Subject
The New Modernisms Conference Update (fwd)
From
Date
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From: Marianne Cotugno <mxc52@psu.edu>
Dear Colleagues:
I send the following update to our list because I hope some of you are
interested in learning more about the Modernist Studies Association and
our first conference.
I am involved in the organization of this conference, and I am eager to
see some fellow Nabokovians here at PSU in October 1999.
If you are not on our mailing list, please email me privately and I will
add you to our list.
Also I am contemplating organizing a panel on Nabokov (focus as yet
undecided) or a broader panel involving exile writers and their sense of
place, space, and/or landscape. If you are interested in hearing more
about my ideas and sharing your own, please send me a note.
The announcement follows. Thank you for your patience and attention.
-Marianne
-------
On behalf of the program
committee, I'm writing to inform you that the conference offers two
alternative forms of participation 1) panels, as described in the
postcard
and 2) seminars, small group discussions based on brief papers that
participants submit in advance of the conference. This announcement lays
out the procedure both for submitting proposals for panels and for
registering for one of the sixteen available seminars listed below.
We begin by presenting a list of the plenaries and special sessions
appearing at the conference. As plans develop, one or two additional
plenary sessions may be posted on our website
<http//www.psu.edu/dept/english/MSA/msa.htm> and will appear in our
full brochure (still in production).
_______________________________________________________________________________
The New Modernisms
The Inaugural Conference of the Modernist Studies Association
October 7-10, 1999
The Nittany Lion Inn
State College, Pennsylvania
About the Conference
The recently founded Modernist Studies Association is devoted to
the study of the arts in their social, political, cultural, and
intellectual contexts from the late nineteenth century through the
mid-twentieth century. The organization aims to develop an
international and interdisciplinary forum to promote exchange among
scholars in this revitalized and rapidly changing field.
The conference will feature three kinds of organized discussion 1)
plenary
sessions, each with two invited speakers and a respondent; 2) seminars,
small group discussions (maximum of 15) based on brief essays which the
participants submit in advance; and 3) panels, each with a chair and
three
20-minute presentations. The design of the conference should allow each
participant to attend the plenary sessions and participate in a seminar
and/or a panel.
Plenary Sessions
"Modernism, Race, and Nation" Peter Nicholls (University of Sussex),
Houston Baker (Duke University), and respondent Kathryne Lindberg (Wayne
State
University)
"Modernism, Feminist Criticism and Identity Politics" Susan Stanford
Friedman (University of Wisconsin--Madison), Rachel Blau DuPlessis
(Temple
University), and repondent Bonnie Kime Scott (University of Delaware)
"Literary Modernism and the Visual Arts" Charles Altieri (University of
California--Berkeley), Philip Weinstein (Swarthmore College), and
respondent
Wendy Steiner (University of Pennsylvania)
Special Sessions
The program committee has arranged special sessions on:
Modernism and "Redefining Modernity" (Rita Felski, University of
Virgina); Modern Art
(Patricia Leighten, Duke University);
"Middlebrow" Culture (Ann Ardis, University of Delaware);
The Marketing of Modernism (Mark Morrisson, Pennsylvania State
University--University Park);
The Editing of Modernist Texts (Robin Schulze, Pennsylvania State
University--University Park);
Modernism, Science, and Technology (Susan Squier, Pennsylania State
University--University Park);
Modernism and Post-Colonialism (Guari Viswanathan, Columbia University);
and
The London Literary Scene, 1911-1916 (Caroline Zilboorg, Cambridge
University)
Call for Panel Proposals and Seminar Registration
Individuals may submit a ranked list of two or three seminars and/or a
proposal for a panel. Since we can accept only a limited number of
panel proposals, we encourage all prospective participants to consider
participation in one of the sixteen seminars listed below. Seminar
assignments will be made on a first come/first served basis, beginning
now
and extending to August 1st the sooner you submit your selections, the
better your chance of receiving your first choice.
If you choose to submit a proposal for a panel, we encourage you to
register for seminars at the same time. If your panel proposal is not
accepted, you are still guaranteed a place in one of the seminars. If
your proposal is accepted, you still have the option of participating
in a seminar. The deadline for submitting panel proposals is June 1st.
The program committee will notify those who have submitted proposals by
June 30th.
