Call for Papers: EGSA Abstracts Due Friday!
Call for Papers:
(re)collections: Tracing Power and Community in Cultural Memory
English Graduate Student Association Symposium 2017
Date: Friday, February 24, 2017
Location: 219 Gelman Library (2130 H St NW, Washington, DC 20052)
Keynote Speaker: Samantha Pinto, Georgetown University
The English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) at George Washington University is excited to announce our 2017 symposium, (re)collections: Tracing Power and Community in Cultural Memory. (Re)collections hopes to explore the ways in which representation, community, and power collide. That is, how do societies represent themselves within their literature, art, and pop culture? How to they represent subaltern or minority groups, such as colonized, disabled, poor, racialized, or LGBTQ+ subjects? Where are the spaces where these non-dominant groups find ways to represent themselves? Papers might explore examples of a dominant culture’s suppression, representation, or celebration of non-dominant cultures. Inversely, they may also look at how outsiders within various communities position themselves within a larger – and potentially more powerful – group.
(Re)collections is also about time and history. What are the historical events, movements, and figures that get remembered and celebrated? What gets changed, condemned, or left out of literary and historical recollections? What are the forms of expression that are best suited for recollecting past events or people? Can theory of novels, poetry, or film help inform this question?
Finally, “collection” can also refer to an archive or canon. How does canon formation or exclusion of certain works from a canon or collection, impact literary criticism or historical debates? What role do the digital humanities or social media play within this dynamic?
The keynote address, “Infamous Bodies: Saartjie Baartman and Corrective Histories of Race,” will be delivered by Georgetown’s Samantha Pinto.
Papers may address (but are not limited to):
Outsider/Insider dynamics
Colonial dynamics
Critical race theory and representations of the Other
Representations of disability
Gender and surveillance
LGBTQ visibility
Representations of historical figures or celebrities
Cultural memory and historical events
Canon-formation
Digital Humanities and archives
Fame and popular imagination
Diasporic longing
Subaltern studies
Theories or depictions of the masses, multitude, crowds, etc
Please submit 300-500 word abstracts (for 15-20 minute papers) to EGSA2017@gmail.comby midnight on Friday, December 16th. Please include your name, institutional affiliation, and contact email in your proposal.
