Conferences and Abstracts

Thank you for those of you who could make Maia's "Writing Abstracts and Attending Conferences" session on Monday. For those of you who couldn't make it, we recommend checking out our blog post on Conferences and Abstracts. Also, Erin announced her plans to run a Public Speaking workshop this semester, so stay tuned for more information on that. In the meantime, please feel free to send us interesting CFPs that we can share with everyone. We also want to know which conferences you are attending so that you can carpool/room share with other grads!

Note: the deadline for abstracts for the NeMLA is coming up! Check out their site for more information.

EGSA Spring 2012 Symposium Call-for-Papers

The EGSA is happy to announce that we will be holding our second annual graduate symposium, Bodies in Space: Emerging Scholarship in Literary and Cultural Studies, on Feb. 10, 2012.  We welcome any graduate student work, from seminar papers to works in progress, and encourage everyone to submit an abstract and share their work with their peers from other concentrations.  This is also a great chance for those who haven't yet presented at a conference to get some practice before a very generous audience.  

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Call For Papers

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Call for Papers: Bodies in Space: Emerging Scholarship in Literary and Cultural Studies

[The Panopticon] is a type of location of bodies in space, of distribution of individuals in relation to one

another, of hierarchal organization, of disposition of centres and channels of power, of definition of the

instruments and modes of power ... – Michel Foucault

The English Graduate Student Association is pleased to announce the call for papers for our second

annual graduate student symposium Bodies in Space: Emerging Scholarship in Literary and Cultural

Studies to be held Friday, February 10, 2012.

Foucault’s reading of the production of docile bodies notwithstanding, the aim of this conference is not

to consider the ways that the multiplicity of concentrations in the fields of Literature and Cultural Studies

stand in relation to each other, but instead consider how they stand in relation with each other (and the

ways that these relationships are always promiscuous and overlapping). Thus, rather than an image of

a body pinned to a specific space, the title alludes to the many ways that bodies and spatiality might be

productively considered in literary criticism. More generally, we mean to provide a frame large enough

to encompass all of the interesting work going on in the GW English department. In this symposium, we

hope to foster conversation between presenters and participants across concentrations and even disciplines

through the intersections of current graduate student work. We welcome any and all submissions and

encourage submissions from previously written course work or works in progress, including dissertation

chapters and conference papers.

Submission Guidelines

Abstracts should be submitted, along with your contact information, to gwegsa@gmail.com by 11:59pm

on Tuesday, January 10, 2012. Submissions must be 250 words or less and must be submitted as a

Microsoft Word document or PDF. Please include 2-3 keywords at the bottom of your submission and

include the words “Conference Submission” in the subject line of your email. Conference presentations

will be approximately 15 minutes, and panels will be organized after submissions have been accepted.

We also welcome any volunteers who would like to be involved in the organizational / logistical side of

the symposium, be it chairing a panel or assisting with lunch.

Attending Conferences

Borrowed Image

This is our final post of online content from our "Designing Abstracts and Attending Conferences" Workshop in October. We want to begin by pulling a recent quotation from an article in The Chronicle for Higher Education (a highly recommended resource for Eng. Grads):

““I advise students to attend professional conferences for a number of reasons. First, there is the inevitable networking, which helps you not only now but also later in your career. Second, by attending sessions at the conference, students can learn the latest scholarly insights circulating, well before the publication of those ideas (which will take those glacial several years of research and publication that I mentioned). Third, the book exhibits of such professional organizations will let students browse the newest texts and even unpublished page proofs before the material is filtered through the review mill and enters the consciousness of scholars and critics.”

 Chronicle for Higher Education

We want to encourage you to think about conferences no matter where you are in the program. You may not be ready to jump right in, but keep tabs on annual conferences in your field, on themes and CFPs that apply to your work, and any local opportunities to attend conferences. 

