‘I am a stranger in this world’ says the nun, the narrator of a story of a forbidden book by Marguerite Porete. The year is 1340, thirty years after Marguerite was burned at the stake for writing and disseminating her heretical work, The Mirror of Simple Souls. The place is England, a Cistercian nunnery where she tells her story the night before her death, knowing that the book irretrievably changed but also shortened her life. But the idea of being a stranger in the world is not an uncommon one for many other Michele Roberts’ characters.

From the early feminists to postmodern protagonists her novels rewrite medieval saints and sinners, Victorian mediums and contemporary visionaries, offering us new perspectives on well known stories and motifs. Michele Roberts herself will be the guest of honor of LIES 2013, on 21st April, and her work is our inspiration; but we welcome papers about topics related to postmodern rewriting of history and culture as well as the feminist standpoint on both contemporary and earlier literature in English.

The deadline for abstract submissions is 15th December 2012. Please send your proposals and a short bio to dr Katarzyna Bronk (kbronk@wa.amu.edu.pland bbronkk@gmail.com). More information at: http://wa.amu.edu.pl/hla/

In 1913, Ezra Pound articulated the literary imperative for the modernists’ age: “Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery is of little worth,” and later urged artists to “Make it New.” Conversely, the Hebraic King Solomon wrote, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecc. 1:9 NIV).

Between Solomon and Pound’s writing existed millions of artists, literary and otherwise. Potentially millions more existed before Solomon’s assigning all production, artistic or otherwise to mimesis.Yet even millions more existed after Pound. Artists will continue to exist long after we are gone. Are all artists hopelessly engaged in mimetic reproduction? Or is every artist either carving from tradition or forging an entirely new production, thereby generating what Pound calls “a beginning, an invention, a discovery” that is be of great worth?

With this aesthetic concern in mind, we are proud to introduce a new graduate journal, The Rat’s Mouth Review, operated by the English graduate students and under a faculty advisory board at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

For our inaugural issue, we are seeking submissions of graduate student work from around the world on the topic of mimesis versus invention. The Rat’s Mouth Review, as a journal, seeks to invent itself, few would argue that it is not doing so in a mimetic fashion. We emulate other journals in order to forge our own identity and we do so with the hope of being “of [great] worth.” To accomplish this, we require your contributions.

We are seeking submissions of short essays of approximately 1,200-1,500 words in length. Longer essays will be accepted too (7,000-9,000 words) but preference will be given to concise explications of texts that analyze the thematic concern of invention versus mimesis. End notes should be kept at a minimum. Book reviews on this topic are also welcome, as are interviews, exhibition reviews, and other scholarly submissions. All submissions should conform to the most recent edition of the MLA style guide.

Submissions are due December 1st. Please send a cover letter (name, institution, contact information, student status) with a 100-150 word abstract along with the submission stripped of names and affiliations. Please leave only the title of your work in the submission.

Please refer to our website (http://ratsmouthreview.webs.com) for more information or contact one of our editors:
Joel Wilson, Editor-in-Chief: jwilso53@fau.edu
Frank Babrove, Managing Editor: fbabrove@fau.edu

The Popular Culture Scholars Association is proud to announce the Second Annual Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture. The conference will be held February 8-10 at Bowling Green State University, the home of the Department of Popular Culture. See below for the conference’s CFP.

To build on the success of the First Annual Ray Browne Conference, and usher in the fortieth year of the Popular Culture Department at Bowling Green State University, the Popular Culture Scholars Association at BGSU would like to invite any and all students (undergraduates and graduate), scholars, critics, former members of the POPC program and friends of the department to join us for the Ray Browne Conference on Popular Culture to be held February 8th through February 10th 2013, on the campus of Bowling Green State University.

Dr. Ray Browne founded the department of Popular Culture to give students an opportunity to academically consider the cultural forms of their everyday lives. In the past forty years, popular culture has only grown more prominent in society and developed new ways of engaging the public. Popular culture has become increasingly mobile through smart phones, webisodes, memes, and social media blurring the boundaries between producers and consumers. Simultaneously, cultures in general have become increasingly mobile through the spread of and contact between peoples, ideas and technology; making the production and consumption of culture a truly transnational affair. In light of increased cultural mobility made possible by new modes of technology, we must consider how popular culture scholarship has grown (and can continue to grow) to accommodate such new cultural modalities.

