[Discussion] Contemporary Critical Theory

[Gonul Pultar]

Call for Papers
Paper proposals are currently being accepted for the Contemporary
Critical Theory panel at the 13th Annual Central New York Conference on
Language and Literature held at Cortland College of the State University
of New York, 26-28 October 2003.
While all proposals will be considered, particular consideration will be
given to those which engage questions such as, Have the lessons of
postmodernism, especially its critique of essentialism, been learned and
put into practice (whether in or outside the academy), or are we
slipping back into-or did we ever really take leave of-modernism and its
concomitant attitude toward subjectivity? Have we forgotten the
strategic aspect of Spivak's "strategic essentialism" and returned to an
identity politics wedded to essentialist attitudes? In what way does the
academy, and the institutionalization of radical discourse, perpetuate,
even while claiming to undermine, essentialist notions of identity?
Despite the knowledge of the complexity of subject formation, are we
still too reliant on (and too willing to cling to) the reductive
categories of race and gender? Are we ready for the "post-gender [and
post-human] world" Haraway called for in her "A Cyborg Manifesto"? Are
we ready for a radical political culture "beyond the color line"
(Gilroy)? Can we finally abandon these categories which have, in the
words of Deleuze and Guattari, "made us suffer too much"? And can we do
so without a return to humanism?   
Proposals should be approximately 500 words. Papers may engage these
issues solely from a theoretical point of view or incorporate literary
works or other relevant material. 
Deadline for submissions is July 15, 2003.
Send proposals via email (as an attachment in Word) to
bc51012@alltel.net or by snail mail to:
Benjamin D. Carson
344 S. 18th St. #1
Lincoln, NE 68508