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

CFP: Criminality, Liminality, and Imprisonment in the Early Modern Era (9/1/08; 10/24-25/08)

“Criminality, Liminality, and Imprisonment in the Early Modern Era”

Call for papers
Michigan State University, October 24 -25, 2008
East Lansing, Michigan

Guest speakers:
• Patricia Fumerton, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Niels Herold, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan

The conference will also include a viewing and discussion of the 2005 documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars

The Department of English at Michigan State University, in conjunction with the graduate program in Early Modern Literature, is proud to host a conference on “Criminality, Liminality, and Imprisonment in the Early
Modern Era.” This conference will engage with early modern literary and cultural responses to the shifting definitions of criminality during the era, focusing principally on how the concept of imprisonment and “the
criminal” surfaced in drama, pamphlets, ballads, poetry, etc., either as a critique or valorization of criminality. We would like to explore how the laws designed to define and police the early modern criminal produced both literal and symbolic constraints that broadly affected early modern culture, creating and enforcing divisions in the national, urban and social landscape. Therefore, we invite papers that pertain to early modern law, mechanisms of social control and the demarcation of social and geographic space. Also, we hope to examine how early modern revisions to the ideas of criminality and imprisonment came to define or imagine particular segments of the populace as marginal or liminal, and how figures who were placed
into categories of “otherness” were represented in literature. Conversely, criminality was at times the basis of heroic status, and that also engendered prolific literary production. Early modern literature that took
up the trope of criminality often exploded the categories of otherness and the criminal as they were set down in law. Finally, a number of early modern authors were, at some point in their careers, classified as criminals; therefore, we welcome papers that address how early modern anxieties regarding criminality and imprisonment intersect with the biography of the writer.

We invite papers on any of the suggested topics listed below:
• Prison, imprisonment, and architectural forms of constraint
• The malleable definition of “crime” in the early modern period
• Early modern notions of redemption and correction
• The spectacle of punishment and torture
• Children, crime, and punishment/ Animals, crime, and punishment
• Vagrancy laws and vagrants
• Liminal and marginal spaces demarcated as criminal
• Monstrosity and criminality
• Criminality and the other (“Egyptians”, cannibalism, mariners, highwaymen, etc.)
• Surreptitious printing, cony-catchers and cut-purses
• Hysteria and paranoia
• Crime and the Crown

We welcome both graduate students and faculty. Presentations can be in the form of individual papers or panels. When proposing a panel, please include with your submission a short overarching description of the panel, as well as individual descriptions of each paper. We ask that all submissions include the presenter’s name, institutional affiliation and professional title. Please submit a 150-200 word proposal by September, 1, 2008 to:

emod_at_msu.edu.

CFP: Changes and Innovations (10/15/08; 10/9-10/09 France)

An international interdisciplinary conference organized by EHIC at the University of Limoges, France, 9-10 October 2009

Moving World(s): Changes and Innovations in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Europe

The habit of dividing Time into centuries has often raised controversy due to its arbitrariness and imprecision. Rather than focus exclusively on the topic of disruption – entailing radical and exclusive positions – we have chosen to highlight the notion of continuity: what forms do the changes take at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Renaissance, questioning the fixity of systems and more particularly the world picture and the schema of a central, immobile Earth?
Through historical documents, literary texts or works of art, this conference means to explore the expression of changes in various fields of studies so as to bring together scholars from apparently separate disciplines.

Suggested topics:
· work, economy and daily life: their concrete aspects and their specific vocable
· mobility, the representation and perception of space and territories
· technical innovations in the fields of art, architecture, literature
· Man facing changes and his relation to Time
· participation in public life; exploration of the intimate space as a form of “geographical meditation” (Jean-Marc Besse, Les Grandeurs de laTerre. Aspects du savoir géographique à la Renaissance, Lyon, ENS Éditions, 203, p. 309)

You are invited to submit a proposal for a 30-minute paper (in French or in English).
Deadline for proposals: 15 October 2008

Please contact:

Muriel Cunin: muriel.cunin1_at_libertysurf.fr

Martine Yvernault : martine.yvernault_at_unilim.fr

CFP: Shakespeare at Kalamazoo (9/15/08; Kalamazoo, 5/7/09-5/10/09)

Shakespeare at Kalamazoo invites submissions for two open sessions:

Shakespeare and Humanism
Sources of and Approaches to King Lear

The 44th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 7-10, 2009) will take place at Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan).