Seminars
Seminars are small group discussions (maximum of 15) based on
brief papers (5-10 pages) that the participants submit in advance of
the meeting. Seminars are an attractive feature of many professional
conferences. They offer participants with related interests an
opportunity to meet and to engage in a conversation that may extend
beyond the conference itself. We strongly encourage registrants to
consider participation in a seminar either as a desirable alternative
to, or in addition to, their participation on a panel. All registrants
are guaranteed a place in a seminar, and will be sent a letter
confirming their presence on the program. As far as travel funds are
concerned, academic institutions usually regard participation in a
seminar as equivalent to participation on a panel.
The program committee has organized the following seminars
1. Modernism and Popular Culture
David Chinitz (Loyola University--Chicago)
Interaction or collision of the "high" and the "low" in modernism.
How, for example, did popular culture enter modernist consciousness
and artistic practice, either individually or collectively?
2. Modernist Irony
Kevin Dettmar (Clemson University)
The aesthetics and politics of modernism collide head-on in modernist
irony. We will consider the structural irony of fiction by Joyce,
Conrad,
Woolf, &/or others.
3. Modernism and the Victorians
Mary Ellis Gibson (University of North Carolina--Greensboro) and
Cassandra Laity (Drew University) with Carol Christ (University of
California-Berkeley and Jessica Feldman (University of
Virginia--Charlottesville)
How did modernists create narratives of artistic inheritance,
reflecting or diverging from their predecessors? How did gender
sexuality
and changes in publishing and distributing art shape these narratives?
4. Provincial to European Constructing British Modernisms
Nancy Gish (University of Southern Maine--Portland) with Romana Huk
(University of New Hampshire) and Frances Charles McGrath (University of
Southern Maine-Portland)
How has political and poetic devolution in contemporary Britain
challenged, displaced, or reconceptualized "English Literary Modernism"
constructed as Eliot's continuation of "the mind of Europe?"
5. New Approaches to the Harlem Renaissance
Robert von Hallberg (University of Chicago)
[25-word description still pending. See the website for an update.]
6. Modernity, Gender and Pan-Africanism
Cyraina Johnson (University of Notre Dame)
This seminar invites papers addressing the relation between modernity
and Pan-Africanism, as seen through the prism of the late 19th- and
early 20th-century constructions of race and gender.
7. Modern and Contemporary Women Poets
Linda A. Kinnahan (Duquesne University) with Lynn Keller (University of
Wisconsin-Madison)
This seminar invites papers exploring how contemporary women's poetry
is connected to/affected by/read in relation to the continuing recovery
and (re)reading of women modernist poets.
8. Modernism and Queer Theory
Colleen Lamos (Rice University) with Diana Collecott (University of
Durham, UK) and Lisa Rado (Cranbrook Academy)
What is the relation between modernist aesthetics and the emergent
psycho-medical discourse on homosexuality? How does queer theory alter
our
understanding of modern literature?
9. Modernism and Pedagogy
Gail McDonald (University of North Carolina--Greensboro)
Theoretical and practical approaches to modernist texts in the
classroom issues of difficulty, allusiveness, and cultural
"capital." What can pedagogy reveal about the assumptions and
aesthetics of modernist experimentation in fiction, poetry, and the
other arts?
10. Recontextualizations of Modernism
Michael North (University of California--Los Angeles)
[25-word description still pending. See website for an update.]
11. Modernism and the Jewish Writer
Alicia Ostriker (Rutgers University)
Discussions of modernism in Jewish poetry and fiction, in terms either
of formal experiment, or thematic concerns such as the immigrant
experience, the Great War, changing gender roles.
12. Modernism and Post-Colonialism
Leonard Orr (Washington State University)
What is the impact of post-colonial theory on modernist studies? How
do
modernist texts represent double consciousness, syncretism, and the
trauma
of diaspora?
13. Modernism and Politics
Stan Smith (Notthingham-Trent University)
The modernism of Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Wyndham Lewis, Lawrence, etc.
seems inextricably linked with a right-wing authoritarian, hierarchical,
and masculine politics. Is the conjuncture merely coincidental, or are
there deep structural reasons for the link?
14. Modernism and the Law
Robert Spoo (University of Tulsa)
This seminar will consider authors in various legal contexts,
including
(but not limited to) obscenity laws, customs and postal regulations,
passport restrictions, copyright and libel laws.
