War is Hell - Call for Papers at McGill

“Writing War”: Literary Explorations of Conflict
McGill University, Montréal
14th Annual Graduate Conference on Language and Literature
March 28-30, 2008

The English Graduate Students Association of McGill University is pleased to announce its 14th annual Graduate Conference on Language and Literature, and is seeking papers on the theme “‘Writing War’: Literary Explorations of Conflict”. The conference will be held in Montréal, Canada, on March 28 - 30, 2008.

GENERAL CALL FOR PAPERS:

The conference title, “Writing War”, is taken from Margot Norris’s book Writing War in the Twentieth Century (Charlottesville, VA: UP of Virginia, 2000), in which the author explores the failure of twentieth century literature to put an end to the global conflicts that continued
even after the end of the Cold War. Now well into the twenty-first century, where global conflict abounds, the question “to what end do we write war?” continues to be asked of academics and the public alike. With this question in mind, the conference seeks to understand and reconcile the many roles of war literature: as historical documentation, memorialization, propaganda, and even as an expression of agency. Although Norris’s book focuses on twentieth century literature, we invite and encourage papers about writing as early as Beowulf, on a broad array of topics relating to war and literature.

Possible topics include:

- militarism in literature
- literature as propaganda
- mythic battles
- war and the construction/representation of gender
- war and the representation of personhood
- the representation of war in science-fiction
- literature as commemoration or memorialization
- women and war
- narratives of the homefront
- narratives of shell-shock and other trauma
- artistic reactions to war
- epic as genre
- wartime ephemera as literary text
- testimonials, archives, and/or diary writing as documents of war
- war literature as nation-building project
- reportage of war
- recuperation of lost voices through war literature
- the ethics of writing war

Please send proposals (300 words) for the General Call for Papers via
email to either Michèle at michele.rackham_at_mail.mcgill.ca
or Caroline at caroline.krzakowski_at_mail.mcgill.ca by January 15, 2008.

Another Call for Papers -

Submissions for a Conference on the Future or Rhetoric and Composition at Hofstra University are due January 10, 2008.

You can view a video of Prof. Hesse's 2005 presentation here.

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“Who Owns Writing? Revisited

October 16–18, 2008

A Conference on the Future of Rhetoric and Composition at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

In his 2005 CCCC plenary address, Douglas Hesse asked “Who owns writing?” noting that ownership comprises both control and responsibility. In revisiting this question, we invite participants to consider what our discipline might aspire to own and on what terms. Given the redefinition of the nature of writing instruction in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and Writing in the Disciplines (WID) programs, the growing number of free-standing writing programs, and widespread national and institutional changes in liberal arts education, we want to consider what writing instruction and programs might look like in the near and distant
future. For this conference we seek individual papers and panels that address issues of pedagogical practices, research methodologies in the disciplines, changes in institutional structures and other matters pertinent to the future of the teaching of writing in higher education.

Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words and a curriculum vitae to the address listed below. If you are submitting a full panel, please include an abstract and CV for each member of the panel. Panels should not have more than four speakers.

The Joseph G. Astman Distinguished Conference Scholar and Keynote
Speaker:

Professor Douglas Hesse
Director, Marisco Writing Program and Professor of English, University of
Denver

Please submit paper/panel proposals by January 10, 2008 to:

Professor Ethna Lay
Professor Jennifer Rich
Hofstra University
Department of English and Freshman Composition
204 Mason Hall
124 Hofstra University
Hempstead, New York 11549-1240

Electronic submissions may be sent to: whoownswriting@hofstra.edu

Call for Papers: PCEA 2008 Annual Conference

The Pennsylvania College English Association is hosting a conference in April on American literature with an added bonus: a Best Paper Student Competition. Details follow. Note that it is required that those who submit are required to join PCEA, but don't let that dismay you, as dues are only $10 for a student membership. Visit their website to join.

