CFP: MMLA "From Science to Sensation: Art and Artifice in Wilkie Collins" (6/14/2013; 11/7-10/2013

A special session on the relation between science and sensation in the work of Wilkie Collins at the Midwest Modern Language Association 2013 conference that focuses on the theme or Art and Artifice.

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.

We are particularly interested in papers that explore Collins' writing that receives less critical attention.  

Deadline for abstracts June 14, 2013

Please submit a 300 word proposal and a brief bio to 

Professors Elizabeth Anderman and Erika Behrisch Elce:

Erika.Behrisch.Elce@rmc.ca

Elizabeth.Anderman@Colorado.edu

CFP: MMLA "The Arts of Travel" (05/31/2013; 11/7-10/2013)

Professor Andrea Kaston Tange is chairing the permanent session on travel writing at the MMLA conference (this year to be held in Milwaukee, Nov 7-10; conference theme Art & Artifice). She would love to encourage the submission of 19th c. papers to the panel: "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. (Please indicate your name, institutional affiliation, and rank somewhere on the proposal or in your email.)

CFP: M/MLA Special Session “Bernard Shaw and Debt” (6/1/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

Final call for papers for the special session on "Bernard Shaw and Debt" to be held at the 54th Annual M/MLA Convention will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio from November 8-11, 2012 at the Hilton Cincinnati Netherland Plaza.

Sponsored by the International Shaw Society, this session seeks papers focused on borrowers and lenders in Bernard Shaw's plays, debts Shaw and/or his plays owe to other thinkers, writers, and political figures, or Shavian debts accrued by contemporary plays, playwrights, or theorists.

Please submit 300-400-word abstracts by June 1 to session chair Dr. Christopher Wixson, Eastern Illinois University, cmwixson@eiu.edu.

The call is posted at http://www.luc.edu/mmla/callforpapers.html#ss. For all the details on the conference, scroll to the top of the address above or go directly to http://www.luc.edu/mmla/callforpapers.html.

CFP: 2012 M/MLA: Permanent Section: English Literature 1800-1900 (6/1/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

The English Literature 1800-1900 panel seeks papers for the 2012 Midwest Modern Language Association Convention, November 8-11, 2012. Cincinnati, Ohio.

In keeping with the informal theme of “debt” for the M/MLA 2012 convention, the English II: English Literature 1800-1900 panel seeks to present discussions of works and writers that deal in some fashion with that nineteenth-century juggernaut, debt.

Possible themes include indebtedness and influence, borrowers and lenders, bonds and contracts, economics of lack, states of debt, oaths and promises, gift-giving, cultures of expenditure, occupy literature, trans-cultural capital, deferring, symbolic economics, ecological materialism, rethinking civic missions/practices, forgiveness, gratitude, literature of demand, emotional obligation, debts of affect, and student loans.

Papers on any form or genre of British literature between 1800 and 1900 are welcome. Proposals of 200 to 400 words should be sent by June 1st to Nancee Reeves, Purdue University, nreeves@purdue.edu. Selected presenters will be informed by June 15th, 2012 and must register for the conference by July 1, 2012.

CFP: M/MLA Travel Panel "The Debts of Travel" (4/15/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

M/MLA, November 8-11, Cincinnati, OH

Travel Writing/Writing Travel
Topic: The Debts of Travel

Travel is liable to produce financial debt, as travelers incur expenses far beyond those of their ordinary lives. But what of the less literal indebtedness that is inherent in the process of traveling? This panel seeks to explore the ways that travel leaves traveling subjects variously indebted. For example, they may be emotionally indebted to traveling companions or to individuals they encounter who help them along their way. They may return home ideologically changed, forever indebted to new cultural experiences and the sense of difference that is endemic of travel. Travelers may leave something of themselves behind and experience travel debts as a kind of loss; or they may experience the process of becoming indebted as freeing themselves from previous restrictions. Proposals may consider any aspects of how travel is predicated upon or results in various forms of indebtedness, whether in travelers or in the people/cultures they encounter. Proposals for perspectives on travel from any historical/literary period welcome, and those from Victorian studies are encouraged. If you, or a particularly promising graduate student of yours, are working on relevant Victorian material, please apply! Inquiries are welcome.