15. Modernism and the Occult
Leon Surette (University of Western Ontario) with Peter Dale (University
of California-Berkeley), Timothy Materer (University of Missouri), and
Demetres Tryphonopoulos (University of New Brunswick, Canada)
Papers of a critical and scholarly nature are invited on occult
topics
in modern poetry or fiction and/or occult writers. By "occult" we mean a
hidden ("occult") tradition of religious belief, or secret ritual
practice. Secret societies are a different category.
16. Modernism and the Canon
Keith Tuma (Miami University, Ohio)
This seminar will explore how we might represent British modernist
literature in a post-national and post-canonical American academy in
which the once-privileged position of "British" literature is
increasingly
a thing of the past.
Seminar assignments will be made on a firstcome/first served basis
beginning now and extending to August 1st.
Please submit a ranked list of two or three seminars to
Sanford Schwartz
Department of English
The Pennsylvania State University
116 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802-6200
Fax (814)863-7285
E-Mail sxs8@psu.edu
Once the assignments are completed, each seminar leader will contact the
other members of the group and set a precise timetable for the exchange
of
materials. The general guidelines are as follows around mid-July, each
participant sends a one-page precis to all other participants in the
seminar; around the beginning of September, each participant sends
his or her essay to all other participants.
Panels
The program committee welcomes proposals for panels, though only
a limited number can be accepted. The committee is especially
interested in interdisciplinary topics. Please include the following
your name, session title, professional affiliation, mailing address,
phone number, fax, and e-mail address, the names and affiliations of
the other members of your session, a 250-word abstract on the topic of
the
proposed session.
Send proposals postmarked, faxed, or E-mailed by June 15th to
Sanford Schwartz
Department of English
The Pennsylvania State University
116 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802-6200
Fax (814)863-7285
E-Mail sxs8@psu.edu
The program committee will notify those who have submitted proposals by
June 30th.
_________
The program committee looks forward to using an already established
listserve for future announcements. If you are not currently subscribed
to this listserve, please email Marianne Cotugno mxc52@psu.edu if you
wish to subscribe.
Dear Colleagues:
I send the following update to our list because I hope some of you are
interested in learning more about the Modernist Studies Association and
our first conference.
I am involved in the organization of this conference, and I am eager to
see some fellow Nabokovians here at PSU in October 1999.
If you are not on our mailing list, please email me privately and I will
add you to our list.
Also I am contemplating organizing a panel on Nabokov (focus as yet
undecided) or a broader panel involving exile writers and their sense of
place, space, and/or landscape. If you are interested in hearing more
about my ideas and sharing your own, please send me a note.
The announcement follows. Thank you for your patience and attention.
-Marianne
-------
On behalf of the program
committee, I'm writing to inform you that the conference offers two
alternative forms of participation 1) panels, as described in the
postcard
and 2) seminars, small group discussions based on brief papers that
participants submit in advance of the conference. This announcement lays
out the procedure both for submitting proposals for panels and for
registering for one of the sixteen available seminars listed below.
We begin by presenting a list of the plenaries and special sessions
appearing at the conference. As plans develop, one or two additional
plenary sessions may be posted on our website
<http//www.psu.edu/dept/english/MSA/msa.htm> and will appear in our
full brochure (still in production).
_______________________________________________________________________________
The New Modernisms
The Inaugural Conference of the Modernist Studies Association
October 7-10, 1999
The Nittany Lion Inn
State College, Pennsylvania
About the Conference
The recently founded Modernist Studies Association is devoted to
the study of the arts in their social, political, cultural, and
intellectual contexts from the late nineteenth century through the
mid-twentieth century. The organization aims to develop an
international and interdisciplinary forum to promote exchange among
scholars in this revitalized and rapidly changing field.
The conference will feature three kinds of organized discussion 1)
plenary
sessions, each with two invited speakers and a respondent; 2) seminars,
small group discussions (maximum of 15) based on brief essays which the
participants submit in advance; and 3) panels, each with a chair and
three
20-minute presentations. The design of the conference should allow each
participant to attend the plenary sessions and participate in a seminar
and/or a panel.
