Conferences & Funding

Saturday, April 16th, 2011 The Latin root of “occupation”—occupare—accounts for the word’s aggressive, militaristic sense: to seize or to capture. While “occupation” still retains this meaning, it also comes to signify one’s profession, the office that one holds, or the work that one does within or on a culture, a nation, or a world. But this word also has a material dimension—an abode, a building, a dwelling—as well as a ruminative sense—an abiding, a dwelling, a letting be. These dimensions or senses demonstrate the agility of “occupation,” but to them we also add something else: that occupations often precede us, sweeping us into a being or becoming preoccupied. This year we hope that our title [Pre]Occupations captures these competing and collaborating dimensions, opening a field of exciting and exigent problematics: What history or histories might one claim? What periods seize one’s interest? What miracles, joys, sadnesses, or violences [pre]occupy a reader, a worker, or a cit...

March 18-19, 2011 When an echo sounds, be it spoken, written, or acted, the repeated content takes on a new character. The Echoes Graduate Student Conference at Duquesne University seeks to engage academic communities in polyvocal dialogues,exploring echoes as they appear across disciplines, texts, and times. The Duquesne University English Graduate Organization welcomes proposals of academic papers from the humanities, arts, and sciences, as well as submissions of creative work. Our aim is to establish a space of intellectual inquiry in which scholars can explore the phenomenon of echoes as they reach across disciplines, genres, genders, religions, cultures, places, time periods, races, and classes. Possible questions include, but are not limited to: * How are echoes embodied and performed across the boundaries of gender, race, and class? * How do the arts echo other disciplines? * In what ways do collective memories of political bodies rely on or transform echoes of the p...

CALL FOR PAPERS CULTURE & IDENTITY 11th Annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Symposium Sponsored by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures’ Graduate Student Committee at Purdue University Saturday, March 5, 2011 We welcome submissions in all areas of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences including, but not limited to, foreign languages and literature, English, creative writing, linguistics, anthropology, psychology, cultural studies, the visual arts, theater, music, philosophy and history. Proceedings from the symposium will be published in an online format. KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Thomas Turino is a Professor of Music and Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Beginning in 1977 he conducted four years of fieldwork on indigenous and mestizo music in Peru resulting in the books Moving Away from Silence (1993, Chicago), and Music in the Andes (2007, Oxford) as well as numerous articles. In 1992, he began working in Zimbabwe to produce Na...

Attention Graduate Students! The deadline for the summer of 2011's graduate student research fellowship application is Friday, January 14, 2011. For details regarding eligibility requirements, application procedures, and the required cover page to be appended to any submitted proposals, please visit the “Graduate Student Summer Research Fellowship” found on the Graduate Studies website at: http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/artsci/graduate/currentstudents/researchfellowship.html If you have a scholarly project for which you would like summer support, please discuss this with a faculty member in your program who will be willing to formally sponsor your effort.

March 24-26 2011 University of Michigan- Ann Arbor Fun & Games Keynote speaker: Glenda Carpio Professor of English & African and African American Studies Harvard University Author of "Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery" From childhood play to the Olympic games, "fun and games" have a large role in cultures around the world. Yet, until recently, they have garnered little scholarly attention. In the past decade or so, a variety of disciplines have begun to pay closer attention to the cultural importance of sports, amusement parks, and other instances of fun and games in the public sphere. In the humanities, scholars have begun to theorize (the) play and humor in (of) literature and the arts. New Media Studies has triggered some new directions in these conversations. This conference aims to be a forum for exploring interdisciplinary instances of and reflections on humor, laughter, play, and diversion. Some of the questions ...

Sarah Lawrence College Bronxville, New York March 4-5, 2011 Keynote Speaker: Marilyn Wann, Fat Activist and Author of "Fat!So?" Also featuring: Susan Schweik, Author of The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public When it comes to “the body,” the definition of normal is fluid and changes across cultures and time. In each context, there are those who have been exploited and oppressed because they do not fit prevailing notions of beauty. This conference will explore the body politics around those with “deviant” bodies. This conference will address these and other questions: What are the dominant narratives and perceptions about beauty and bodies? How do these perceptions affect public policy around issues of health, civil rights, education, and accessibility? How do those whose bodies do not fit into the “proper” cultural norms challenge attitudes, laws and perceptions? How have they negotiated for and found power in unwelcoming environments, both now and in the past? How d...

March 18-19, 2011 The Duquesne University English Graduate Organization welcomes proposals of academic papers from the humanities, arts, and sciences, as well as submissions of creative work. Our aim is to establish a space of intellectual inquiry in which scholars can explore the phenomenon of echoes as they reach across disciplines, genres, genders, religions, cultures, places, time periods, races, and classes. Possible questions include, but are not limited to: * How are echoes embodied and performed across the boundaries of gender, race, and class? * How do the arts echo other disciplines? * In what ways do collective memories of political bodies rely on or transform echoes of the past? * How do texts and art echo performances of identity? * In what ways is classical myth echoed in modern literature? * In what ways do colonial or imperial endeavors echo throughout the literature, visual / performing arts, or cultural practices of post-colonial cultures? * How do the...

