009
Deadline: March 15, 2010

EMiC] Editing Modernism in Canada
Conference on Editorial Problems

University of Toronto
23-24 October 2010

The past two decades have witnessed a resurgence in transnational modernist studies and the emergence of a new generation of scholars working on Canadian modernist literature and drama. This period has seen the publication of critical monographs, biographies, essay collections, anthologies, and critical editions, the organization of several international conferences, and the launch of major collaborative research projects. The Editing Modernism in Canada (EMiC) project plays a leading role in this emergent generation of modernist studies. For its first major public event, EMiC is hosting the Conference on Editorial Problems at the University of Toronto, 23-24 October 2010. Sean Latham, Past President of the Modernist Studies Association, will deliver the keynote address.

We invite proposals not only from EMiC-affiliated researchers (co-applicants, collaborators, postdocs, and graduate fellows) but also from unaffiliated scholars whose work in the fields of modernist literature and theatre, scholarly editing, book history, and the digital humanities intersects with our project. Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following: case studies of digital or print editions in progress; rationales for prospective or hypothetical editions in print or digital media; exhibitions of collaborative digital editing tools and publication engines; reports on experiential-learning pedagogies used to train students and new scholars in editorial theory and practice; strategies for the development of relationships among universities, publishers, the media, public libraries and non-profit cultural organizations (book clubs, reading groups, reading series, literary festivals) to promote Canada's modernists; re-assessments of canons and curricula posed by the introduction and/or reinterpretation of Canadian modernist texts in new critical editions; analyses of series of editions (New Canadian Library, Laurentian Library, Collected Works of A.M. Klein, Collected Works of E.J. Pratt, etc.) and how these series have shaped editorial and critical practice; findings based on research into the archives of modernist authors, their editors and anthologists, and their publishers.

We welcome proposals for 20-minute papers for panels or 5-minute position papers for roundtables. Panel sessions will feature the standard sequence of 3 or 4 speakers delivering 15-20 minute talks followed by a question period and discussion. Roundtables will consist of 5 or 6 speakers gathered around issues or topics of common concern in order to generate discussion among the participants and with the audience. Roundtable participants will be asked to deliver short (5 minute) position statements in response to questions distributed in advance by the session organizer, and they will take turns responding to the moderator's and audience's questions and comments.

Selected papers by conference participants will be collected in a planned volume of conference proceedings, which will be published as part of the University of Toronto Press's Conference on Editorial Problems series and co-edited by the conference convenors. In addition to this collection, we will publish a special issue of Essays on Canadian Writing with contributions from a select group of the conference's panel and roundtable participants.

A limited number of subventions for EMiC participants (co-applicants, collaborators, postdocs, and graduate fellows) and affiliated students will be available to defray travel and accommodation expenses. For eligibility guidelines see the Travel Subventions page of the project website.

Please submit 500-word proposal, 100-word abstract, and 50-word biographical statement via email to the conference organizers, Dean Irvine (dean.irvine@dal.ca) and Colin Hill (colin.hill@utoronto.ca), by 15 March 2010.

For more information about the EMiC project, please visit our website at http://editingmodernism.ca or contact us at emic@dal.ca.

EMiC is funded by a Strategic Knowledge Cluster grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.