Deadline for submissions: December 1, 2016

Full name / name of organization: John Wharton Lowe University of Georgia

contact email: jwlowe@uga.edu
CALL FOR PAPERS

Special Issue of SOUTHERN QUARTERLY on THE U.S. SOUTH AND THE CARIBBEAN
Guest Editor, John Wharton Lowe

Since the earliest days of the contact era, the CircumCaribbean has been the arena for multi-cultural contact and conflict. As the Spanish, English, French, and Dutch competed for new territories and trade routes, Native Americans of the basin were enslaved, infected with disease, and in many cases, exterminated. Early explorers such as De Soto and Ponce de Leon ranged widely through the islands and coastal rims; later, naturalists such as the Bartrams and Humboldt, mapped the region, noticed the affinities between flora and fauna, and saw the sea not as a barrier but a connector; the waters of the basin were increasingly criss-crossed with traders and pirates, as the riches of the new world were shipped to imperial centers in Europe; the mineral wealth was mined by captive Indians, many of whom succumbed to harsh labor regimes and imported diseases. The raw commodities of the CircumCaribbean were produced by millions of enslaved Africans, who brought important knowledge of agricultural production and rich African folkcultures to the islands and coastal rims. Sugar, cotton, coffee, rice, and indigo production brought incredible wealth to planters and created an intricate and cruelly structured plantation economy. As new states were created in the continental United States, ties between them and the Caribbean expanded exponentially, particularly with the advent of steam-driven vessels. French Louisiana and Spanish Florida were closer to cousin cultures in the Caribbean than to those of the adjacent English speaking colonies. Eventually, Louisiana came under Spanish domination and worked within the webbed circuits between Vera Cruz, Havana, and New Orleans.
The Haitian Revolution’s exiles brought new French and African impulses to New Orleans, while the Mexican American war introduced thousands of combat troops drawn from the U.S. South to the Native and Latino culture of Mexico. The addition of new states – most prominently Texas – to the U.S. created an expanded sense of the “South,” a regional concept that took on heft and new meaning as the nation began to grapple with the curse of slavery. Filibuster expeditions, usually departing from Gulf cities such as New Orleans and Mobile, sought to conquer islands and lands South of the South. Cuba in particular was coveted for both its fabled fertility and the prospect of adding it to the Southern contingent of slave-owning states, thereby adding senators and congressmen who could buttress slave economies in Congress.
In the early nineteenth century, and especially after the Civil War and Reconstruction, advances in technology created new business and political ties across national boundaries; the new tourist industry rapidly transformed economies of the islands and coastal rims, while enforced mono-crop agricultural played havoc with traditional patterns of CircumCaribbean rural life. CircumCaribbean writers such as Lorenzo de Zavala, José Teurbe Tolon, and José Martí, often spent time in the U.S., and drew on those experiences in their work. Writers of the nineteenth and twentieth century U.S. South, such as Martin Delany, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Lafcadio Hearn, Katherine Anne Porter, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Andrew Lytle, and Evelyn Scott created tales that intersected with more Southern cultures.
Revolutions in Mexico and Cuba spawned radical shifts in relations between the U.S. South and the wider Caribbean, and eventuated in the creation of a new Cuban domain in South Florida, the embargo against Castro’s regime, and the shifting of resources from Cuba to Florida and Puerto Rico. All of these periods and events generated fascinating narratives, both fictional and non-fictional. Many of the texts written in languages other than English have now been translated, enabling us to rethink the CircumCaribbean as a multi-nation construct that annuls national boundaries. As such, we need to reconfigure our notions of U.S. Southern history, the supposed isolation of island cultures, and the antiquated notion of a Confederacy-defined U.S. South.

Possible topics* include but are not limited to:

• Ties between French North America and the CircumCaribbean
• Ties between Spanish North America and the CircumCaribbean
• Foodways of the CircumCaribbean
• CircumCaribbean musical traditions
• African Religions of the U.S. South and the CircumCaribbean
• Southern reactions to the Haitian Revolution
• Haitian migration to Louisiana
• Native diasporas of the CircumCaribbean
• The African diaspora in CircumCaribbean context
• Plantation cultures and economies of the Americas
• Agricultural traditions of the CircumCaribbean (actual) and as reflected in literature
• Material cultures of the CircumCaribbean
• New studies of the U.S. South as part of the CircumCaribbean
• U.S. Southern writers and the Caribbean; Caribbean writers and the U.S. South
• Critical theory and CircumCaribbean literature
• Postcolonial approaches to CircumCaribbean cultures and history
• Asian immigration to the Caribbean
• Cuban American writers of the U.S. South
• Haitian American writers of the U.S. South
• Ecological implications of CircumCaribbean Studies
• The CircumCaribbean and public hygiene; disease; medical histories
• CircumCaribbean photography; journals; letters

*the term CircumCaribbean includes the coastal U.S. South, Caribbean islands, Eastern Mexico, Central America, and the north coast of South America.