How to Choose a Conference: We know that it can be difficult wading through all of the conferences out there, so we recommend first relying on your peers and faculty advisers for guidance. It is certain that your faculty advisers will have some suggestions for conferences that pertain to your field. See our previous post for more suggestions about finding relevant CFPs. However you come across these conferences, we encourage you to consider a few important factors:

1) Your Field - not every conference is created equal. This is where your adviser and peers come in handy; find out if the conference you are looking at is worth the following two factors. 

 2) Time/Deadlines - Consider the date of the conference as well as the deadline for the abstract, and ask yourself "Do I have enough time to work on this? Are the conference dates doable with my schedule?" 

 3) Money - an important factor for any grad student. Check with Connie in the GW English Dept. for current department reimbursement policies. The department will reimburse you up to a certain amount in a given academic year. The rest is up to you (and some conferences offer scholarship opportunities), so plan carefully how much the trip will cost you. 

Preparation Tips:

Square Away Travel Plans: Once you are accepted and you confirm with the conference, fill out the appropriate forms to send the Department Chair (Gayle). If you are traveling internationally, you must register your travel details (flight, duration, etc) with GW (and when you do this GW has you covered for travel insurance). 

Research the Conference Website: These will often have great recommendations for housing as well as important details about the conference fee (how/when to pay it), and the schedule (you may be required to submit certain items by certain deadlines). 

Time Your Presentation: We all speak at different speeds, so adjust your paper length accordingly. It is important and respectful to stay within the amount of presentation time allowed by the conference. 

Get Feedback: Ask your advisers for their feedback on your conference paper - they can give you great insight on the paper itself as well as conference/presentation tips (you may have to bug them, however, so do not hesitate to send them "friendly reminders" in order to hear back before the conference).

Your Panel Chair: Check out the program when you can to see who will chair your panel and who is on your panel. Often, the chair will contact you in advance to ask for bio details or a copy of your paper. You can also send these ahead of time and introduce yourself. Take at least a little time to familiarize yourself with your panel members - read their abstracts if you can (you will likely be asked questions from the audience about how your work and another panel member's work speak to each other).

Make Business Cards: Not all conferences have a strict "business" aspect to them, but many emphasize the importance of networking. I suggest business cards because I have been handed many over the few conferences I have been to, and have had nothing to give them in exchange. Most conferences will set up a listserve or email contact details, but I still recommend printing off some cards to exchange with people you meet. 

Carry copies of your CV, prospectus, and conference paper: Part of this recommendation is to prevent any technology errors that can ruin your experience (not having access to your paper digitally for example). The other part is that you will be making valuable contacts, and if you are on the market, it might be useful to have these items with you.

Bring a Notebook: I recommend having one at least when you are on your panel waiting for your turn to present for a couple reasons. One, it gives you something to do while you are listening to your panel's presentations (this can be awkward). Two, if you jot down notes about your panel members' presentations (or how they connect to yours) it will be much easier to field questions from the audience when they address two or more presentations. 

During and After

Responding to Your Panel: As previously stated, audience members may want you to respond to something someone else said on your panel - so pay attention! 

Criticism means they care – How to Respond to the Audience: We all dread the prospect of audience members critiquing our work or asking us obscure questions that we can hardly process, let alone explain. A few things to remember - it is a good thing that someone is interested enough to say something, and a good response when you do not know what to say is "I have not considered that before, so thank you." You also have the right to ask them to explain their questions. 

Back Up Everything: Bring printed copies and save your items to multiple locations (use dropbox) to avoid stress (also, check ahead with the conference organizers or your hotel about internet options). 

Dress Code: Most conferences will send out information regarding dress code, but if you are unsure you can ask the organizers and/or play it safe with casual business attire (and a possible cocktail/evening item).

Attend Events – Networking: We cannot stress this enough - attend all of the events! Most conferences will have meal times, tea/coffee hours, cocktail hours, etc. These are great networking opportunities and a lot of fun (believe me, sitting in one chair or another for 10 hours is not as easy as it sounds - you will need these breaks). Try not to think of "networking" as a dirty word - see it as creating connections and building relationships. (Note: wear your name tag on your right shoulder, that way when you extend your hand to shake hands, the person can clearly see your name as you say it).

