CFP:Weaving Worlds: Interconnecting Literature, Culture and Community (11/15/08, 12/15/08; 2/18-20/09)

Weaving Worlds: Interconnecting Literature, Culture and Community 19th Annual Louisiana State University English Graduate Student Association Mardi Gras Conference
February 18-20, 2009
Panel Proposal Deadline: 15 November 2008
Paper Proposal Deadline: 15 December 2008

Call for panels and papers:
We are seeking proposals for panels and papers that address connections as well as gaps between literature, culture and community. During this conference we will explore the many ways in which fragmentations and interconnections occur at the centers, boundaries and outsides of texts, identities, and groups.
Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:
- The role of literature in representing and in sustaining communities (particularly oral literature and folklore)
- Literary communities throughout the ages and their places in the larger society and literary history
- After fragmentations, omissions and interruptions in texts, we are interested in the shattered pieces that we are left with, or in some cases, the pieces we are left without. Is there a way to recover from this state of fragmentation?
- How do authors deal with fragments in identities, histories, and communities in literature, especially in postcolonial literature?
- In what ways does literature interconnect fragmentations, and in what ways does literature make obvious fragmentations?
- How to patterns of inheritance affect the states of literature, culture or communities?

This year’s conference will, once again, feature the Jim Springer Borck Essay Prize. The EGSA will
award $50.00 to the author of the winning essay and make a donation of $100.00 in the author’s name to the American Diabetes Association. Details concerning the award and eligibility will be available at the conference website.

The 19th Annual EGSA Mardi Gras Conference will take place in Baton Rouge, LA, right in the swing of Mardi Gras season. Those interested are invited to submit an abstract of 250 words (no later than December 15th, 2008), to the following email address:

Mardigrasconference_at_gmail.com
Attn: Zayne Turner & Fulya Holtze,
EGSA Mardi Gras Conference Co-Chairs
(website update forthcoming) http://www.lsu.edu/student_organizations/egsamardigras/

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Reinstate Professor Pat Parker

I received this today on a mailing list I belong to; it is definitely worth checking out:

I don’t know how many of you know about the massive campaign that is underway to reinstate Pat Parker as the Arden editor of the Arden 3 Midsummer Night’s Dream.  In brief, for those of you who don’t know the
situation, Pat has been working on this edition (with no advance pay) for ten years now, and she was summarily dismissed in July, with no advance warning, under the claim that she had not made any progress, when in fact she has reams of work completed that has been sent to the press and was unable to proceed on many issues because her head editor refused to get back to her.  Behind the firing stand major issues of intellectual integrity and fairness.

I urge you to visit the Reinstate Pat Parker website created by Richard Halpern and sign the petition to Arden to reinstate Pat.  To date, 612 scholars have signed the petition, and the corporation that owns Arden
(Cengage) is feeling the pressure, but all supporting Pat believe we need to keep the pressure on and show the numbers of petitioners continuing to rise. You can read the basics of the situation, early letters to Arden urging reinstatement (mine is included), as well as fascinating discussions about the petition by supporters, such as John Drakakis, Leah Marcus, David Bevington, Harry Berger, Margreta de Grazia, Terence Hawkes, etc. etc. at:

http://reinstatepatparker.com/Home.html

CFP: Shifting Paradigms in Early Modern Studies (11/15/08; NCRC 5/2/09)

The 2009 Northern California Renaissance Conference will be held on Saturday, May 2, at San José State University. This year the conference will focus on Shifting Paradigms in Early Modern Studies. While the Early
Modern world itself was shaped by aesthetic, moral, scientific, and technological shifts, Renaissance studies in the United States also underwent a paradigm change during the last decades of the 20th century: the expansion of the canon beyond the Western Civilization corpus of “great authors.” How did Renaissance studies benefit from the opening of the canon? What new directions or topics have emerged? What constitutes today a Renaissance object of study? Are Renaissance studies relevant to contemporary society? How can they appeal and be made appealing to younger generations? Does “Early Modern” have a significantly different meaning from “Renaissance”?
We welcome panel and paper proposals on topics such as changes in approaches, objects or methods during the Renaissance which may guide or parallel our current approaches to the period; non-canonical authors,
artists, thinkers, aesthetics, objects or domains of study; the relevance of Renaissance Studies today; and innovation in curricula and research tools. These are only a few examples of possible directions. We will also
accept proposals on topics not directly related to the main theme.
The conference will include three sessions of concurrent panels, a keynote address and/or roundtable, breakfast, lunch, and evening reception. We hope to be able to accept about thirty presentations.
Papers should be in English and no more than 20 minutes long (around 10 pages). If you would like to present at the conference, please send an abstract of your paper (500 words or less) by November 15th to Danielle Trudeau (Chair) danielle.trudeau_at_sjsu.edu or Eleanor Marsh (Assistant Chair) eleanor.marsh_at_sjsu.edu You may also send your abstract by mail to the address below. We will contact all senders by December 20th for confirmation. Please note that we may not be able to accept all proposals.
Danielle Trudeau, NCRC 2009