Potential topics for papers, panels, and roundtable proposals include, but are not limited to:

• How has the increased mobility in terms of culture, people, and technology had an effect on appropriation of cultures, (anti)nationalism, social and political change, tourism, diasporic experiences and how do we begin to theorize these interactions?

• How do we reimagine/reconstruct literatures, languages, narratives and identities in cyber societies? Has transmedia and convergence culture shaped our interaction with popular texts and affected pop cultural narratives?

• How has new media shaped interactions between popular culture and individuals?

• With increasing shifts in culture, have there been similar shifts in the representation of disabled, gender, sexual, race, and ethnic identities?

• Which new media, texts, genres, etc. deserve attention from academics and scholars?

• How have these shifts altered the study popular culture, and how do we continue to explore them?

• Explorations of specific popular culture texts, genres, trends and approaches

The deadline for proposals is Friday, November 16, 2012. Individual paper proposals should be between 300-400 words. Full roundtable and panel theme proposals can be longer, but should include as much prospective information about the topic and number of possible participants as possible. Please email your abstract and a short biography to bgpcsa@gmail.com.

The subject line should contain the writer’s surname followed by “BCPC13” Abstract. Notifications for decisions will be sent by Friday, December 15, 2012. Please contact PCSA if you have any questions or concerns atbgpcsa@gmail.com or via our website at bgsu.orgsync.com/org/pcsa.

Call for proposals
26th annual meeting
Society for Disability Studies
Wednesday, June 19th – Saturday, June 22nd, 2013
Double-by-Hilton at the Entrance to Universal Studios
Orlando, Florida

(Re)creating Our Lived Realities

Submission system will open October 4, 2012
at http://www.disstudies.org
Deadline for submissions: November 21, 2012

In honor of its 26th annual meeting convening in Orlando, Florida – the land of make-believe, the home of Disney World and Universal Studios – the program committee of the Society for Disability Studies would like to encourage you to think about the ways in which we create and re-create our lived realities. We would like you to think not only about disabled people as complexly embodied historical actors, but also about the many social, economic, physiological, and political forces that shape, and often constrain, our lived realities. As people situated at the intersection of local and global histories, systems, and structures, we are constantly shaping and molding our social, cultural, and built environment(s). And they in turn affect us in innumerable ways. Nothing we do or say, or have done, can be divorced from its social and historical context, nor can it be isolated from the many human relations through which it emerges. While all proposals that explore these themes are welcome, the program committee especially seeks to solicit work that explores the interesting interactions among larger systems or structures, such as global capitalism, neoliberalism, militarism, and our immediate corporeal experiences - pleasure, pain, sex, illness, debility, a ride at Disney World or a walk through Epcot Center.

We offer the following broad questions to foster interdisciplinary perspectives and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration:

o What are the many ways in which disabled people have conceptualized and enacted changes to the built environment and to the many things with which we interact on a daily basis? What barriers do people who experience disability face? How have these things changed over time?

o What happens when local understandings, strategies, and ways of being meet up with more globalizing ones?

o What new possibilities for change do such intersections produce, and, alternatively, where do we find disconnects that thwart cooperation?

o How have various technologies—and access to them—shaped the formation of disabled identities and cultures, as well as interpersonal and group relationships?

o In what ways are the realities we create bounded or shaped by geographic location, institutional formation, identity politics, and other factors?

o What do collisions between the local and the global reveal about our experiences? What do they obscure?

o How have disability politics and activism shaped not only the built environment, but human relations as well?

o How does enduring poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the persistence of the medical and charity model shape / limit access to the many realities we create in our lives? How do these factors also open possibilities? How have these factors enhanced disability rights?

o How have the various disciplines within disability studies explored and analyzed the built environment? What are the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches?

o How have/might the various disciplines and fields within disability studies work across disciplinary boundaries to enhance the quality of our lives?

o How have/might disability studies reach out to local and national organizations and institutions to influence families, religious communities, service providers, political institutions, employers, etc.?

o How does a focus on Lived Realities influence research methods, theory, and the underpinnings of disability scholarship and practice?

o How have prevailing (contemporary) paradigms (or narratives) succeeded or failed in capturing “our lived realities”?