Keep Receipts! In order to be reimbursed for any part of your trip, you need to produce all the receipts related to it, including housing, travel, conference fees, etc. 

Follow Up: It is always polite and nice if you send a thank you note to one of the organizers. You should also keep any promises you made to the people that you met - friend them on facebook, shoot them an email, send them that link or picture, etc. This is where you take the initial "networking" of the conference and cultivate it into valuable relationships. 

We discussed much more than this at our workshop, so if you have any questions, please send us an email. Also, if you have resources, ideas, or suggestions regarding Abstracts/Conferences, please leave a comment below. 

This is a reminder that copies of these handouts and resources can be found outside Rome 751. 

Tips on Writing Abstracts and Managing CFPs

Hello again, grad school community! Apologies for the delay in information - we have been busy gathering information for our upcoming Teaching Seminar. Here is part two of our online content from our "Designing Abstracts and Attending Conferences" Workshop. You can also find copies, example Abstracts, and Handouts from this event outside of Rome 751.

Call-For-Papers: How do you begin thinking about Abstracts and Conferences? Finding call-for-papers is an excellent start. This is a good practice to begin even if you feel that you are a few semesters away from attending conferences. Where should you look for good CFPs? We offer you some tips on locating these opportunities -

1) U Penn's CFP Site is an excellent resource with a useful search engine tool. We all highly recommend it because it is updated fairly regularly and has such a wide variety of CFPs available. 

2) Join List-serves. Chances are, if you have already attended a conference or two, you are on a group listserve - these can be immensely helpful in keeping up to date on upcoming CFPs and conference dates. Keeping in touch with people you meet at conferences can be helpful as well - I personally get between 2-3 CFPs a month just from being on  former conference listserves and connecting with people I met at those conferences via social networks. 

3) Consult your Faculty Advisers! Some of our best experiences with conferences were as a result of a recommendation by a trusted faculty member. Many times they are aware of the most interesting/relevant conferences to your particular field or line of criticism. This is also another way to cultivate a relationship with your adviser - a practice EGSA highly recommends!

4) Check your email and our blog! Faculty and other professionals regularly email CFP information to students, including extended deadlines and updated information - so pay attention to your email boxes! You can also look on our blog - where we will attempt regular updates on CFP and conference information. 

First Experiences: Intimidated by the variety of conferences or attending a large, professional conference as a newbie? Consider some "starter" opportunities to get used to writing abstracts and attending conferences with ease.

1) Graduate Student Conferences - look out for CFPs which are designed for graduate students. These conferences are made up entirely of your peers, and are often closer to home - a time and money saver. Try these out to begin your career of Abstract writing and conferences. 

2) EGSA Symposium - look even closer to home. This spring (2012) EGSA will host a symposium where you will have the opportunity to turn your course work papers into a conference opportunity. Look out for our CFP coming soon.

3) Program Symposiums or Seminars - Many of the programs at GW offer opportunities to participate in symposiums or seminars. Take advantage of these opportunities to share your work with other GW grads and faculty. It may be intimidating, but it is great experience, and it contributes to the academic enrichment of our program. 

Abstract Elements: What belongs in an Abstract? This of course largely depends on the CFP - its requirements for length and the theme of the conference. Many of us urge you to use work that you already have from course work for conferences. Transforming your seminar paper into a conference length presentation can be challenging, but here are some general guidelines for what belongs in the abstract:

Reason for writing:
What is the importance of the research? Why would a reader be interested in the larger work?

Problem:
What problem does this work attempt to solve? What is the scope of the project? What is the main argument/thesis/claim?

Methodology:
Introduce your source information and any steps in your project.

Results:
What are your findings?

Implications:
How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?