Reading time for papers should be no more than twenty minutes. According to rules established by the Congress, those submitting abstracts for one session may not submit abstracts for other sessions in the same year.

Email submissions are encouraged. Please include home and office phone numbers, complete mailing address, and e-mail address along with your abstract. If you need equipment, let us know now.

Maximum length of abstract: 500 words.
Deadline for abstracts: 15 September 2008. This deadline is absolute.

Please direct questions and abstracts to:

Martine van Elk

mvanelk_at_csulb.edu

CFP: Appetite, Desire, and Gargantuan Pleasures (6/20/08; 11/20-23/08)

Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies 2008
“Appetite, Desire, and Gargantuan Pleasures”

November 20-23, 2008, Philadelphia

* * * The deadline for submissions of proposals for panels, workshops, and individual papers has been extended to July 11, 2008. * * *

Pre-constituted panels or workshops should be comprised of no fewer than four and no more than five participants, and in order to allow the greatest possible amount of discussion, we ask that presenters in these panels limit their comments to ten minutes each.

One-page abstracts for individual papers must include presenter’s name, complete mailing address, institutional affiliation, and email address; proposals for panels must identify a designated panel chair and include one-paragraph abstracts for each presenter, as well as his or her name, complete mailing address, institutional affiliation, and email address.
Panels of four or five participants will be given preference.
Participants will be notified of their acceptance to the conference by email.

Address all email submissions by July 11, 2008 to:
Deborah Montuori – DJMont_at_ship.edu

* * * * * * * * * *

If you enjoyed GEMCS 2001 in Philadelphia, come join us for GEMCS 2008– to be held this time at Loews Hotel on Market Street. A National Historic Landmark, the former PSFS Building, built in 1932, is the
world’s first Modernist skyscraper. The luxurious renovations conscientiously preserved such features as the black granite floors, brass elevators, a steel vault, and Art-Deco Cartier clocks.

Located downtown, Loews is one block from City Hall and Reading Terminal Market and only one mile from the Liberty Bell or the Franklin Institute Science Museum. Other city attractions, including the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Zoo, and a large number of galleries and museums, are only a short distance away and can be reached via the city’s public transportation system.

Did you know that Philadelphia has more archives and repositories relevant to early modern cultural studies gathered in one area than most other US cities its size? Attend the GEMCS conference and locate
valuable research resources at the same time!

Did you know that Philadelphia is one of the premiere restaurant capitals in the US? In this year dedicated to the theme of “Appetite, Desire, and Gargantuan Pleasures,” the organizing committee for GEMCS 2008 will line up a “moveable feast” through some of Philadelphia’s finest restaurants for discriminating GEMCan palates (pre-registration required)

Proposals for workshops, special sessions, pedagogical panels, works-in- progress talks and other formats will continue to be accepted through July 11. Point your browser to the GEMCS link at
http://www.english.fsu.edu/gemcs/.

CFP: Early Modern Voyeurism (7/3/08; GEMCS 08)

Panel Proposal: “Early Modern Voyeurism”
For presentation at GEMCS 2008, Philadelphia
“Appetite, Desire, and Gargantuan Pleasures”

Papers are invited for a panel on the representations of voyeurism in text and image from 1450-1850. Submissions from all fields in the arts and humanities are welcome. Please note that GEMCS panels take the form of short (10-minute) papers, followed by an exchange of ideas among panelists and audience.

Please send a 200-300-word abstract to Deborah Montuori by July 3, 2008, at djmont_at_ship.