Chair Department of Foreign Languages
San José State University
San José, CA 95192-0091
(408) 924-4594
Danielle.trudeau_at_sjsu.edu

CFP: “Digitizing the Senses” (10/14/08; 2/12-14/09)

Deadline: 14 October 2008

Call for Papers: *Digitizing the Senses*
a panel for the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies conference in Tempe, AZ, 12-14 February 2009

While digital media have enabled new and innovative access to medieval and Renaissance texts, these same media hold perhaps even more potential for investigating and representing the material cultures of these periods. This panel of papers will build on recent scholarship on materiality by bringing together innovative research on the theory and praxis of digitizing medieval and Renaissance material culture, especially as it relates to the senses. Topics may address theory and/or practice in the application of digital technology to the study of material culture, including but not limited to art, architecture, cartography, the anatomical and cultural body, collections, antiquarianism and early archeology, dramaturgy, arts and crafts, printed and manuscript materials. Accepted papers may also be considered for a collection of essays on “Digitizing Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture” to be edited by Brent Nelson (University of Saskatchewan) and Melissa Terras (University College London) for the New Technologies in Medieval and Renaissance Studies series edited by Ray Siemens and Bill Bowen.

Please submit title, brief abstract, and statement of affiliation to
brent.nelson_at_usask.ca by October 14, 2008.

Conference website:
http://www.asu.edu/clas/acmrs/conferences/conferences.html

Dr. Brent Nelson, Associate Professor
Department of English
9 Campus Dr.
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A5

my office ph.: (306) 966-1820
main office ph.: (306) 966-5486
fax.: (306) 966-5951
e-mail: nelson@arts.usask.ca

NOTE: this is not specifically about Early Modern Women, but I thought it relevant to include here since so much work on women in the period is also being done in the digital world.

CFP: Pacific Northwest Renaissance Conference (10/27/08; 4/30-5/1/09)

Call for papers for the annual PNRS conference to be held April 30 - May 2, 2009 in Bozeman, Montana at Montana State University.

The theme is “Performance of Place/ Place of Performance.” Areas of investigation should reflect the conference theme and might include such general topics as stage venues, textual locales, cartographic sites,
travel narratives, social positions, religious rituals, and performed identities.

Abstracts for individual papers and proposals for three-paper panels are invited. Abstracts should run 250 words for papers of 20-minute delivery length. Panel proposals must include abstracts for all three papers.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Monday, October 27, 2008
Acceptances will be sent by February 2009.

Submissions should be sent to:

Professor Gretchen Minton, PNRS President
MSU Department of English
P.O. Box 172300
Bozeman, Montana
59717-2300
minton_at_english.montana.edu

Conference Co-Chairs: Gretchen Minton and Sharon Beehler

CFP: Interruption — Narrative Conference, Birmingham, (10/15/08; 8/4-6/09)

Interruption

Organizers: Matthew Garrett (Wesleyan University), Kara Wittman (Stanford University)

This panel explores the function and significance of narrative interruptions. Interruption appears in many ways: as break in formal structure (caesura, sentence, paragraph, chapter division, serial issue), as dilation (in the shift from narration to description, in the magnification of a detail, in the development of a theme), as digression, as pause, or as repetition or stutter that produces a hesitation in the flow of story. We are interested in the various ways interruption determines both what and how a text means by affecting, for example, the distribution of readerly attention, the pace of reading, the constitution of formal structure, the capacity to provoke, suggest, or mystify, and so on. We welcome papers that engage with questions of meaning and form as such, as well as those that attempt to draw inferences about reading from the analysis of formal traits — especially those that unite formal and historical questions. Papers on narratives from any place, period, or medium are welcome: one goal of the panel will be to present a comparative account of the question of narrative interruption.