Interested authors should send a 500-word chapter proposal to jwlowe@uga.edu by December 1st, 2016. Please note that the accepted abstract does not guarantee inclusion in the volume, which will also consider the quality of the finished chapter.

Deadline for submissions: January 25, 2017

Full name / name of organization: The Philip Roth Society

Contact email: mmckinle@harpercollege.edu
The Philip Roth Society invites papers for a panel entitled “Other People’s Roths” at the American Literature Association conference in Boston, MA from May 25-28, 2017.

In a 2014 article for The Atlantic entitled “Stop Making Film Adaptations of Philip Roth Novels,” Adam Chandler writes, “There is no aside or montage that could faithfully represent the laborious historical and psychological contexts that Roth devotes pages to developing.” Yet filmmakers have not been dissuaded: this past year, the film adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2008 novel Indignation was released to widespread critical acclaim, and in previous years, Hollywood has produced adaptations of Goodbye, Columbus, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Human Stain, The Dying Animal, The Humbling, and the early short story “Expect the Vandals.” In recent years, versions of Roth himself have also surfaced across a wide variety of media: filmmakers have included representations of Roth in movies (e.g. 2014’s Listen Up, Philip); novelists have embedded versions of Roth in their fiction (e.g. David Baddiel’s 2010 novel The Death of Eli Gold); biographers and documentary filmmakers have attempted to capture the “facts” of Roth’s life (e.g. Claudia Roth Pierpoint’s 2013 book Roth Unbound and the 2014 documentary Philip Roth Unleashed); and artists such as R.B.Kitaj and Bryan Zanisnik have produced illustrations of Roth and his work. “Other People’s Roths” (designed to correspond with a similarly focused forthcoming special issue of Philip Roth Studies) aims to address the various ways Philip Roth and his work have been represented by these and other writers, artists, and filmmakers. The Roth Society invites papers that examine how any such representations and translations have enriched, revised, and/or complicated understandings of Roth, his alter egos, and his fiction.

Proposals (not exceeding 300 words) for 15-20 minute papers should be emailed to the Roth Society Program Chair, Maggie McKinley, at mmckinle@harpercollege.edu by January 25, 2017. Please include institutional affiliation and full contact details. To present a paper as a part of a Roth Society panel, participants must be members of the Philip Roth Society in addition to registering for the conference. For membership information, please see the Society’s website at http://rothsociety.org.

Deadline for submissions: October 15, 2016

Full name / name of organization: American Academy of Religion–Western Region (AAR-WR), Religion in America.
Contact email: nfredrickson@umail.ucsb.edu

Scholars of American religion are well familiar with the problem that, in most standard narratives of American history, religion tends to play a minor and neglected role. A similar problem has been noted in the study of American literature. Scholars of American religions have worked to and may continue to help correct both of these problems. Along these lines, we invite paper proposals that think about, among other things, (1) how the history of American literature might be integrated with the history of American religions, not only as a reflection of religious developments, but as a source of American myths and religions (e.g., fictional narratives of America’s discovery, settlement, mission, calling, etc.), (2) how literature might be effectively used to teach about American religions, or (3) how literature is a site of and outlet for the American religious imagination, even for the invention of novel fictional religions (especially in science fiction and fantasy). Given the topic of our other target panel, perhaps also consider (4) fictional depictions of American religions with a Californian emphasis (esp. in Californian literature) or locus or fictional depictions of the racialized body in California-related religion/s. More broadly, given the theme of Religion, Race, and Racism, you might write on (5) how racialized narratives or figures in American literature have been used to sustain or even create racialized religions.
Please submit proposals to Dr. Jason S. Sexton at jsexton@fullerton.edu; Nathan Fredrickson at nfredrickson@umail.ucsb.edu; and Dr. Konden R. Smith at krsmith1@asu.edu.

Deadline for submissions: November 1, 2016.

Full name / name of organization: Southwest Popular / American Culture Association.

Contact email: shiggins@unm.edu
CFP: Poetry and Poetics (Critical)

Abstract/Proposals by 1 November 2016

For the Southwest Popular / American Culture Association’s 38th Annual Conference.

February 15 – 18, 2017

Hyatt Regency Albuquerque

330 Tijeras Ave NW

Albuquerque, NM 87102

1-888-421-1442 / 1-888-421-1442

Fax: (505) 843-2710

We are now forming panels for presentations of American poetry and poetics criticism at our 2017 conference. There are no limits in regard to historical period, topic, or theme, and we welcome panel proposals, especially those that include panelists from multiple institutions. Acceptances will ultimately depend on the availability of compatible presentations to form coherent panels.

If your research does not focus on poetry and poetics criticism but fits within the broad range of areas designated for the upcoming conference on American and Popular culture, we still encourage you to consult the conference website  for a list of Area Chairs and their calls for papers.

