Call for Papers

Society for the Study of Southern Literature

Call for Papers

The SSSL requests that you transmit to our web master any calls for papers from any professional society, national or international, that members of SSSL would likely be interested in.

Solicitations from the editors of periodicals or prospective books for essays relating to southern literature are also welcome for posting on this site. The SSSL will keep these calls for papers or essays posted on this web site for at least one month after the stated deadline for submissions.

Call for Papers

SASA 2009 - Beginnings and Renewals: Locating American Studies
Southern American Studies Association Biennial Meeting
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia
February 12-14, 2009

Please click here for details.

Call for Papers

Southern Roots and Routes: Origins, Migrations, Transformations
Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Williamsburg, Virginia
April 17-20, 2008

The New Southern Studies is currently revolutionizing the study of the American South by unsettling its histories, blurring once-accepted borders, excavating forgotten stories, foregrounding cultural encounters, and situating a region once designated as anti-modern within the currents of modernity, postmodernity, and globalization. Multicultural observances of Jamestown’s 400^th anniversary and the bicentennial of the closing of the slave trade indicate just two new directions explored by the New Southern Studies, and in recognition of these two overlapping commemorations and of the field’s new avenues, the program committee for the 2008 biennial meeting of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature has chosen as its conference theme “Southern Roots and Routes: Origins, Migrations, Transformations,” to be held April 17-20, 2008, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

We’ve borrowed the theme from the contact zone perspectives developed by Mary Louise Pratt and in particular James Clifford, the latter of whom takes issue with traditional concepts of culture by juxtaposing dwelling and travel, stasis and displacement, separation and reciprocity. In this day of ongoing debates on slave reparations, contested memories and commemorations, and shifting cultural identities, then, it seems highly appropriate to hold a conference foregrounding diasporas and homelands, foundings and migrations, at the College of William and Mary, which originally included an Indian school, relied upon slave labor, trained generations of Colonial, Revolutionary, and Early National leaders, participated in the slavery/anti-slavery debate, and housed Union troops during the Civil War..

Program committee members Eric Anderson, Suzanne Jones, Roberta Rosenberg, and Susan Donaldson welcome both session proposals and individual paper abstracts addressing the theme of roots and routes, settlement and travel, tradition and transformation. Please send two-page session proposals and/or one-page individual paper abstracts by December 15, 2007, to Susan Donaldson’s email address at the College of William and Mary (svdona@wm.edu).

Among the topics session and individual paper proposals may want to address are the following:

Native American writers and rethinking place
Representing and contesting slavery
Colonial encounters on the Eastern seaboard
Caribbean connections
Traveling and artistic identity
Literary communities in the twentieth-century South
Contested representations of Native American antecedents
Blues, bluegrass music, and southern migrations
Contemporary Asian American writing in the South
Film and the new multicultural South
Early African American writing and reclaiming history
Cultural traumas and contested histories
Photography and reform
Tourism and tourist sites
Families, kith, and kin
Indian Removal and its aftermath
Maroon communities and cultures
New ethnic literatures
Teaching the new southern studies
Remaking Native American identities
Civil Rights histories and novels
Reclaiming Appalachia
Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism
Borderlands in the South
Sun Belt cities and urban life
Novels of migration

Call for Papers

SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOUTHERN LITERATURE
Call for papers for 2008 ALA Conference, San Francisco
Session 1: Expatriate Literature of the American South
Session 2: Southern Poetry and the Narrative Impulse
Deadline: January 20, 2008

The Society for the Study of Southern Literature issues a call for papers for two sessions at the 2008 American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco. The conference will be held May 22-25, 2008, at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in Embarcadero Center. Proposed sessions are described below. Please email abstracts and either a cover letter or 2-page CV by January 20, 2008, to Tara Powell at tfpowell@gmail.com, or send hard copies to Tara Powell at the USC Institute for Southern Studies; University of South Carolina at Columbia, Gambrell Hall 107; Columbia, SC 29208. Emailed submissions preferred. For further information about these sessions or SSSL, contact Tara Powell, or for information about the conference, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org.

Session 1: Expatriate Literature of the American South.
The southerner who leaves the South to pursue his or her literary career is one of the major tropes of southern writing, dating back to slave narratives and Edgar Allan Poe and continuing into the present with the work of such writers as Percival Everett, Gail Godwin, and others--some of whom don't seem to look back to the South at all for their art. Well-established, too, is the tradition of writers and scholars from other places trying to "tell about the South" after their visits or relocations. What does it mean, then, for literature to be "southern," if it neither has to be written about the South nor in the South nor even necessarily by a southerner? Possible paper topics might include: studies of individual authors and works, thematic considerations of southerners writing in the North or northerners writing the South, expatriate southern writing broadly defined that does not engage the dichotomy of North and South, examinations of "regional" or "southern" as useful terms, or ways that films and the film industry complicate this question in their representations of southernness.