We welcome proposals in all areas of disability studies, especially those submissions premised on this year’s theme.

This year’s program committee is continuing the idea of specific “strands” that relate to the larger more general theme of the SDS conference. Each strand may have 3 or 4 related events (e.g. panels, workshops), organized to occur throughout the conference and in a way that will eliminate any overlap of sessions in an effort to facilitate a more sustained discussion of specific issues that have arisen as areas of interest within the organization.

Our planned strands this year are as follows. Others may emerge from member proposals:

Florida / Southern movement history: The DRM has a rich history of disability activism in the South that offers tremendous opportunity for exploration.
Communities / Identities and disability studies: Members would like to continue these areas of discussion from our conference last year in Denver. Explore challenges and possibilities that shape collaboration, culture, and community for people who experience disability.
Power and privilege: Ongoing discussions among SDS board members, members of SDS caucuses, and others led to this strand, intended to look both at the workings of power and privilege broadly and within SDS itself.
Professional development: This strand addresses a need identified by many of our members for professional development, including matters such as locating funding, pursuing academic and non-academic jobs, surviving the tenure track, etc.
Translational research in disability studies and health sciences: Using translational research here to refer to research that translates between disciplines, and from basic research to applied research and to practice, the goals of this NIH-related conference strand are: (1) to demonstrate how disability studies theory contributes to the conception of health sciences research and practice; (2) to provide best practice examples of disability studies translational research and practice; and (3) to mentor a new generation of federally funded disability studies researchers and practitioners. We particularly welcome submissions from disabled clinicians/clinical researchers interested in cutting edge disability studies perspectives.

If you would like your proposal to be considered as part of one of these thematic strands, mark this in your submission.

SESSION FORMATS:

All submissions in formats A to F below are peer reviewed.

All session formats are 90 minutes in length, including all introductions, presentations, discussion, and closure.

Proposals may be submitted for presentations in any of the following formats:

A. Individual Presentation: Individual presentations will be placed alongside three other panelists with a similar topic and a moderator chosen by the Program Committee. In general, we assume 15-20-minute presentations (if you are requesting a longer time, please specify and explain why). Presenters are required to submit 300-word abstracts for individual papers/presentations. List all co-authors, if any, and designate the presenting author(s).

A Note on Virtual Presentations: As a trial run for the 2013 conference, we will offer a small number of remote presentations slots during the face-to-face meetings. SDS is experimenting with ways to make our conference accessible to those who cannot travel while ensuring feasibility, reliability and accessibility for those present at the face-to-face meeting. Because this is a trial year, the spots are very limited in order to ensure quality and prepare for more remote and virtual options in 2014.

· Individuals may submit to present remote individual presentations in one of the following formats: video file, audio file, or audio Skype.

· Remote presentations must be made accessible according to our presentation accessibility guidelines (forthcoming) and must be submitted to the program committee one month in advance (before May 19, 2013) or they will be removed from the program.

· Presenters are responsible for the technology needed for creating accessible presentations and responding live (via audio Skype and/or Instant Message) during their scheduled presentation time.

· Proposals for remote presentations should be for individual presentations only, not panels.

· Access to these remote presentation slots will be highly competitive and will be reserved for presenters who are unable to present in person but whose presentation offers the richest, most unique and most innovative material related to the theme. If you have the resources and ability to travel and attend the conference in Orlando, we ask that you do not apply to present remotely.

· We will not consider a presentation for both face-to-face and remote presentation formats. Only those individuals who cannot attend in person should apply to present remotely.

· Please note, because remote presenters will enjoy professional exposure and opportunity for exchange and because presentations require infrastructure that is quite costly, remote presenters must register and pay a $100 registration fee.