Please send 300-word abstracts by April 15 to Andrea Kaston Tange, Eastern Michigan University, akastont@emich.edu.

For more information on the conference itself, please see: http://www.luc.edu/mmla/annualconvention.html 

Last Call: Bernard Shaw and Debt Sealings (3/1/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

Bernard Shaw and Debt Sealings:
A Proposed Session on Bernard Shaw at the 2012 Midwest Modern Language Association Convention
November 8-11, 2012. Cincinnati, Ohio.

The proposed session seeks papers on Shaw's writings that dovetail with the conference theme of "Debt." Possible topics could include:

• representations of borrowers and lenders, borrowing and lending, in Shaw's plays
• debts Shaw and/or his plays owe to other thinkers, writers, and/or political figures
• Shavian debts accrued by contemporary plays, playwrights, and/or theorists

Please send 300-500 word abstracts via electronic attachment to Christopher Wixson at cmwixson@eiu.edu by March 1st, 2012.

Selected presenters will be informed by May 1st, 2012 and must register for the conference by July 1, 2012.

More information on the MMLA and the 2012 conference can be found at: ww.luc.edu/mmla

CFP: MLA 2013 Special Session "Neo-Victorianism and Marginal Voices" (3/15/2012; 1/3-6/2013)

This proposed special session panel seeks papers that explore the parameters of neo-Victorian literature from a variety of historical, formal, or theoretical approaches.  Questions addressed might include (but are certainly not limited to) the following:

• What is neo-Victorian literature?  What are the genre’s boundaries?   What are its defining characteristics?  Are there exemplary texts?
• What is “new” about neo-Victorian literature?  Form?  Subject positioning?  Narrative technique?  The alignment of readers’ sympathies?  Something else?
• How has it developed as a genre?  From where does it come, and where might we expect it to go?
• How does neo-Victorian literature provide a site for marginal voices to address issues of identity, subjectivity, politics, race, class, etc.?  How does it work in establishing alternative histories?
• What do these texts aim to do?  Do they (or must they) have political agendas?  In what way do they question ideologies or ideas of history or given knowledge in other epistemological categories like science or sexuality?  Do they always represent an alternative to the dominant cultural narrative?
• What relationships does this literature depict between the metropolitan center and the colonial margins?  Must it be set in one or the other?  As a genre, does it represent a particular subject position?  Must it address the colonial experience?
• Is neo-Victorian literature best understood as a subset of postcolonial literature, or is it a distinct genre?
• What time period forms the boundaries of neo-Victorian literature?  When can it be written, and when must it be set?
• Where should neo-Victorian literature be taught?  In courses on Victorian literature or the Victorian novel?  Postcolonial courses?  Twentieth-century Anglophone courses?  Elsewhere?  And what might be the point of teaching these texts?
• What do neo-Victorian texts tell us about the Victorians?  What do they tell us about ourselves in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?

Papers that contextualize neo-Victorian texts, the issues they raise, or their creators or consumers are welcome.

Please send 250-word abstracts to Cameron Bushnell (cbushne@clemson.edu) and Elizabeth McClure (emcclure@umd.edu) no later than March 15, 2012.

Reminder: 2012 M/MLA: Permanent Section: English Literature 1800-1900 (5/7/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

The English Literature 1800-1900 panel seeks papers for the 2012 Midwest Modern Language Association Convention. November 8-11, 2012. Cincinnati, Ohio.

