CFP The Historical Imagination in American Literature (9/15/2022; ALA Symposium Santa Fe 10/27-29/2022)

The Historical Imagination in American Literature

source: https://americanliteratureassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2022-Santa-Fe-cfp-Historical-Imagination.pdf

October 27-29, 2022

Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe

828 Paseo de Peralta

Santa Fe, NM 87501

Conference Director: Olivia Carr Edenfield, Georgia Southern University

Keynote Speaker: Deborah Clarke, Arizona State University

Conference Fee: $175

For our 2022 Fall Symposium, the American Literature Association will return to beautiful Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Drury Plaza Hotel offers excellent rates and is perfectly located near the central plaza. Single and double rooms will be available for $135 a night plus taxes. This rate includes not only a free breakfast and wireless access, but also a “kickback” every evening at 5:30, featuring hot food and cold drinks. Valet parking will be $10 per night.

The Historical Imagination in American Literature: What does it mean to envision and embody history in American writing? How does a “usable past” shape our fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction? What philosophical, psychological, and political factors shape how writers look at a moment of time? How do regional differences shape our historical perspectives? How do race, class, and gender influence the perception and presentation of historical realities? How important is the historical novel to our culture? How do the alternate histories of speculative fiction transform our understanding of time? These and other related questions should provide for a lively weekend of literary exploration and good conversation. We welcome proposals for individual papers, complete panels, and roundtable discussions on any aspect of this important subject.

Please send all proposals to the Conference Director at carr@georgiasouthern.edu as soon as possible and no later than September 15, 2022.

Conference Details: Sessions run Friday and Saturday, October 28-29, 2022. There will be an opening event and welcoming reception on Thursday evening, October 27. The Conference Fee of $175 includes a luncheon as well as receptions.

Individuals may propose papers, panels, or roundtables by emailing the Conference Director, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield (carr@georgiasouthern.edu) no later than September 15, 2022, and preferably earlier. The proposal should include the title of the presentation or panel, an abstract that provides a clear idea of the material that will be covered, a brief vita or description of the presenter’s qualifications, and the email addresses for all participants. The proposal should be both pasted into an email and sent as an attachment (preferably in WORD). All emails will be acknowledged in a timely manner.

Those proposing papers and/or panels will be informed of acceptances by September 20, and hotel reservations will need to be made before September 25. Participants will be asked to make their hotel reservations immediately and to pay the conference fee by pre-registering on-line by October 15. A program will be placed on the ALA website prior to our meeting, and printed programs will be available at the symposium.

ALA Guidelines: The most common ALA format is a time slot of one hour and twenty minutes with three papers and a chair. This permits time for discussion and three papers of approximately 20 minutes (or nine typed double-spaced pages). Organizers of panels are free to use other formats provided they respect the time limits. Furthermore, the ALA encourages panel organizers to experiment with innovative formats including discussion groups and panels featuring more speakers and briefer papers. Chairs will make sure that the panels start and end on time and that no speaker goes beyond the allotted time limit. We prefer that chairs not present papers on the panels that they are moderating, and no one may present more than one paper at an ALA symposium.

AV: Please note that we are not able to provide AV at this symposium.

Conference Registration: The conference fee of $175 covers the costs of the conference. We require all of those who are on the program to pre-register by October 15, 2022. Please see the website for the on-line registration link. If you wish to pay by check, you may find the mail-in registration form on our website. The conference fee is $175 for all participants. We regret that we are unable to offer a lower rate for graduate students and independent scholars. If you have a question or concern regarding registration, please contact Olivia Carr Edenfield, Director of the ALA, at carr@georgiasouthern.edu. 

ALA Membership: Membership in the ALA is not required in order to propose or present a paper. In fact, technically the members of the American Literature Association are the various author societies. Individuals may keep informed about the activities of the ALA, including our symposia and conferences, by checking our website (www.americanliteratureassociation.org).

Please note that the American Literature Association maintains the lowest conference fees of any major scholarly organization because it operates without a paid staff. If you have any questions that are not answered by this announcement, please contact the Conference Director, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield, Director of the ALA, at carr@georgiasouthern.edu.