B. Poster: Individuals or small teams will be provided a common space and time with an easel (and/or table if requested) to present a display of a research, training, service, or advocacy project, or other work. Presenters should be in attendance at the poster session. Submissions for the poster session requires a 300-word abstract, complete contact information for anyone involved in the project who will attend SDS, and a designated lead contact person. We encourage people to submit proposals specifically for the poster session. Each year, SDS proudly awards the Tanis Doe Award for the best poster.

C. Panels: Groups of 3-4 presenters (each with 15-20 minutes), a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), plus an optional discussant, are encouraged to submit proposals around a central topic, theme, or approach. Panel proposals require BOTH a 300-word proposal describing the panel AND a 300-word abstract for each paper/presentation. List all paper/presentation co-authors, identify the presenting author(s), and provide biographical information for the discussant, if one is planned.

D. Discussion: A topical discussion with a designated organizer / contact person and moderator (need not be the same person), but with only short (5-7 min.) presentations to start discussion, if any. Submit a 500-word proposal, including a description of how the time will be used, complete contact information for the designated organizer and each participant in the discussion, and a description of their roles.

E. Workshop: Engaged application of a specific program or exercise involving a minimum of 4 planners / presenters. Proposals should include a 500-word proposal that addresses methodology and learning outcomes. Proposals must describe the format of the workshop. How will you use the time? Please describe the credentials and role of each workshop participant, designate a contact person/moderator, and provide complete contact information for each planner / presenter.

F. Performance, Film, or Art Event/Exhibit: We encourage submissions of a creative/artistic event in any media by individuals and/or groups. All proposals should clearly list at least one person who will register for and attend the conference as the event presenter/host. Submissions must include a 500-word proposal, and sample of the proposed work (up to 2,500 words of text, ten images of artistic work, demo CD, YouTube or other Internet link, DVD, or other appropriate format). Send via email atSDSprogram@disstudies.org or postal mail to the SDS Executive Office at 107 Commerce Centre Drive, Suite 204, Huntersville NC 28078 USA. Samples must reach the SDS Executive Office by the submission deadline. Please describe the background and role of each artist/participant and designate a contact person / moderator. Performers should be aware that SDS does not have the ability to provide theatrical and or stage settings in the 2013 venue. While every effort will be made to provide appropriate performance spaces, proposing performers are advised that special lighting, audiovisual equipment, and staging requests cannot be accommodated. All film entries accepted for presentation at the 2013 Conference must be provided to the SDS Executive Office on DVD not less than 30 days prior to the start of the Conference in open-captioned format, and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. As SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings, the provider of the film is fully responsible for securing any necessary permissions from trade and copyright holders for public showing. Sponsors of accepted films must register for and attend the conference, host the screening, bring documentation of rights clearance to the Conference and make it available during the film screening. SDS may request the right to schedule more than one screening at the conference. SDS program committee may request more samples and cannot return materials that are submitted for consideration.

G. Student and Other Interest Groups/Caucus/Other Meetings (non peer-reviewed): Various ad hoc and organized SDS or other non-profit groups may wish to have business, organizational, or informational meetings or some other kind of non-peer reviewed event or exhibit space at the meetings. Anyone hoping to host any such event should request space by December 1, 2012 by using the proposal submission form. After December 1st, space will be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. No meetings can be planned through SDS after the early-bird deadline of April 15, 2013. All presenters at such events must register for the conference. Requests from groups not affiliated with SDS may be assessed a share of cost for space and access arrangements. Please provide the name of group, a description of the group and/or meeting purpose and format (in 300 words), and contact information for at least one organizer and a designated moderator. SDS will provide ASL/CART as needed. Organizers should contact SDS if they want catering or any other special arrangements.

A Note on Films / Film Shorts: Films and film clips may be submitted as part of any of the format categories described above. Follow the category appropriate instructions above. Participants proposing films within any of the proposal formats must be registered for and attend the conference. Ideally, film length should not exceed 60 minutes under any category, to allow time for introduction and / or comments. All film entries must be captioned and the presenter should be prepared to provide audio description as needed. SDS cannot pay distribution rights for film screenings.