Tips on Writing Abstracts:

Meet the word limitations/range - it is very important to stay within the word count range for any abstract. 

Delete extraneous words, use meaningful language, Avoid defining terms - the idea is to state the parameters of your argument as clearly and concisely as possible. 

Limit the Jargon, Consider your Audience - part of keeping your abstract clear and concise is limiting academic jargon and appealing to a wider audience than a specific professor or class. 

Pay Attention to Key Words - if your CFP asks for key words, consider carefully which words to include because in  this digital age, they are "key" to being able to find your work. They also can contribute to the way in which the conference organizers put together panels. 

It is okay to deviate (a little) from the Abstract - If you are writing an abstract specifically for a conference, and writing a paper to go with it, do not feel like your end result must match up perfectly with the abstract. You will be writing abstracts for papers that don't exist your whole career - it is okay to deviate a little in your expected results (but don't mislead your conference organizers either).

Reverse Outlining or Cut/Paste - If you are using work you already have, try these methods for pulling an abstract out of your completed paper. Using sentences from your paper to create the abstract is useful and time-saving. 

Ask for Peer or Faculty feedback, Revise! The best advice we can give you is to take advantage of your relationships with peers and faculty. They can give you the perspective that you need and want for a successful abstract. 

Thanks for tuning in for our Abstract and CFP online content. If you have additional suggestions or resources to share, please email us or leave a comment below. Check back with us for the final part of this online content as well as upcoming events and professional opportunities. 

This Week with EGSA

First, thank you for joining us at the October Happy Hour last Friday! As part of our continuing Abstract/Conference online content, we have provided some information below on upcoming Conferences. These are recommended by your fellow grads and faculty. We also have many exciting campus events approaching, including some special seminars and professional development opportunities. We hope to see you at some or all of these events. Stay tuned for more online content from our Abstract/Conference Workshop

Upcoming Conferences:

November 3-4, 2011 University of Maryland “Rethinking World Literatures/ Other World Literatures”

February 17-18, 2012 British Commonwealth Planning Committee, Savannah Georgia. “21^st Annual British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference.”

March 21-25, 2012 The 33^rd International Conference on the Fantastic in Arts “The Monstrous Fantastic” in Orlando, FL. 

Upcoming GW English Events:

October 27 Thursday 4pm (1957 E St NW Rm 213) Please join MEMSI members for a panel on "What Monsters Mean" with Asa Simon Mittman and Jeffrey Weinstock 

October 28 Friday 12:15pm (slight change in time!) Please join us for a seminar on "Monster Theory" co-sponsored by GW MEMSI and EGSA. Lunch will be served, so you should r.s.v.p. for this event by October 25 (today!): lduckert@gwu.edu. Many of your EGSA Board members will be in attendance, so we hope to see you there!

November 1 Tuesday 5pm Marvin Center 307 The GW Career Center is hosting: Graduate Students: Resume vs. CV. What are the differences between résumés and CVs? Develop a better understanding of these two primary career and job search documents, including appropriate content, format and length. Learn more about how to utilize these two important self marketing materials to advance your career. Co-sponsored by the Office of Graduate Student Enrollment Management. RSVP through the GWork Workshop calendar.

November 3-4 Composing Disability: Writing, Communication, Culture George Washington University, Washington DC. Organized by one of our favorite faculty, Robert McRuer, this event promises to be a unique opportunity to discover how Disability Studies and Disability Culture are transforming higher education. “Composing Disability” brings together Disability and Deaf Studies, Writing Studies, Education, and Global Cultural Studies for spirited, collegial dialogue, about the production of disability culture, disability writing, and disability representation in and beyond academia today. Please click on the link for the program schedule, information about the keynote speakers, and to register for the event. Even if you are only able to attend part of the seminar, please take time to register. 