Thank you for your interest and your support of the American Literature Association.

CFP ARISTEIA: The Journal of Myth, Literature, and Culture (Spec. Issue on Myth, Deep Time, Extinction, Survival) (5/15/2022)

ARISTEIA: The Journal of Myth, Literature, and Culture

Special Issue on Myth, Deep Time, Extinction, Survival

deadline for submissions: May 15, 2022

full name / name of organization: 

Michael T. Williamson / Indiana University of Pennsylvania

contact email: mtwill@iup.edu

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2021/09/23/aristeia-the-journal-of-myth-literature-and-culture-special-issue-on-myth-deep-time

Call for Papers for ARISTEIA: The Journal of Myth, Literature, and Culture

Myth, Deep Time, Extinction, Survival

ARISTEIA: The Journal of Myth, Literature, and Culture returns after a twenty-year hiatus. This peer-reviewed print journal is now published under the auspices of the Dessy-Roffman Myth Collaborative at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. For our first issue, we invite scholarly essays of 5,000-7,000 words, poems of any length (including epic poems), and short stories of no more than 4,000 words. This issue’s theme encourages contributors to explore the relationship between Myth, “Deep Time” (geological time, metaphysical time, cosmological time, etc.), Extinction, and Survival. Please send preliminary abstracts of 500 words by December 10, 2021 or completed essays, poems or stories to Dr. Michael Williamson (mtwill@iup.edu) and Allen Shull (mrhcc@iup.edu) by May 15, 2022.

Myth can give us hope, existential strength, and the courage to face adversity. It can bring people and communities together. Weaving together (aspirational and/or inspiring) tales from our various mythological traditions, we can sustain ourselves in times of plenty and in times of scarcity. Myth attests to disasters as well as creations, and it beckons us, often uncertainly, towards forms of transcendence and plenitude that challenge our conceptions of what it means to be human.  Recent studies on geology, literature, and culture, for instance, reinforce the role that mythological thinking plays in shaping our expectations regarding catastrophe and continuity. David Sepkoski’s recent examination of how geological thinking affects culture, Catastrophic Thinking, for example, explores “the recognition that extinction is a ubiquitous, even commonplace phenomenon represents a profound shift in scientific and cultural awareness of the tenuousness of life and the balance of nature that has taken place over the past two hundred years” (17). Embracing and enriching diversity may seem to be a solution, but “but we also struggle with what diversity is and what it means” (16). As one of the most primary cultural artifacts of the human imagination, myth activates ideas about time, extinction, and diversity. How do we regard the death of plants and animals in catastrophic climate change, and how do we react to extinctions in the past, even the deep past? How do we deal with social extinctions, whether language death, erosion of the middle class and social mobility, or loss of traditional cultures and folkways? Do we mourn losses or celebrate amalgamations?  Our editorial board encourages scholarly research and creative writing that engages with these questions.

Subjects to Consider:

• Literary and cultural conception of extinction of species, family, language
• Literary and cultural conception of diversity in species and in cultures
• Literary and cultural conception of feuds, aristocratic extinction, or changing ways of life
• The literary and cultural conception of future extinctions and diversifications
• Literary genres and artistic branches as sites for extinction and diversification
• Language preservation, evolution, convergence, death, preservation, revival, reconstruction, and artificial construction
• Literary and cultural conception of catastrophe: loss, rescue, abandonment, and exile
• Literary and cultural conception of cross-temporal connections: immortality, time travel, preservation, rediscovery

Scholarly essays on all periods of literary and cultural history are welcome, but this issue especially welcomes works related to Mythology and Science Fiction, Mysticism, and literature and cultural objects from historical times of stress such as the plagues, revolutions, and natural disasters. Poems and short stories should address the theme of this cfp in a clear way.

Please direct inquiries to Dr. Michael T. Williamson (mtwill@iup.edu) and Allen Shull (mrhcc@iup.edu) For more information on the Dessy-Roffman Myth Collaborative visit https://www.iup.edu/news-item.aspx?id=294439&blogid=6121

Last updated September 24, 2021