TERMS OF PARTICIPATION:

All participants must register and pay for the conference through the SDS website (http://disstudies.org/) by the early bird deadline: April 15, 2013, or they will be removed from the program. Please note: low income/student/international member presenters are eligible for modest financial aid for meeting costs. Applications for financial assistance will be available via the SDS listserv in the coming months.
Participants MAY NOT appear in more than TWO peer-reviewed conference events, A-F above (excluding evening performances, non-presenting organizer, non-presenting moderator, New Book/Work Reception). Individuals with multiple submissions will be asked to rank order their preferences for participation. The program committee will prioritize spreading program slots across the membership before offering multiple slots to any one participant.
Any participant with a book or other materials (e.g., DVD, CD) finished within the last three years (2010, 2011, 2012) is welcome to participate in the New Book/Work Reception. At least one person must register and be in attendance to host your reception display. You will be provided a table for display and the opportunity to interact with conference participants. The fee for representation in the New Book/Work Reception is $40.00. You will have the opportunity to register as an author attending the New Book Reception when you register for the conference.

Any participant is welcome to request meeting space on behalf of a group. Requests for meeting space should be made by the December 1st submission date. Requests will be accommodated thereafter on a first-come, first-served basis and must be received by the SDS Executive Office in writing as in G above to SDSprogram@disstudies.org no later than April 15, 2013.
Please indicate on the submission form whether you are willing to serve as moderator for a session.
If you intend to participate in multiple events, please complete the submission process for each event.
Participants will be notified of the status of their proposal by January 14, 2013.
Any cancellations and requests for refunds after April 15, 2013 (the early bird deadline) may incur a cancellation fee. Any participant unable to attend must notify SDS in a timely fashion.
Accessibility: In keeping with the philosophy of SDS we ask that presenters attend carefully to the accessibility of their presentations. As a prospective presenter, you agree to:
Provide hard copy and large print hard copies (17 point font or larger) of all handouts used during the presentation.
Provide an e-text version of papers, outlines and/or presentation materials such as PowerPoint slides and a summary of one’s presentation with a list of proper names, terminology and jargon in advance of their delivery (for open captioning, distribution to attendees who experience barriers to print, and to assist ASL interpreters with preparation). SDS will also use this material to create an on-line forum of all work submitted by June 10th in the hopes of facilitating a more inclusive and richer discussion on-site. After June 1, 2013 work cannot be added to the forum. Participation in this forum is optional, but strongly encouraged. This forum will be password-protected and available only to those participants who have registered for the conference. The sole purpose of this forum is to further enhance intellectual access and participation for attendees at this year’s conference by allowing attendees advance access to the content of your presentation. All participants in the on-line forum must abide by the strictest conventions regarding the intellectual property rights of authors:
Do not cite or another author’s work anywhere or in any way without the expressed, prior, written consent of individual author(s).
Do not share work posted in the forum with someone who does not have protected access to the forum (someone who has not registered for the conference).
Make allowances for a “Plan B”: consider bringing your presentation on a jump drive and projecting the text of your paper to enhance captioning.
Provide audio-description of visual images, charts and video/DVDs, and/or open or closed captioning of films and video clips.
Contribute to improving intellectual access at the conference: consider your presentation as an opportunity to engage your audience.
Avoid reading your paper.
Plan your presentation to accommodate captioning and ASL interpretation. Avoid using jargon, and slow the pace of your presentation to allow time for eye contact and spelling proper names and terminology.

AUDIO / VISUAL INFORMATION:

Presentation rooms* for the SDS 2013 Conference will be equipped with:

· 2 (two) microphones for use by presenters;
· 1 (one) LCD projector, screen, power source, and cables;
· Head table suitable to comfortably accommodate 4 (four) people;
· Both table top and podium presentation spaces; and
· Non-dedicated, WIFI Internet access (i.e. not functional for audio/video download reliably)

· SDS does not provide computers, overhead projectors, or other audio/visual equipment as a matter of course. Presenters are responsible for ensuring that presentation structure and planning works well within these audio/visual parameters.