Session 2: Southern Poetry and the Narrative Impulse
Dave Smith has asserted there is no contemporary "southern poetry" as such; Jim Applewhite argues southern poetry is distinguished by a paralyzing feeling of emotional submersion; Fred Chappell suggests southern poems exemplify the power inherent in the "lens of particular place." Though southern anthologies generally contain substantially less poetry than prose, the South abounds with literary journals, is home to several fine poetry series, and has produced many of the century's finest poetic voices. Storytelling, the oral tradition, and the narrative impulse are often described as hallmarks of southern fiction. Is this true of southern poetry as well? Recent collections by Fred Chappell, Andrew Hudgins, Sonia Sanchez, Natasha Trethaway, and others, suggest it might. Possible paper topics include: discussions of particular poetic talents, "southernness" in the field of poetry and poetry studies, narrative (or lack thereof) in poets associated with the South, and regional work in relation to undercurrents in twentieth-century American poetry generally.

Call for Papers

Robert Penn Warren Circle Sponsored Panel
A Panel for the Biennial Meeting of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, VA
April 18-20, 2008

The Robert Penn Warren Circle seeks individual papers for a panel submission to the 2008 Society for the Study of Southern Literature Conference, to be held April 18-20, 2008 at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. The conference theme is Roots and Routes: Origins, Migrations, Transformations; submissions should address some aspect of the theme in the context of Warren’s writing. Possible foci include, but are not limited to: travel, migration, the journey, landscape in the southern identity, metamorphosis. Papers may focus on Warren’s poetry or prose, with submissions on his essays particularly welcome.

Please email submissions as an MS Word attachment by December 7 to Kate Cochran at cochranka@nku.edu. Selected papers will be submitted as part of a conference panel proposal to the SSSL organizers for consideration.

Call for Papers

Comics and the American South
A Panel for the Biennial Meeting of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, VA
April 18-20, 2008

Abstracts are invited for a proposed panel on “Comics and the American South” for the Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL) Conference in Williamsburg, VA, April 18-20, 2008.

In keeping with the conference’s theme of “Southern Roots and Routes: Origins, Migrations, Transformation,” this panel hopes to take advantage of recent strides in comics criticism to demonstrate how familiar debates in southern literature surrounding race, class, and regional identity find new expression in the medium of comics and graphic novels.

While academic papers from the wide range of genres and creative approaches in comics are welcome, this panel aims to focus, in particular, on how comics re-imagine historical and political legacies (e.g. Anderson’s King: A Comic Biography, Baker’s Nat Turner), explore folk culture, religion, and myth, (e.g. Towle’s Farewell, Georgia, Vollmar and Callejo’s Bluesman), or use southern settings to frame vivid plots and characterizations (e.g. Moore’s Swamp Thing, Ennis and Dillon’s Preacher). Papers exploring recent stories on New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina are especially welcome.

Please send one-page abstracts via email to Prof. Qiana Whitted, U of South Carolina (whitted@sc.edu) by November 30, 2007 (for submission to conference organizers by December 15).

Call for Papers

Southeastern Geographics and National Imaginations
A Panel for the Biennial Meeting of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, VA
April 18-20, 2008

We invite proposals for papers that explore the relationship between the particular geology, geography, topography, or meteorology of the southeast and larger national discourses (historical, political, cultural, etc.). How do southeastern geographics inform or influence the cultural and historical work of imagining nations, empires, transnational or transcultural encounters, etc.?

Please email one page proposals to Michele Currie <mcurrie@uci.edu> and Eric Gary Anderson <eandersd@gmu.edu> by December 7, 2007.

n.b. Once this panel is assembled, it will be submitted to the SSSL Program Committee for review.

Call for Papers

Race and Literary Appropriation in Southern Fiction
A Panel for the Biennial Meeting of the Society for the Study of Southern Literature
The College of William & Mary
Williamsburg, VA
April 18-20, 2008

Our panel will explore the (often vexed) relationship between race and literary appropriation in nineteenth and twentieth century Southern fiction. Although we are soliciting papers that approach this topic from a variety of perspectives, we are primarily interested in work that examines how Southern authors borrow from—and, inevitably, transform—literary conventions and traditions that differ from their own. Some papers may address how Southern authors borrow, with or without permission, from other Southern writers and storytellers. Other papers may examine how Southern authors appropriate and/or re-shape the work of non-Southern authors. We are especially interested in those writers whose literary appropriation crosses assumed boundaries of race, class, gender or sexuality. Ultimately, we hope our panel will foster a deeper understanding of how the South functions as a literary “borderlands,” exposing how historical processes of migration and cultural exchange are reflected in Southern literary production.