November 4 4pm Join GW MEMSI for Master Oh Tae Suk's screening of the film of his production, The Tempest. The audience will have an opportunity to interact with the director at a presentation on November 5. Both events at the Harry Harding Auditorium, 1957 E Street. The events are part of this year's Hahn Moo-Sook Colloquium in the Korean Humanities. This event is co-sponsored by MEMSI and co-organized by Professor Alex Huang.

November 11 2:00-3:30pm Rome 771 Carla Peterson will be discussing her acclaimed new book, Black Gotham, a cultural history of free black elites living in antebellum New York. Hosted by the English Dept.

November 18 2:30-4:30 Rome 771 EGSA Teaching and Pedagogy Seminar. Mark your calendars for this final 2011 Professional Development event. Chances are you will be spending some part of your career as an English graduate student teaching in the classroom. We want to provide you with all the tools you need, including information on teaching composition (and how to convince a future employer that you can), information on the latest issues in English pedagogy, and how to use technology in the classroom. This seminar is designed for all English grads, even those that have been teaching for a while. Stay tuned to this blog for more information, and please direct any questions to Tawnya Ravy (tcravy@gwu.edu).

Call-for-Papers

Borrowed Image

Call-for-Papers - the starting point for even thinking about Abstracts and Conferences. This is Part One in our online content for today's workshop "Designing Abstracts and Attending Conferences." Please join us this afternoon in Rome 771 at 2:00pm
In the meantime, check out some of the latest CFPs to hit my desk. These have all been emailed from fellow grads, faculty, or from the list-serves that I have joined in the past year (all great ways to find conferences in your field). Another excellent resource is checking in with the U Penn CFP site (the search function is the best).

They are organized here by the Abstract Deadline Date - I find this helpful in keeping my CFPs organized. These are not complete CFPs, but they include all of the major details like location, dates, and submission rules. To check out the full CFP, click on the links or send an email our way if you have any questions.

From now on, EGSA Blog will post regular updates on CFPs that we think will interest you. Also, stay tuned for the rest of our online content regarding Abstract writing and Conference Tips. 

October 24, 2011 – Predicate

For this year’s issue, entitled Imperative, Predicate seeks scholarship that at its core is

immediate. You need not interpret “immediate” as limited to “contemporary”: we want papers

that signal or demonstrate movement in the critical discourse of any time period. Since

imperative implies demand, a successful paper will demand change in the fields it engages, or

respond to a demand made by an external force: scholarship, politics, culture, daily life, etc.

Potential topics include:

● Cultural crises and shifts

● Developments in technology and new ways to engage with texts

● Conversations between disparate or previously discarded points of view

● The body in conversation with the rhetorics of regulatory systems

● The emergence of change within a social movement or academic field

● Language in flux, specifically but not limited to issues of authorship, gender, race,

            ablebodiedness, and class

● The immediacy of stasis, circularity, and the failure or refusal to move

Submissions should be sent as email attachments to the address below. Please do not include your name in the text of the paper. In the body of your email, include your name, your class year, the title of your paper, the subject of your paper and a brief biography listing your research interests. Papers should not exceed 5,000 words in length. Submissions are due on Monday 24

October 2011. Papers should be sent to predicate.annual@gmail.com.

October 31, 2011 – The Monstrous Fantastic

·         Conference Dates: March 21-25, 2012 in Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel

Featuring our own Jeffrey Cohen as Guest Scholar

We welcome paper proposals on all aspects of the fantastic, and especially encourage papers on the work of our special guests and attending authors. Please see our website at www.iafa.org for information about how to propose panel sessions or participate in creative programming at the conference. Paper proposals must consist of a 300-word abstract accompanied by an appropriate bibliography to the appropriate Division Head (see our website for details). The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2011. Participants will be notified by November 15, 2011, if they are accepted to the conference. Attendees may present only one paper at the conference and should not submit to multiple divisions. If you are uncertain as to which Division you should submit

your proposal, please contact Sherryl Vint (sherryl.vint@gmail.com).