*This information may not be applicable to film showings and some other events.

AWARDS:

The Tanis Doe Award for best poster will be judged and awarded at the poster session of the SDS conference. The Tanis Doe Award includes a cash award, a certificate of recognition, and the posting of authors names on the SDS website. The Tanis Doe Award is open to everyone at all levels of education and experience. Additionally, this year, we will award “Honorable Mentions” for posters with student first-authors at each level of education: community college, four-year college/university, and graduate school as a way of encouraging student participation in the poster session.

SDS also honors the recipients of the Senior Scholar Award, and the Irving K. Zola Award for emerging scholars at the annual conference. Please see the Call for Nominations via the SDS listserv and website. Decisions regarding these awards are made prior to the conference. Award winners will be invited to present during the program and receive recognition at the SDS business meeting. The Zola Award also includes publication in a future issue of Disability Studies Quarterly. Other awards may also be presented at the SDS business meeting.

SUBMISSION AGREEMENT:

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. YOU ARE AGREEING TO ALL OF THESE CLAUSES.

By submitting to SDS 2013 in Orlando, you give SDS full permission to publish your abstracts, photograph you, publish such photographs on the SDS web site or other publications, audio or video record your presentation, transcribe the presentation for access needs, and transmit or post and archive such recordings and transcriptions via live-streaming, podcast form, or any other electronic means. If submitting on behalf of multiple presenters and authors, you certify that each presenter and author has granted his/her permission to Society for Disability Studies for purposes described in this paragraph. By giving this permission, you understand that you retain full rights to your work but give SDS the right to use your presentation in the context of the 2013 conference, including (but not limited to) charging attendees and others for access to derivative audio or video products, recordings or podcasts.

For further information contact the Program Committee of the SDS 2013 program committee at SDSprogram@disstudies.org.

University of Utah Humanities Symposium on Space and Place
University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah

Keynote Speaker: Julia Reinhard Lupton
Submission Deadline: December 1st, 2012

As the world becomes increasingly crowded, interconnected, interdependent, and altered by human activity, considerations of space and place become increasingly important. Space and place are vernacular concepts with a contested history in academic discourse: Yi-Fu Tuan, for example, associates space with movement and place with pause; by contrast, David Seaman argues that routine movements combine to form a “place-ballet” that generates a sense of place; and Edward Soja rejects the dichotomy of space and place to emphasize the lived experience of “thirdspace.” However we define space and place, we cannot consider form, identity, and community independent of these concepts.

The University of Utah Humanities Symposium on Space and Place invites papers that examine the production and transformation of space and place. Papers might explore the reciprocal effect of space and place on identity, on power structures and ideologies, on the disposition of bodies, or on conceptions of community, the commons, the public, and the private. Papers from a range of disciplines are welcome: anthropology, architecture, literature, sociology, etc.

The keynote address will be delivered by Julia Reinhard Lupton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine, with a joint appointment in Education. Her most recent scholarly books are Thinking with Shakespeare: Essays on Politics and Life (Chicago, 2011) and Citizen-Saints: Shakespeare and Political Theology (Chicago Press, 2005). Her newest project, entitled “Shakespeare by Design: Objects, Affordances, and Environments,” aims to use the visual, cognitive, and phenomenological resources of design theory to disclose the many points of creative contact between formal and vernacular acts of design on Shakespeare’s stage.

Possible paper topics include but are not limited to:
· Designed Spaces and Places
· Creative Space—Creative Writing on Space and Place
· Western Spaces and Places
· Native Places, Transnational Spaces
· Wired Places and Virtual Spaces
· Educational Space
· Sacred Space in Secular Place
· Gender, Sexuality, Space, and Place
· Border Spaces and Places
· Political Space
· Class, Space, and Place
· Legal and Juridical Productions of Space and Place
· Ethnic Space—Ethnicity and Space
· Urban/Rural Spaces and Places
· Wild/Wilderness Space
· Performance of Space and Place

Please submit abstracts of 300 words or less to ryan.siemers@utah.edu.