This is the 19th Annual 18th- and 19th-Century British Women Writers Conference The Ohio State University Columbus, OH Website: http://bwwc2011.osu.edu "Curiosities" March 31- April 3, 2011 Call for Papers: The theme for this year’s conference is “Curiosities.” We encourage submissions that consider how the concept of curiosity—in its dual meaning of intellectual pursuit and particular material objects—influenced the lives and work of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women writers, and continues to drive our scholarship today. We welcome interdisciplinary approaches to this topic, and are especially interested in both the ways in which women of this period expressed curiosity about their world through science, politics, philosophy, travel, religion, and art, and the ways in which these same questing, curious women became the subjects and objects of inquiry themselves. Proposals for panels and individual papers might consider, but are not limited to, t...

Fall 2010 Issue of Anamesa blur boundaries, re-imagine links, explore the between Anamesa is a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal of graduate student writing and art based at New York University. Graduate students across all disciplines are encouraged to send in writing (including but not limited to academic essays, creative non-fiction, reportage, interviews, reviews, short stories, poetry, and other unclassifiable prose creations) and art of all sorts (such as photography, drawings, paintings, film stills, posters, prints, etc.). Anamesa considers material from diverse subject matter, and publishes creative and intelligent works that exemplify the transdisciplinary spirit of the graduate community. Submission guidelines for papers: Include complete paper (up to 6000 words), abstract (up to 200 words), and cover sheet. Academic papers must adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style. All paper submissions—both non-fiction and fiction—are blind-reviewed so there should be no auth...

CALL FOR PAPERS The Geis Student Research on Women Conference invites submissions by students attending institutions in the Greater Philadelphia Women's Studies Consortium who have done research on women or gender issues. To Submit a Paper: Send cover sheet, self-addressed envelope, and paper to: Geis Student Research on Women Conference Women's Studies Program 34 W. Delaware Ave. University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 or fax to: 302 831-4341 Please include a cover sheet with the following information:  your name  the title of your paper  the academic area of your paper (humanities, social sciences, or natural sciences)  your division (undergraduate or graduate) at the time the paper was completed  your contact information (mailing address, phone number, and email address)  institution in which you are currently enrolled (you must still be a student)  name of the faculty member for whose class you wrote the paper or who advised you during your research and his/her conta...

This is a Graduate Conference hosted by the Department of English at University of Rhode Island on Saturday, April 24, 2010. The Keynote Speaker is Dr. Rey Chow, Anne Firor Scott Professor of Literature in Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Duke University, and author of several books, including Woman and Chinese Modernity (1991), Writing Diaspora (1993), Ethics After Idealism (1998), and Sentimental Fabulations, Contemporary Chinese Films (2007) The phrase “carried across” constructs a picture that requires several elements: the Act of transference, conveyance, or carriage itself; the agent of this action(the carrier); the Subject or Object of this action (the carried); and the Medium or Threshold across which this act occurs, succeeds, or fails. How might consideration of “translations,” “temporalities,” and “trajectories” aid in investigating these interactive elements? How might this assemblage of concepts help us plot our own courses and our own researches of and across tim...

The Radical Philosophy Association Conference Program Committee invites submissions of talks, papers, workshops, roundtables discussions, posters and other kinds of conference contributions, for its ninth biennial conference, to be held at University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon on November 11-14, 2010. We invite submissions that answer questions about the nature of violence and its role in our social world. What is violence? What kinds of violence are there? How do systems of oppression perpetuate or institute violence? What role does violence play in human psychology and social structures? How do we represent violence and what do these representations make possible or impossible? Is non-violence a form of violence? Is revolutionary violence legitimate? Under what conditions is it legitimate? Does the recourse to violence for political ends perpetuate the cycles of violence? What are the differences between violence and political power? Does the birth of the new social order require ...

Faulkner and Print Culture: Papers exploring print culture’s impact on Faulkner and/or his impact on it. Aspects of the editing, design, production, publication, marketing, and reception of Faulkner’s writings. Faulkner’s place in the history of the book, the magazine, the book club. Inquiries, 300-500-word abstracts, or panel proposals to Jay Watson (jwatson@olemiss.edu) by 1 March 2010. Imagining the Animal in Faulkner: Papers exploring the environmental, social, cultural, economic, political, or narrative significance of nonhuman animals in Faulkner’s works. Questions of agency, subjectivity, power, violence, wildness, domestication, consumption, ethics, justice, rights. Interactions between and within nonhuman species. Inquiries, 300-500-word abstracts, or panel proposals to Jay Watson (jwatson@olemiss.edu) by 1 March 2010.

Summer fellowships to support graduate student research and scholarship are available every year from the Dean of Graduate Studies. Graduate students in any program in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are eligible to apply for this fellowship. Awards of summer stipends for $1000 (1 month) or $2000 (two months) are granted on a competitive basis. The deadline for applications is January 15 for research or other scholarly activity to take place during June/July/August. If you have a scholarly project for which you would like summer support, please discuss this with a faculty member in your program who will be willing to formally sponsor your effort.