Plenary Sessions
"Modernism, Race, and Nation" Peter Nicholls (University of Sussex),
Houston Baker (Duke University), and respondent Kathryne Lindberg (Wayne
State
University)
"Modernism, Feminist Criticism and Identity Politics" Susan Stanford
Friedman (University of Wisconsin--Madison), Rachel Blau DuPlessis
(Temple
University), and repondent Bonnie Kime Scott (University of Delaware)
"Literary Modernism and the Visual Arts" Charles Altieri (University of
California--Berkeley), Philip Weinstein (Swarthmore College), and
respondent
Wendy Steiner (University of Pennsylvania)
Special Sessions
The program committee has arranged special sessions on:
Modernism and "Redefining Modernity" (Rita Felski, University of
Virgina); Modern Art
(Patricia Leighten, Duke University);
"Middlebrow" Culture (Ann Ardis, University of Delaware);
The Marketing of Modernism (Mark Morrisson, Pennsylvania State
University--University Park);
The Editing of Modernist Texts (Robin Schulze, Pennsylvania State
University--University Park);
Modernism, Science, and Technology (Susan Squier, Pennsylania State
University--University Park);
Modernism and Post-Colonialism (Guari Viswanathan, Columbia University);
and
The London Literary Scene, 1911-1916 (Caroline Zilboorg, Cambridge
University)
Call for Panel Proposals and Seminar Registration
Individuals may submit a ranked list of two or three seminars and/or a
proposal for a panel. Since we can accept only a limited number of
panel proposals, we encourage all prospective participants to consider
participation in one of the sixteen seminars listed below. Seminar
assignments will be made on a first come/first served basis, beginning
now
and extending to August 1st the sooner you submit your selections, the
better your chance of receiving your first choice.
If you choose to submit a proposal for a panel, we encourage you to
register for seminars at the same time. If your panel proposal is not
accepted, you are still guaranteed a place in one of the seminars. If
your proposal is accepted, you still have the option of participating
in a seminar. The deadline for submitting panel proposals is June 1st.
The program committee will notify those who have submitted proposals by
June 30th.
Seminars
Seminars are small group discussions (maximum of 15) based on
brief papers (5-10 pages) that the participants submit in advance of
the meeting. Seminars are an attractive feature of many professional
conferences. They offer participants with related interests an
opportunity to meet and to engage in a conversation that may extend
beyond the conference itself. We strongly encourage registrants to
consider participation in a seminar either as a desirable alternative
to, or in addition to, their participation on a panel. All registrants
are guaranteed a place in a seminar, and will be sent a letter
confirming their presence on the program. As far as travel funds are
concerned, academic institutions usually regard participation in a
seminar as equivalent to participation on a panel.
The program committee has organized the following seminars
1. Modernism and Popular Culture
David Chinitz (Loyola University--Chicago)
Interaction or collision of the "high" and the "low" in modernism.
How, for example, did popular culture enter modernist consciousness
and artistic practice, either individually or collectively?
2. Modernist Irony
Kevin Dettmar (Clemson University)
The aesthetics and politics of modernism collide head-on in modernist
irony. We will consider the structural irony of fiction by Joyce,
Conrad,
Woolf, &/or others.
3. Modernism and the Victorians
Mary Ellis Gibson (University of North Carolina--Greensboro) and
Cassandra Laity (Drew University) with Carol Christ (University of
California-Berkeley and Jessica Feldman (University of
Virginia--Charlottesville)
How did modernists create narratives of artistic inheritance,
reflecting or diverging from their predecessors? How did gender
sexuality
and changes in publishing and distributing art shape these narratives?
4. Provincial to European Constructing British Modernisms
Nancy Gish (University of Southern Maine--Portland) with Romana Huk
(University of New Hampshire) and Frances Charles McGrath (University of
Southern Maine-Portland)
How has political and poetic devolution in contemporary Britain
challenged, displaced, or reconceptualized "English Literary Modernism"
constructed as Eliot's continuation of "the mind of Europe?"
5. New Approaches to the Harlem Renaissance
Robert von Hallberg (University of Chicago)
[25-word description still pending. See the website for an update.]
6. Modernity, Gender and Pan-Africanism
Cyraina Johnson (University of Notre Dame)
This seminar invites papers addressing the relation between modernity
and Pan-Africanism, as seen through the prism of the late 19th- and
early 20th-century constructions of race and gender.