Panelists might explore the following topics, among others:

Contemporary authors who revisit the literature of the Old South
Southern writers and Native American culture
Transatlantic, Caribbean, and/or Transhemispheric influences on Southern fiction
Signifying and issues related to African American authorship in the South, including inter-racial and intra-racial artistic collaboration and exchange
Southern authors who draw upon the work of Northern authors, such as nineteenth century abolitionist texts.
Literary feuds, rivalries and debates over artistic property

Please send 300-word abstracts and a brief bio or CV to both Kristen B. Proehl (kbproe@wm.edu) and John D. Miller (jdmil4@wm.edu) at the College of William and Mary by November 15, 2007.

Call for Papers

Faulkner and Chopin
A Conference Sponsored by the Center for Faulkner Studies and the Department of English
Southeast Missouri State University
Cape Girardeau, Missouri 63701
October 2-4, 2008

This Faulkner and Chopin conference invites proposals for twenty-minute papers on any topic relating to Faulkner and/or Chopin. All critical approaches, including theoretical and pedagogical, are welcomed, as well as papers on special collections of Faulkner and Chopin. We are particularly interested in inter-textual approaches and papers treating topics such as race, gender, class, history, New Orleans, narrative technique, and the role of the artist. Proposals for organized panels are also encouraged.

In addition to the paper sessions, the conference will include a keynote address, dramatic readings based on the works of Faulkner and Chopin, exhibits from the University’s Faulkner and Chopin collections, and an historic tour of the local area.

E-mail a 250-word abstract by April 30, 2008, to: cfs@semo.edu

For more information, please visit our web site at
http://www.semo.edu/cfs/index.htm

Inquiries should be directed to Robert Hamblin at rhamblin@semo.edu or 573-651-2628.

Call for Papers

36th Annual Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture since 1900.

For more information, please see: http://modernlanguages.louisville.edu/conference

Call for Papers

“My Southern Home”: The Life and Literature of 19 th Century Southern Black Writers

The Southern Quarterly solicits papers for a special issue, “‘My Southern Home’: The Life and Literature of 19th Century Southern Black Writers,” scheduled for publication in Spring 2008. This special issue will provide a critical survey of the experiences of African Americans, either as slaves or free people, who considered the South their home throughout the nineteenth century despite the social conflicts they might have encountered while living in the region. It will feature those African Americans who, as southerners, wrote about matters of race and region in their fiction, poetry, plays, speeches/essays, and/or autobiographies. Contributors to this issue may examine a specific writer(s), various modes of writing (from fictionalized autobiographies to political essays) that were produced by black southerners, and/or significant topics (e.g. the “race problem”) that appear in their works. Welcome are papers that also concentrate on definitions of southernness that contest an imagined, pure antebellum southern culture as well as a constructed, white hegemonic post-bellum southern identity. Discussions of the regional literature that will appear in this special edition of The Southern Quarterly will provide a literary historical context for understanding the southern sense of “place” that influenced so many African American writers throughout the 20 th century and even today. All entries (20-30pgs) should be sent to the following address:

Dr. Sherita L. Johnson, Guest Editor
The Southern Quarterly
The University of Southern Mississippi
118 College Drive #5078
Hattiesburg , MS 39402-5078

For all inquiries, contact Sherita L. Johnson at Sherita.Johnson@usm.edu or Douglas Chambers at Douglas.Chambers@usm.edu

Send manuscript submissions by July 16, 2007

Call for Papers

Southern Literary Journal Special Issue on Memory and History

For a special issue planned for Spring 2008, the editors of the Southern Literary Journal invite essays with new approaches to the long-discussed topics of history, cultural memory, and mourning in southern literature. We are especially interested in essays that reread southern writers’ emphasis on the past in terms of other literatures and other pasts, address the convergences of the burgeoning field of trauma studies with southern studies, or reconsider the encounters of literary texts with specific historical events. Other possible essays might work with questions of aesthetics or genre, memory and memorializing, the impacts of critical race studies and postcolonial studies on southern literary studies and vice versa, and the role of the reader in interpreting southern history through its literary permutations.

Address submissions to

Managing Editor
Southern Literary Journal
CB# 3520 Greenlaw Hall
University of North Carolina
Chapel Hill, NC 27599

Please indicate special issue submission in a cover letter. Deadline for submissions is December 15, 2007. For more information visit the Southern Literary Journal web site at http://english.unc.edu/slj

Call for Papers

The Society for the Study of Southern Literature will host the following panels at the 2007 MLA Convention, December 27-30 in Chicago:

Ending the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1807-2007.
To mark the bicentennial: tellings of the Middle Passage; stories of resistance; the U.S. South in the Black Atlantic. In literature of any relevant period.

Filming the U.S. South.
Silver-screen Souths: race, location, segregation, and film history; visualizing the plantation; myths and counter-myths; spectacle and violence.