November 1, 2011 - 21^st Annual British Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies Conference

·         February 17-18, 2012 at the Hilton DeSoto in Savannah, Georgia and hosted by the Department of Literature and Philosophy at Georgia Southern University.

·         Please visit the conference website for more information at:http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/bcps.html

Click here to submit your proposal:

http://ceps.georgiasouthern.edu/conted/bcpssubmitonline.html

We invite proposals in the following thematic and geographic areas:

Bioethics, Ecology, and Ecocriticism

Migration, Diaspora, Hybridity, and Borders

Region, Religion, Politics, and Culture

Literature, Arts, and the Media

History and Historiography

War and Terrorism

Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity

Ethics, Economics, and Globalization

Pedagogy and the Disciplines

The Americas (North America, Latin America, Native America, Ethnic America)

Europe (Fortress Europe, Eurabia, Londonistan)

South Asia (Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka)

Southeast Asia (Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam)

Africa (Nigeria, South Africa, Black Atlantic)

The Middle East

Australia and Oceania

U.S. Hegemony and Chinese Neocolonialism

Or any other aspect of the British Commonwealth of nations, or of countries formerly colonized by other European powers

November 4, 2011 – Ethics, Evil, and the State

·         Prague, Czech Republic; Sunday 6th May – Tuesday 8th May 2012

Papers, reports, work-in-progress and workshops are invited on issues relating, but not restricted to the following themes:

Is the state a necessary construction?

Is the state necessarily evil? Is the state a power for good?

The legitimisation of authority.

The state and elitism.

The state and policing.

Is federalism the answer to the dissolution of the nation-state?

Anarchism as a viable solution.

Legitimate and illegitimate protest.

Rioting, looting and banking

The state and oppression

Alternative forms of government.

The ‘Arab Spring’

Real communities.

The state and violence.

Papers will also be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 4th November 2011. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 9th March 2012. Click Here for more information.

November 15, 2011 – “So What? Exploring the Importance of Humanities Studies in the 21^st Century” North Carolina State University February 24-25, 2012

We encourage graduate students from all areas of the humanities to submit and share their research. We welcome submissions that reframe existing and emerging research to interrogate the significance of humanities studies, and the possible trajectories of the fields that comprise the humanities in the coming decades.

·         Potential topics might include:

- The role of technology in the academy

- New modes of scholarship

- How language shapes research in all fields

- Ways of knowing

- Communication between academic and popular readers

- Changing boundaries of “text”

- Engaged scholarship

- Reconciling historical perspectives with emerging trends

- Examining the function of humanities scholarship in society at large

We welcome submissions from disciplines across the humanities: English studies, literature, linguistics, film studies, creative writing, scientific/technical writing, rhetoric & composition, cultural studies, interdisciplinary studies, and others.

Email your submissions to aegs.conference@gmail.com no later than November 15, 2011.  Abstracts should be approximately 300 words.  Include your name, institution, and course of study in the body of your email.  Please remove all identifying markers on the abstract itself.  We will send confirmations upon the receipt of your proposal.  Additional information available at cfp.english.upenn.edu

November 2011: International Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IJHSS)

International Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IJHSS) is an open access, peer-reviewed and refereed international journal published by Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA. The main objective of IJHSS is to provide an intellectual platform for the international scholars. IJHSS aims to promote interdisciplinary studies in humanities and social science and become the leading journal in humanities and social science in the world.

·         The journal publishes research papers in the fields of humanities and social science such as anthropology, business studies, communication studies, corporate governance, criminology, cross-cultural studies ,demography, development studies, economics, education, ethics, geography, history, industrial relations, information science, international relations, law, linguistics, library science, media studies, methodology, philosophy, political science, population Studies, psychology, public administration, sociology, social welfare, linguistics ,literature, paralegal, performing arts (music, theatre & dance), religious studies, visual arts, women studies and so on.