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Pennsylvania College English Association (PCEA)
2008 Annual Conference
April 10-12, 2008
Ramada Inn and Conference Center
1450 South Atherton Street
State College, PA 16801
(814) 238-3001
Room rate: $76 plus tax

Celebrating American Literature

PCEA invites faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and independent scholars and writers to submit abstracts of 300 words or less proposing a panel or individual presentation. While this year’s conference theme celebrates American literature (honoring Fred Lewis Pattee, Penn State English Professor, who helped establish American literature as a field worthy of study in its own right), proposals in any area of literary, film, and composition studies are welcome. Both pedagogical and theoretical proposals are encouraged, as are proposals to present original creative writing. To preserve time for discussion, PCEA limits all presentations to 15 minutes. Presenters must join PCEA in order to participate.

Student Contest

Graduate and undergraduate students are invited to compete for the Best Paper Award, which is given by PCEA in three categories—critical, creative poetry, creative prose—and carries a small monetary prize. Students who compete must be PCEA members. Award winners will be considered for publication in PCEA's journal, Pennsylvania English.

To compete, submit 3 copies of the completed work by regular mail no later than February 1, 2008, to Ms. Jackie Atkins, at the address below. The student's name should be removed from the work; a cover sheet with the student's name, educational affiliation, year in school or graduate student level (master's or doctoral candidate), and contact information should be
included.

Submissions of critical work should be the equivalent of a conference paper, including notes and works cited. For creative work, submit 10-15 pages of double-spaced prose (fiction or creative nonfiction) or 4-6 poems. No mixed genre submissions, please. Students who wish to present their work at the conference must submit separately. Faculty members of PCEA are asked to encourage students who have written strong critical or creative work to
submit to the contest and/or the conference.

Submission

Please include your name, affiliation (if any), address, phone number, e-mail address, proposal title, AV needs, and any special needs. Send this information and your abstract to:

Ms. Jackie Atkins
Penn State DuBois
301 E. DuBois Ave.
DuBois, PA 15801
jkatkins@psu.edu (preferred)

Students should keep in mind that they must submit their work for the contest separately and via regular mail as discussed above.

Deadline

February 1, 2008

Keynote Speaker

William Heyen, Professor Emeritus at SUNY Brockport; author of The Swastika Poems, Hummingbird Corporation: Stories, and many other works of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; National Book Award finalist

For additional information, visit the PCEA website at
http://www.english.iup.edu/pcea/.

Yet another contest - $50

The Brooklyn College Division of Student Affairs is offering a drawing for simply responding to a question. By e-mail. Couldn't be easier, huh?

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Respond and you will be entered into a drawing for prizes worth up to $50 each. Three winners will be chosen.

If you could improve or add something to student life at BC, what would it be and how do you think it could be done?

E-mail your response to studentaffairs@brooklyn.cuny.edu by Thursday, December 13, 2007.

Brooklyn College Library Contest -- Win $500

You only have a few days left to enter the Brooklyn College Library Contest. First prize is $500! Details below.

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To celebrate the debut of its online art catalogue, http://library.brooklyn.cuny.edu/art/index.html the Brooklyn College Library is sponsoring a contest with a $500 award. Enter the contest by submitting a response to any work(s) of art in the Brooklyn College Library. The award, endowed by Maria and Archie Rand, will be given to the creator(s) of one exceptional response.

1. The prize is open to all Brooklyn College undergraduate and graduate students who possess a valid ID. The prize is $500.

2. Each person may submit only one entry.

3. Submissions may be presented in any medium: essays, poems, short stories, musical compositions, films, photographs, and art work (still or moving) are all welcome.

4. Entries that can be submitted electronically should be emailed to Professor Miriam Deutch, miriamd@brooklyn.cuny.edu. Entries that cannot be submitted electronically should be Room 412 in the Library between 9am and 5pm, Monday-Friday.

5. The student's name, telephone number, address and e-mail should be on a separate page and attached to the work. Joint submissions should include this information for each person. If a joint submission is awarded the prize, the prize money will be paid in equal portions to each of the persons listed on the information sheet attached to the submitted entry.

6. All entries must be received by December 10, 2007.

7. The judges' decision is final.

8. Works will be judged by a panel of professors from the Library, Art, Music, and English Departments. A judge will recuse himself/herself if an entrant is enrolled in his/her classes.

9.The award will be announced in February 2008.