7. Modern and Contemporary Women Poets
Linda A. Kinnahan (Duquesne University) with Lynn Keller (University of
Wisconsin-Madison)
This seminar invites papers exploring how contemporary women's poetry
is connected to/affected by/read in relation to the continuing recovery
and (re)reading of women modernist poets.
8. Modernism and Queer Theory
Colleen Lamos (Rice University) with Diana Collecott (University of
Durham, UK) and Lisa Rado (Cranbrook Academy)
What is the relation between modernist aesthetics and the emergent
psycho-medical discourse on homosexuality? How does queer theory alter
our
understanding of modern literature?
9. Modernism and Pedagogy
Gail McDonald (University of North Carolina--Greensboro)
Theoretical and practical approaches to modernist texts in the
classroom issues of difficulty, allusiveness, and cultural
"capital." What can pedagogy reveal about the assumptions and
aesthetics of modernist experimentation in fiction, poetry, and the
other arts?
10. Recontextualizations of Modernism
Michael North (University of California--Los Angeles)
[25-word description still pending. See website for an update.]
11. Modernism and the Jewish Writer
Alicia Ostriker (Rutgers University)
Discussions of modernism in Jewish poetry and fiction, in terms either
of formal experiment, or thematic concerns such as the immigrant
experience, the Great War, changing gender roles.
12. Modernism and Post-Colonialism
Leonard Orr (Washington State University)
What is the impact of post-colonial theory on modernist studies? How
do
modernist texts represent double consciousness, syncretism, and the
trauma
of diaspora?
13. Modernism and Politics
Stan Smith (Notthingham-Trent University)
The modernism of Eliot, Pound, Yeats, Wyndham Lewis, Lawrence, etc.
seems inextricably linked with a right-wing authoritarian, hierarchical,
and masculine politics. Is the conjuncture merely coincidental, or are
there deep structural reasons for the link?
14. Modernism and the Law
Robert Spoo (University of Tulsa)
This seminar will consider authors in various legal contexts,
including
(but not limited to) obscenity laws, customs and postal regulations,
passport restrictions, copyright and libel laws.
15. Modernism and the Occult
Leon Surette (University of Western Ontario) with Peter Dale (University
of California-Berkeley), Timothy Materer (University of Missouri), and
Demetres Tryphonopoulos (University of New Brunswick, Canada)
Papers of a critical and scholarly nature are invited on occult
topics
in modern poetry or fiction and/or occult writers. By "occult" we mean a
hidden ("occult") tradition of religious belief, or secret ritual
practice. Secret societies are a different category.
16. Modernism and the Canon
Keith Tuma (Miami University, Ohio)
This seminar will explore how we might represent British modernist
literature in a post-national and post-canonical American academy in
which the once-privileged position of "British" literature is
increasingly
a thing of the past.
Seminar assignments will be made on a firstcome/first served basis
beginning now and extending to August 1st.
Please submit a ranked list of two or three seminars to
Sanford Schwartz
Department of English
The Pennsylvania State University
116 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802-6200
Fax (814)863-7285
E-Mail sxs8@psu.edu
Once the assignments are completed, each seminar leader will contact the
other members of the group and set a precise timetable for the exchange
of
materials. The general guidelines are as follows around mid-July, each
participant sends a one-page precis to all other participants in the
seminar; around the beginning of September, each participant sends
his or her essay to all other participants.
Panels
The program committee welcomes proposals for panels, though only
a limited number can be accepted. The committee is especially
interested in interdisciplinary topics. Please include the following
your name, session title, professional affiliation, mailing address,
phone number, fax, and e-mail address, the names and affiliations of
the other members of your session, a 250-word abstract on the topic of
the
proposed session.
Send proposals postmarked, faxed, or E-mailed by June 15th to
Sanford Schwartz
Department of English
The Pennsylvania State University
116 Burrowes Building
University Park, PA 16802-6200
Fax (814)863-7285
E-Mail sxs8@psu.edu
The program committee will notify those who have submitted proposals by
June 30th.
_________
The program committee looks forward to using an already established
listserve for future announcements. If you are not currently subscribed
to this listserve, please email Marianne Cotugno mxc52@psu.edu if you
wish to subscribe.