In keeping with the informal theme of “debt” for the M/MLA 2012 convention, the English II: English Literature 1800-1900 panel seeks to present discussions of works and writers that deal in some fashion with that nineteenth-century juggernaut, debt. Possible themes include:

• indebtedness and influence 
• borrowers and lenders 
• bonds and contracts 
• economics of lack 
• states of debt
• oaths and promises
• gift-giving, cultures of expenditure 
• occupy literature 
• trans-cultural capital 
• deferring, 
• symbolic economics 
• ecological materialism 
• rethinking civic missions/practices 
• forgiveness, gratitude 
• literature of demand 
• emotional obligation 
• debts of affect
• student loans 

Papers on any form or genre of British literature between 1800 and 1900 are welcome. Proposals of 200 to 400 words should be sent by May 7th to Nancee Reeves, Purdue University, nreeves@purdue.edu. Selected presenters will be informed by June 1st, 2012 and must register for the conference by July 1, 2012.

CFP: 2012 M/MLA: Permanent Section: English Literature 1800-1900 (5/7/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

The English Literature 1800-1900 panel seeks papers for the 2012 Midwest Modern Language Association Convention to be held on November 8-11, 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In keeping with the informal theme of “debt” for the M/MLA 2012 convention, the English II: English Literature 1800-1900 panel seeks to present discussions of works and writers that deal in some fashion with that nineteenth-century juggernaut, debt. Possible themes include  indebtedness and influence, borrowers and lenders, bonds and contracts, economics of lack, states of debt, oaths and promises, gift-giving, cultures of expenditure, occupy literature, trans-cultural capital, deferring, symbolic economics, ecological materialism, rethinking civic missions/practices, forgiveness, gratitude, literature of demand, emotional obligation, debts of affect, and student loans. Papers on any form or genre of British literature between 1800 and 1900 are welcome. Proposals of 200 to 400 words should be sent by May 7th to Nancee Reeves, Purdue University, nreeves@purdue.edu. Selected presenters will be informed by June 1st, 2012 and must register for the conference by July 1, 2012.

M/MLA 2012: proposed session on Bernard Shaw (3/1/2012; 11/8-11/2012)

"Bernard Shaw and Debt Sealings"
proposed session of the 2012 Midwest Modern Language Association Convention

November 8-11, 2012

Cincinnati, Ohio

The proposed session seeks papers on Shaw's writings that dovetail with the conference theme of "Debt." Possible topics could include:

• representations of borrowers and lenders, borrowing and lending, in Shaw's plays
• debts Shaw and/or his plays owe to other thinkers, writers, and/or political figures
• Shavian debts accrued by contemporary plays, playwrights, and/or theorists

Please send 300-500 word abstracts via electronic attachment to Christopher Wixson at cmwixson@eiu.edu by March 1st, 2012.

Selected presenters will be informed by May 1st, 2012 and must register for the conference by July 1, 2012. More information on the proposed session can be found at http://www.shawsociety.org/Shaw-at-MMLA-2012.htm. More information on the MMLA and the 2012 conference can be found at www.luc.edu/mmla.

CFP: M/MLA Special Session "The Rules of the Game: Cultural Play in Nineteenth-Century Children's Literature" (6/3/2011; 11/3-6/2011)

The Rules of the Game: Cultural Play in Nineteenth-Century Children's Literature
M/MLA, November 3-6, 2011

A special session on the relation between play and children's literature in the Nineteenth Century at the Midwest Modern Language Association 2011 conference that focuses on the theme: "Play...No Seriously"

This panel focuses on the intersections of children's play - fantasy, gamesmanship, adventure - and the development of an "adult" identity in children's literature from the long nineteenth century. The panel will explore the cultural implications of play inherent in the texts discussed, and engage with the second half of the conference’s theme: how “No, seriously,” for nineteenth-century children’s literature, is perhaps the most important part of play.

We are particularly interested in papers that explore how the didacticism of nineteenth-century literature, in an age in which children were considered "little adults,"  harnessed the energy and imagination of childhood and transformed it into a training exercise for adulthood. Papers that examine how play in children's literature shaped national identity are particularly welcome.

Deadline for abstracts June 3, 2011

Please submit a 250-word proposal and a brief bio to Professors Elizabeth Anderman (Elizabeth.Anderman@Colorado.edu) and Erika Behrisch Elce (Erika.Behrisch.Elce@rmc.ca).

