[Discussion] CFP: Body-Politic, Language, and Nation-Spaces (grad)

[Gonul Pultar]

Call for Papers : Body-Politic, Language, and Nation-Spaces /Fifth 
Graduate Conference of the Departments of Foreign Languages and 
Literatures&Comparative Literature at Purdue University, Lafayette, 
Indiana :

Dates 03/12/04 - 03/13/04

The departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures and Comparative
Literatures at Purdue University announce “The 5th Annual Graduate 
Conference of Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative 
Literatures” to take place at Purdue University between March 12-13, 2004.

The death of Edward Said has left a big space in Cultural Studies,
Postcolonial Studies, and Critical Theory.  As a tribute to the major 
field of Postcolonial Studies that Said inaugurated, we will open with a 
talk given by
* Keynote Speaker in commemoration of Edward Said :
Prof. Saree Makdisi (UCLA)

*Round-Table with Purdue Faculty on “Marginality and Activist Scholarship” :
Prof. Marcia Stephenson
Prof. Aparajita Sagar
Prof. Quince Duncan
Prof. Antonio Tillis

Although this conference invites papers, panels and performances from 
all periods of literature (from Medieval to 21’st Century in the West 
and Tricontinental literatures) and languages, they should fall broadly 
under the conference theme, “Body-Politic, Language, and Nation-Spaces”.
The body is a central agent of discursive and counter discursive debates 
in the history (both diachronic and synchronic) of Western literature / 
Culture and especially in recent dialogues in and between literatures of 
the West and Tricontinental literatures. Some of the questions that this 
conference aims to address are:

How does the body get constructed in discourse, in language,
for the nation? How does resistance politics re-claim and engage the so 
called given constructions of the body and language, and the nation? 
How does the “other” get sexed, nationalized? What are the markers in 
discourse for “otherness?”.

Suggested Areas include but are not limited to  : Cultural/Critical/Anti-

Theory; Gender Studies; Linguistics; Queer Theory; Postcolonial Studies;

Cinema Studies; Media Analyses Theory; Popular Culture; 
Structuralism-Poststructuralism; Semiotics; Pedagogy and Education; 
Marxist Studies.

Suggested Papers / Panels / Performances (dance, music, poetry, theatre, 
film, short fiction) topics (though not limited to these) :
Identity Politics / Poetics and Resistance: Transgression, Performance,

Punishment; Power, Pleasure
Spatial politics : Home, City, Nation, Displacement, Migration
Body Poltics : Sexuality and discourse, body and beauty, body and the 
market, bodies and the nation,  body and the media, body in the academy, 
body in education, body and the fantastic, body and trauma
Language : Linguistic analyses; Performance.

Deadline for submission is by December 30, 2003. Send an abstract of 
250-300 words  to Sulagna Mishra (French, mishra@purdue.edu), Tatjana 
Babic(Comp lit, tbabic@purdue.edu), Sachie Meiseki (Japanese, 
smeiseki@purdue.edu), Jack Liu (Chinese, liu69@purdue.edu), Sibel Sayili 
(German, sayili@purdue.edu), Charles Butler (Spanish, 
butlercr@purdue.edu) Simone Caroti (Italian,
scaroti@purdue.edu). The abstract must include a short bio.

The abstract must mention if you need extra technical support such as 
overhead projectors, DVD-VHS players; Music Players etc.

Registration fee for Non-Purdue Students : $20 by  January 30, and $30 
at the door. Contact Sulagna Mishra (mishra@purdue.edu) for inquiries 
regarding this.

Proceedings to be published in the special issue of our E-Journal, 
Cultural Refractions

Housing : Students will be housed with our Graduate Students from the
departments of Comp Lit and FLL.
Bring sleeping bags!