"Literature and Social Justice" Conference at Lehigh University. Abstract Deadline October 15, 2014.
The Lehigh University English graduate program is organizing our first annual conference on "Literature and Social Justice" for March 7th, 2015, to be held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We welcome proposals for 15-20 minute presentations by MA and Doctoral students on all aspects of literature and social justice across any specialties within the discipline of English, comparative literature, or modern languages. Scholars working in all time periods, genres, and theoretical methodologies are welcome to submit abstracts. Potential topics could include, but are not restricted to: -questions on whether literature should be socially or morally "useful" -the current state of didactic literature -issues of aesthetics and ethics -questions on the status of "art for art’s sake" -the place of biographical criticism when evaluating a given text -the place of race, class, gender, and religion when reading a text -pedagogical concerns -the s