Send a 250-word abstract and a short CV to Matthew Garrett at

mcgarrett_at_wesleyan.edu by October 15.

CFP: Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts (9/30/08)

Call for Proposals: Early Modern Women’s Manuscripts

The Brown University Women Writers Project is seeking collaborators for a three-year project to explore the digital representation of women’s manuscript materials. We will be applying for NEH funding in fall 2008 to support between five and ten manuscript encoding and transcription projects to be undertaken if the grant proposal is successful. Once transcribed and encoded, the manuscripts would be published as part of Women Writers Online. We invite proposals from potential collaborators to transcribe, edit, and encode a manuscript, and to participate in discussions of editorial and encoding methods. If funded, the project would begin in summer 2009 and would be completed by fall 2012.

Proposals of up to 1200 words should be sent via email (preferred) or post by September 30 to:

WWP_at_brown.edu
Women Writers Project
Box 1841, Brown University
Providence, RI 02912

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Details on the grant

The overall goal of the grant is to enable the WWP to explore manuscript encoding and publication. Both the encoding and the public representation of manuscripts are quite different from the printed materials currently in WWO. In addition, manuscripts may typically require a level of scholarly intervention that will affect both how we represent the text and also how the encoding is undertaken. There are both technical and social questions to be tackled:

–how closely do scholars need to be involved in the encoding and transcription process?
–how wide a range of editorial approaches can we accommodate within the framework of WWO?
–how should work processes like proofreading be managed, and how should they involve the scholar?
–how will manuscript materials be used, within WWO, and how might this use differ from that of printed materials?

Participants in this grant would be asked to undertake the following:
–attend three project meetings at the Women Writers Project in Providence, RI to get an understanding of the WWP’s encoding system, to discuss the details of the individual manuscript project, and to learn the basic principles of text encoding and digital scholarly editing

–prepare a transcription (and possibly a basic encoded version) of the manuscript in question
–assist with proofreading the text
–engage in discussion and respond to queries concerning the text, its transcription, and its editorial treatment
–secure permission to publish the transcription as part of WWO

Travel expenses will be paid by the grant.

********
How to apply

Please submit a proposal of up to 1200 words describing the manuscript, the kinds of editing it requires, and the qualifications and interests of the team. Please include the following information:

–name, CV, and contact information for the person making the proposal
–names and CVs of any others involved in the proposal
–a brief description of the manuscript you would be working on, including its length, particulars of its composition and circulation, contents, and any idiosyncrasies or special challenges it would pose
–a brief description of the manuscript’s intellectual property status: who owns it, whether permission to publish has already been secured, whether microfilm or digital images have already been made, etc.
–a brief description of the team’s interests and qualifications for undertaking this project

No technical expertise or experience is necessary, but participants must be willing to learn text encoding.

Manuscript materials may be of any type, and should be drawn roughly from the period 1400-1850, and should involve a female author or scribe (though the authorship need not be exclusively female). The main language should be English, though portions in other languages are permissible. The proposed project should be of a scope that permits completion within a three-year period.

We encourage proposals from individuals or groups, and preference will be given to proposals that involve one or more graduate students.

Criteria for selecting these projects will include:

–the project’s feasibility within the scope of the grant
–the qualifications and interest of the applicant(s)
–the relevance of the manuscript to the WWP’s scope and goals

Applicants will be notified of our decision by October 10, 2008. Successful applicants will need to supply an updated CV, a letter of support, and a brief project description.

CFP: Edited collection on early modern theater audiences (1/31/09)

“Play’d to Great Applause”: Early Modern Audience and Audiences of Early Modern Drama

Editors seek articles of 5000-7000 words, including notes, for a proposed book-length collection entitled “Play’d to Great Applause”: Early Modern Audience and Audiences of Early Modern Drama

We seek essays discussing the behaviors, beliefs, attitudes or composition of either contemporary or current audiences of early modern drama. Part One will look at audiences from 1580-1640, while Part Two will focus on late-twentieth and twenty-first century productions of early modern drama. This collection will focus on live performance, not film and television productions.