For creative writing submissions, in addition to an abstract relating the work to the conference theme, please reference several of your most recent publications.

The deadline for submissions is December 1st, 2012.

CFP: 2nd Global Conference
Making Sense Of: Play

Monday 22nd July – Wednesday 24th July 2013
Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Presentations:
The interdisciplinary project Making Sense Of: Play seeks to examine the various meanings of “play”, elucidate their inter-relationships and trace the origins of the patterns of play and their place in the human condition. Variations in cultural conditions naturally impact on play, its meanings and its forms, as do, often in a different way, economic inequalities both within and between different cultures. Our deliberations will necessarily takes this into account. In many languages, as in English, throughout its etymological history “play” has been closely connected to the world of children and make believe. Academic study of play, too, deals predominantly with various aspects of children’s play and its importance in development. There is, in fact, a lack of balance between the study of play in relation to children and childhood on one hand, and “play” more generally, as outlined above, on the other. For this reason our project explicitly emphasizes the comparatively under-explored aspects of play in linguistic, literary, philosophical, historical, psychological and evolutionary frames of reference.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.”
(Plato)

Possible Themes and Topics:

-Its evolutionary significance: Viewed from biological and paleoanthropoligical standpoint, how has play factored into the evolution of Homo Sapiens?

-In politics: is politics a game? What are the “rules” and how can they be transgressed?

-In literature and the arts: How do the arts function as play in our culture? Are artists game-masters? Are some forms of art especially “playful?” How is “the play the thing”- to quote Shakespeare? What should we make of artistic works in which “dark play” is featured?

-Historical and cultural models of play: Does “play” mean and function differently in different cultures and societies? What can we learn by exploring other cultures’ models of play? Has the concept and practice of play evolved differently for adults and children?

-In philosophy: How does play function in the divide between truth and appearance? Do philosophers “play” with ideas? How can we understand play beyond the limits of specific disciplinary boundaries? Why does play continue to be a “slippery concept”?

-As a psychological issue: Do we need to play as a function of mental health and well being? Are there healthy and non-healthy forms of play? Play/Work/Contemplation: does Aristotle’s analysis of the good life serve contemporary conditions?

-In language: what does it mean to” play with language?” Are metaphors linguistic play? How is ‘deconstruction’ a form of playing with language?

-As humour: How do jokes and other forms of humor operate as play? When might jokes and humor be “anti-play?”

-Play of perception: How do our senses afford us opportunities to play? Is the artistic look a form of play? Can sounds, tastes, colors invite us to playfully engage in the world?

-Play and the life-course: How does play figure into existential crisis (illness, death), love, hatred, and power? Does play serve as special form of communication? Can play be a form of addiction or can it be used to address addictive behavior? What forms does play take in adult lives and in the lives of the elderly?

-Animal play: What does play mean in the animal world? Do animals play? Need to play? Can we play with animals in the sense that we are engaging in their own forms of play? Animal play has been an important tool in understanding how humans play. Given this, how are human and animal play different and similar?

-Play and children: What role do toys serve in a child’s life? How does play function in the classroom? How do children play? What role does contact with the natural world play in child’s play?

-Play and technology: How has technology changed and expanded/or limited how we play in our respective cultures?

-Dark and dangerous play: Where does play veer from “playful” to dangerous and destructive? How does the example of “war as play” provide a paradigm of exploring the complicated nature of play? How can we understand “dark play” within the classic paradigm in which play is seen as predominantly “fun”?

The Steering Group particularly welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals. Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 8th February 2013. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday10th May 2013.

What to Send:
Abstracts should be submitted simultaneously to both Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats with the following information and in this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract, f) up to 10 key words
E-mails should be entitled: PLAY2 Abstract Submission.

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using footnotes and any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Joint Organising Chairs:

Wendy Turgeon (Project Leader) : turgeon@optonline.net
Rob Fisher (Network Founder and Leader) : play2@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Probing the Boundaries programme of research projects. It aims to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting.

