Marking the Margins and Setting the Center
NYCEA 2017 Conference
Call for Papers
Marking the Margins and Setting the Center
October 20-21, 2017 University of Rochester, Rochester NY.
In partnership with the University of Rochester’s Writing, Speaking, and Argument Program
“Minority art, vernacular art, is marginal art. Only on the margins does growth occur.” –Joanna Russ.
As the quotation from Joanna Russ–a prominent science fiction author and feminist–indicates, this year’s New York College English Association conference is concerned with exploring art, literature, and pedagogy on or around the margins.
But what do these terms “margin” and “center” mean, and why have they been so tightly associated with one another? How have their meanings – and the relationship between their meanings – changed in different historical and cultural contexts? Who has determined these meanings and relationships? Who has benefitted and who has suffered from them? At this year’s conference at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, we will connect these more general questions about issues of marginality to some of the specific challenges faced by researchers and teachers.
Please send 250 word abstracts to NewYorkCEA@gmail.com
Abstract deadline is August 15th 2017
See www.nycea.org
Paper topics may consider, but are certainly not limited to, any aspect of this theme, including:
-The role of adjunct and itinerant teachers in academia.
-Under-represented authors and characters.
-Effective ways to reach marginalized student populations.
-Queer/Feminist/Race/Gender/Disability Theories.
-Manuscripts and marginalia.
-Marginal comments and peer review in the composition classroom.
-Digital Humanities, technology access, and digital divides.
-Cultural appropriation
-Social justice debates–Occupy, BLM, University origins and racism, etc.
-The campus experience (trigger warnings and safe spaces)
-Monsters and monstrosity in literary texts
-Roma art, literature, and culture
-Great books and the canon
-After the “Theory Wars”–the current state of critical theory
-Addressing the unique needs of the military veteran student population
-International students and cultural considerations
-Interdisciplinary scholars as [institutional drifters]
-Pop culture, comic books, children’s literature and the quest for academic
legitimacy
-Utopias, Dystopias, and speculative science fiction
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