Articles may address such issues as:
• the audience and civic pageants
• the audience and dumb shows
• the audience and censorship
• the audience and other “entertainments” (hangings, bear-baitings, and
sermons)
• antitheatrical tracts’ definition of audience
• actors as audience, audience as actors
• cult of personality
• power of the spectator
• non-Shakespearean plays and the modern viewer
• Shakespeare festivals
• modern staging in reconstructed theatres (London Globe)
• directing the early modern play for the 21st century audience

We welcome submissions from scholars, actors, directors, and others. Send detailed proposals and brief CVs by January 31, 2009 to both editors, preferably electronically. Completed essays will be expected by May 31, 2009. Annalisa Castaldo, Humanities Division, 1 University Place, Widener University, Chester, PA 19050 acastaldo_at_mail.widener.edu Rhonda Knight, Department of Communications, Language, and Literature, 300 E. College Ave., Coker College, Hartsville, SC 29550 rknight_at_coker.edu

CFP: Embodying Shakespeare, EMLS Special Issue (10/1/08)

EARLY MODERN LITERARY STUDIES (2009)
Special Issue: Embodying Shakespeare

New histories of the body, historical phenomenology, and psychoanalytic readings of the body-as-text have flourished in the last two decades in early modern studies. As Sean McDowell has recently noted, “scholarship on the early modern body – its materiality, its processes, its relationships to affect and cognition, its role in enculturation, and its connections to the physical world – coalesced in the 1990s into its own field,”* as evidenced by a growing number of academic conferences, scholarly monographs, and edited collections on the topic.

The editors welcome papers of 6,000-10,000 words that engage with any aspect of ‘embodiment’ and ‘Shakespeare.’ Topics might include, but are not limited to: Shakespeare and histories/theories of the body;
representations of the body and early modern phenomenology; the actor’s body; cultural appropriations and body ‘politics’; the cinematic body; body-as-text and the body-in-the-text; Shakespeare and the senses;
embodiment and identity.

Please send proposals by email, including a short abstract, to David McInnis <mcinnisd_at_unimelb.edu.au> and Brett D. Hirsch <bdhirsch_at_cyllene.uwa.edu.au> by 1 October 2008. The deadline for essay submissions, following acceptance of abstracts, is 1 February 2009. The special issue will be published mid-year.

*Early Modern Literary Studies* (ISSN 1201-2459) is a refereed journal serving as a formal arena for scholarly discussion and as an academic resource for researchers in the area. Articles in EMLS examine English
literature, literary culture, and language during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For more details, visit <http://purl.org/emls>.

--
*Sean McDowell, “The View from the Interior: The New Body Scholarship in
Renaissance/Early Modern Studies,” Literature Compass 3-4 (2006): 778-
791, p. 778.

CFP: Politics of Shakespeare (8/30/08; 12/18-20/08 India)

THE POLITICS OF SHAKESPEARE

International Conference

18-20 December 2008: Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India

The Centre of Advanced Study in English, Jadavpur University, invites abstracts of papers for an International Conference on ‘The Politics of Shakespeare’, to be held on 18-20 December 2008. The conference is being
held with active participation from the Shakespeare Association of America, several of whose members are expected to attend. The purpose of the partnership is to open new Shakespearean exchanges between West and East.

The title has deliberately been left open, to cover both political themes and concerns in Shakespeare’s own plays, and the political implications (in the widest sense) of the study, staging and reception of Shakespeare.
Abstracts (maximum of 500 words) are invited for presentations in half-hour slots, affording 20 minutes paper-reading time plus ten minutes for questions and discussion.

Details of plenary sessions and a proposed panel discussion will be announced later.

We regret that we cannot offer travel assistance, but will provide hospitality over the days of the conference to most participants. Members of the SAA are requested to inform Lena Orlin, Executive Secretary, SAA, in
addition to the conference directors at Jadavpur.

Email abstracts by 30 August 2008 for responses by 15 September 2008, to the conference directors:

Amlan Das Gupta, amlan04_AT_gmail.com

or

Paromita Chakravarti, chakravarti6_AT_gmail.com