The journal is published in both print and online versions. The journal is now indexed with and included in Cabell’s, Ulrich’s, DOAJ, Index Copernicus International, EBSCO and Gale. Moreover the journal is under the indexing process with ISI, ERIC, Econlit, Scopus and Journalseek.

IJHSS publishes original papers, review papers, conceptual framework, analytical and simulation models, case studies, empirical research, technical notes, and book reviews.

IJHSS is inviting papers for Vol. 1 No. 17 which is scheduled to be published on November 30, 2011. Send your manuscript to the editor at editor@ijhssnet.com, oreditor.ijhss@hotmail.com

 For more information, visit the official website of the journalwww.ijhssnet.com 

December 31, 2011 - Living together in diversity: National societies in the multicultural age

·         Central European University, Budapest, 21-22 May 2012

It is therefore the aim of the proposed conference to explore how ‘living together in diversity’ is imagined, narrated, organized, justified, and practiced within contemporary national societies. With the stress on ‘in’ rather than ‘with’ diversity we want to move away from reifying the dominant ‘majority’ society perspective, which assumes diversity as something ‘carried’ solely by immigrants and something that the ‘native’ society has to cope with. Some of the questions that we are interested in are:

- What makes multicultural societies circumscribed by state borders cohere together?

- What are the ways in which the nation becomes re-signified to accommodate the ethno-cultural diversity of its populace?

- How do migrants position themselves in national narratives and political structures?

- What alternative modes and models of belonging are at work within present national societies?

- In which ways does the national continue to feature as a site of attachment?

- Is it necessary to have some form of common identification at the national scale to have functioning states in the first place?

Although we acknowledge that these questions are inescapably normative in character, we particularly welcome empirically-informed work. The privileged level of analysis we are interested in is the national scale, but papers focusing on sub-national and supra-national scales can also be welcomed inasmuch as they can offer insights regarding how living together in diversity works at the national scale. Regionally, the conference will focus on Europe, but contributions discussing other geographical contexts are also welcomed.

All potential participants are invited to submit an abstract (250-300 words) to Tatiana Matejskova (MatejskovaT@ceu.hu) by December 31^st, 2011. By January 31st, 2012 participants will be informed about the acceptance of their papers. Confirmation of participation and payment of the conference fee will be due on February 28th, 2012. The conference fee of 60 Euros will cover refreshments, lunches and conference materials.

January 15, 2012 – Video Games As Text

·         University of Wyoming April 12-14, 2012

Possible Topics:

How does the role of first person narrative change in video games?  What does the reader experience while actively undergoing the events of the narrative, vs. passively experiencing them?

What does the ability of choice in a narrative do for the experience of reading the text?  Is the player more connected to the characters by choosing the actions and outcomes of that character?  Or is a specific, single narrative path that allows all players to experience it in a similar way a better kind of narrative?

How is sexuality dealt with in video games?  How is sex depicted, and what happens when controversy arises?  How does this differ from more traditional narrative forms?  What about games with all characters being unrealistically bisexual?

How is feminism handled in video games?  What, if anything, establishes characters like Samus as feminist characters?  Is there a double standard with women with exaggerated female characteristics, like Lara Croft, being attacked as problematic from women, while exaggerated male characteristics in characters, such as Marcus Fenix, are not?

What impact does race have on games?  Why are so many player characters white; what does that do to the narrative?  How could/should race be used?  Why are games like Resident Evil 5 criticized because the villains are black?

What is the difference between reading an evil character and actively playing one?  How does that change the experience of the text?

Why are video games so oriented towards violence?  What about the textual form of video games makes violence such a common choice in game play?  Is this healthy for the medium?  How does this affect games in the larger culture?

Please submit your 200-300 words abstracts before January 15 via www.uwplayology.com.  We will let you know no later than February 15.  Please include contact information, your institutional affiliation, and any audio/visual requirements.  Any questions can be answered by contacting the conference organizers using the website or emailing the conference organizers at uwplayology@gmail.com.