Poet-critics who may wish to participate in the readings panels should contact either Jerry Bradley (Area Chair of Creative Writing [Poetry, Fiction]) or Hugh Tribbey (Area Chair of Experimental Writing and Aesthetics), via the website.

Interested graduate students should consider applying for one of the available monetary awards; more information is available at http://southwestpca.org/conference/graduate-student-awards/

We will review proposals on a rolling basis until the 1 November deadline. Interested parties should apply at the conference database:

http:// conference2017.southwestpca.org/

Additionally, please visit http://journaldialogue.org for information about the organization’s new, peer-reviewed journal, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy.

If you have any questions, email the Area Chair of Poetry and Poetics (Critical), Scarlett Higgins, at shiggins@unm.edu

Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2017

Full name /name of organization: Stephen Crane Society

Contact email: campbelld@wsu.edu

Call for Papers: Stephen Crane Society Panels at ALA 2017

The Stephen Crane Society will sponsor two sessions at the American Literature Association Conference at the Westin Copley Place, Boston, MA, on May 25-28, 2017. All topics are welcome. Here, for example, are a few suggestions

Crane’s depiction of war
Crane and the arts (e. g., painting, photography, music)
Crane’s depiction of the city
Crane’s poetry
Crane’s journalism
the Sullivan County tales and sketches
the Western stories
the Whilomville stories
one of Crane’s lesser-known novels (The Third Violet, Active Service, or The O’Ruddy)
Crane’s depiction of women
Crane’s relationship with other writers, e. g., Garland, Howells, Conrad, or Frederic
Crane’s influence on later writers
Presentations will be limited to 20 minutes.

You may also propose a roundtable discussion on, say, teaching Crane’s short stories.

Please email abstracts or papers of no more than ten double-spaced pages by January 15, 2017, to the program chair:

Paul Sorrentino

psorrent@vt.edu

For further information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org. If you have specific questions about ALA, contact the conference director, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield of Georgia Southern University at carr@georgiasouthern.edu.

Deadline for submissions: October 12, 2016
Full name /name of organization: Victoria Chandler

contact email: vec@email.sc.edu
Call for Panelists – 2017 Narrative Conference

March 23-26, 2017, Lexington, KY

The University of Kentucky will host the Narrative Conference in Lexington, KY from March 23-26, 2017. Keynote speakers include Judith Butler, Kenneth Warren, and Linda Williams.

We seek two or three panelists to join a panel entitled “Gender, Precarity, and Narratives of Loss”

This panel investigates the ways in which psychological and social forces inhibit mourning, and how some lives are (for socio-political reasons) more grievable than others. In particular, the panel aims to explore how Anglophone literatures of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have represented women working through or refusing to work through loss. It will focus on questions such as, how does literature imagine women organizing their lives and embodied spaces in response to grief? How do social forces (such as patriarchy, racial oppression, or capitalism) affect feminine responses to loss or trauma? How does Judith Butler’s sense in Precarious Life that “some lives are grievable, and others are not” apply to the female imagination of mourning? In other words, what forces place some female lives in the precarious position of being un-grievable?

Please send a 250 word abstract, along with a brief scholarly biography, to Victoria Chandler (vec@email.sc.edu) by October 12th. The panel will be submitted for consideration on October 15th in accordance with the CFP; acceptance to the Narrative Conference is contingent on the panel’s acceptance.

Deadline for submissions: January 27, 2017

Full name / name of organisation: The Thoreau Society

Contact email: hoagr@ecu.edu

2017 Thoreau Society Fellowship

The Thoreau Society is pleased to announce the second annual Marjorie Harding Memorial Fellowship.

Recipients will receive $1,000 towards travel and research expenses at archives in the Greater-Boston area on Thoreau related projects, as well as free attendance at the Thoreau Society 2017 Annual Gathering and Bicentennial Celebration held in Concord MA in early July. Both emerging and established scholars, as well as Thoreau enthusiasts, are encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to candidates who will use the Thoreau Society’s Walter Harding Collection housed at the Thoreau Institute for at least part of the fellowship period, but applicants intending to use any of the Thoreau Society Collections or other Thoreau archives in the Greater-Boston area are encouraged to apply. The Collections are described here:

http://www.thoreausociety.org/research. Candidates are also encouraged to present their work at the Annual Gathering during the fellowship period or the following year. To apply, candidates should send an email to the fellowship committee chair, Ronald Hoag (hoagr@ecu.edu), with the following attachments:

A current curriculum vitae or resume
A project proposal approximately 1,000 words in length, including a description of the project, a statement explaining the significance of the project, and an indication of the specific archives and collections the applicant wishes to consult.
Graduate students only: A letter of recommendation from a faculty member familiar with the student’s work and the proposed project. (This letter is optional and can be emailed separately to the fellowship committee at the above address.)
Applications are due by Friday, January 27, 2017. The award will be announced at the 2017 Annual Gathering in Concord, Massachusetts.

Please contact the fellowship committee chair for more information.