CFP: M/MLA 2011 Conference Panel "The Serious Pleasures of Travel" (6/3/2011; 11/3-6/2011)

Panel Topic: The Serious Pleasures of Travel
M/MLA 2011 Conference: "Play...No, Seriously"
St. Louis, Nov 3-6


In the nineteenth century, travel became a serious business: with the explosion of travel guide books (Murray’s and Baedeker’s, most notably), Cook’s excursion tours, organized itineraries through the P&O and other ocean liner companies, and other commercial efforts, the world began to open up for tourism is ways previously unknown. Where travel had in earlier centuries often been focused on the pleasure of “finishing” one’s education through a Grand Tour, it now became accessible to many more people – at once a more playfully democratic pleasure and an enormously serious money-making venture for everyone from travel companies to local vendors at what we now think of a tourist traps. At the same time, however, pleasure-based travel—particularly in the sense of holiday-making—exploded onto the scene, allowing even working-class people the opportunity to seek out moments of playful respite from their daily lives.

This panel seeks to explore the intersections and/or contradictions between the seriousness of travel and its more playful aspects. Expensive and often predicated on colonial mindsets, presumed hierarchies, and privilege, traveling to foreign countries is also often about the playfulness of a short-term escape from one’s everyday life.

To what extent are the serious and playful perspectives at odds with one another? How does one both take other cultures seriously, respectfully, and still achieve a playful holiday? Have the parameters of what travelers take seriously changed over time? Apart from the obvious differences in technology, how was travel in the nineteenth century different from travel today—and what do those differences tell us about how seriously people take their own efforts at pleasure? To what degree to different sorts of travelers engage critically with the playful aspects of travel, or insist on the play within its more serious encounters?

This panel welcomes papers that explore how travelers balance the things they take seriously with their efforts at respite. Topics ranging from the business of travel to travelers' motives to analysis of narratives of individual experience are welcome, as are papers that consider travel at various points throughout history. I would very much like to have papers that represent work on travel from different periods, at least one from the 19th century. Please feel free to contact me off-list if you have any questions about the CFP or the conference itself.

Please send title and 250 word abstracts to Andrea Kaston Tange (akastont@emich.edu) by June 3, 2011.


M/MLA 2011 Conference: http://www.luc.edu/mmla/annualconvention.html

CFP: M/MLA Permanent Session "English II: English Literature 1880-1900" (4/30/2011; 11/3 - 6/2011)

This year’s Midwest Modern Language Association Conference will be held November 3-6, 2011 in St. Louis, Missouri. Stacey Kikendall is soliciting papers for one of the permanent sessions, English II: English Literature 1800-1900, and is hoping to form several different panels.  This year's conference is looking for papers that investigate the conference theme "Play" in problematic or evocative ways.  You might consider play in terms of performance, identity or representation, seriousness vs. dallying, wagering, strategy, being a player in a game, movement or action, or diversions/recreation. You might also consider idioms such as "fair play" or "foul play."

Please send 300-word abstracts and a brief CV to Stacey Kikendall at kikendal@unm.edu by April 30, 2011.
M/MLA: http://luc.edu/mmla/

CFP: Fabricating the Playful Body (4/30/2011; 11/3-6/2011)

The Midwest Modern Language Association
2011 Conference "Play . . . No, Seriously"
St. Louis, MO  November 3-6, 2011


Topic: Fabricating the Playful Body
The Fabricating the Body permanent section of the M/MLA is soliciting proposals for conference papers that analyze the playful body in literature and culture. In what ways does play fabricate the body (or not)? How does play theory and acts of play inform our understanding the body? We seek papers that analyze any genre or time period of literature.


The Chair invites entries from the Victorian period; however, this session is not specific to any time period


Please email a 500 word abstract by April, 30 2011 and CV to: Chair, Tracy J. R. Collins, Central Michigan University, colli1tj@cmich.edu 


M/MLA: http://luc.edu/mmla/index.html