For further details of the conference, please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/making-sense-of…

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence.

Call for Papers:

ELN 51.2 (Fall/Winter 2013): “After Critique”
English Language Notes
http://english.colorado.edu/eln/
Contact email: eln2@colorado.edu
Deadline: March 1, 2013

What is the state of critique? Is the nature of critique changing? Has critique become untenable in an era when ideological critique, cultural studies, etc. seem to have reached an impasse? What alternatives to critique are emerging? Why? What are the implications of such developments for the discipline of literary study and for its relation to other disciplines?
This issue of ELN proposes to assess the current status of critique as a practice central to literary scholarship and to gauge challenges to its hegemony as the dominant mode of conducting inquiry and justifying what we do. This call for papers responds to a wide range of developments in the intellectual landscape that signal an interest in moving beyond, reorganizing, resituating literary scholarship vis-à-vis critique, revising critique’s largely enlightenment epistemology, or pluralizing options for undertaking work in the discipline. To name only a few of the research agendas that implicitly or explicitly reject or rethink critique, we have in mind the interest in: modes of reparative reading (Sedgwick); speculative realism and object oriented ontologies (Latour, Serres, Meillassoux, Harman); vitalist materialism (Bennet); reflexive sociologies of justification and critique (Thévenot and Boltanski); a rethought phenomenology and affect studies (Ahmed, Stewart, among many others); as well as the emergence of new objects of inquiry, such as digital humanities, or the revitalization of older types of scholarship, such as book history, that do not necessarily or inherently organize their work around critique. In light of these varied developments, this issue of ELN would ask if in fact critique has run out of steam (as Bruno Latour has famously claimed) by way of attempting to gauge changes in how literary scholars understand, formulate, conduct and legitimize scholarly activity.

We invite contributions from scholars working across a wide range of literary studies to weigh in on the contemporary status of critique. Submissions may describe the models of critique informing their own work, address how their research is guided by principles that redefine or strive to move beyond critique as traditionally conceived, perform a reimagined critique, or advance some kind of alternative to critique. We welcome essays, brief statements or position papers, round-table discussions on particular sub-topics, and reviews of recent books relevant to the issue’s theme.

Essays will be reviewed by external readers; all submissions should adhere to the Chicago-style endnote citation format. Please email double-spaced, 12-point font, .pdf file submissions to:

Managing Editor
English Language Notes
eln2@colorado.edu

Specific inquiries may be addressed to either of the issue editors, David Glimp, David.Glimp@Colorado.edu, or Russ Castronovo,rcastronovo@wisc.edu. The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2013.

We seek essays for an edited collection on the topic of innovative criticism. Building on the work of the autobiographical or creative modes popularized in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this collection assembles essays that explore the alternative methods, approaches, and practices that experimental, innovative, alternative, minor, and/or avant-garde texts call for or require. This collection acknowledges that the act of literary or cultural criticism is not neutral or distanced but is a personal and politicized practice that performs critical authority and expertise according to understood and agreed upon critical conventions.

We are particularly interested in essays that engage self-reflexive, performative, multi-genre, genre-bending, and even gender-bending texts. In other words, texts that distort lines between criticism, creative writing, theory, fiction, (auto)biography and that necessitate an aligned critical response. The essays accepted for this collection will both explore and model what an alternative criticism might look like.

This collection is interested in essays that speak to the following questions among others:

• In what ways might literary critics adopt modes understood to be performative, creative, self-reflexive, or engaged?

• In what ways do innovative texts themselves offer rich metaphors and models for intellectual work?

• What are the uses and limitations of performative criticism?

• How do alternative critical models gain authority?

• What current trends in literary/cultural/linguistic theory are “unconventional” and for what purpose(s)?

• To what degree might performative or experimental writings engage on-going critical conversations in such areas as gender studies, critical race studies, etc.?

Submit abstract (500 words), CV, and a brief personal statement that clarifies your interest in this particular field by November 1, 2012 to both Kristina Quynn (quynn@colostate.edu) and Robin Silbergleid (silberg1@msu.edu).