Academic Conferences

"Chaucer: Sound and Vision" - Mobile, AL - October 19-20, 2018

The English Department at the University of South Alabama invites paper proposals for a conference on Chaucer and the senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste), to be held in Mobile, Alabama, October 19th and 20th, 2018. Papers on any aspect of the topic are welcome, along with papers on writers contemporary with Chaucer (Langland, Gower, the Pearl-poet, Julian of Norwich, etc.). The plenary speaker will be Michael P. Kuczynski of Tulane University. The conference will also include a roundtable discussion on the state of Sound Studies. Outstanding papers will also be invited to submit expanded versions for an edited volume on the topic. Please send proposals of 350 words to John Halbrooks and Becky McLaughlin at chaucersoundandvision@gmail.com by June 1, 2018.

"War, Memory, and Gender" - Mobile, AL - March 27-29, 2014

The past several decades have seen an explosion of scholarly interest in the subject of war and gender.  At the same time, the study of collective or cultural memory, especially in connection with armed conflict, has become a veritable cottage industry. This conference seeks to bring these two areas of intensive study into dialogue with each other, exploring the complex ways in which gender shapes war memory and war memory shapes gender.  Comprised of a select number of presentations (so that all participants will be able to hear every paper), together with a keynote address by Professor Jennifer Haytock (SUNY-Brockport) and a panel discussion featuring women military veterans, the conference will address multiple conflicts and nationalities from the perspectives of multiple disciplines.

For more information, please visit the War and Memory conference website.

"Captivity Writing Unbound" - Fairhope, AL - October 11-13, 2012

Hosted by the University of South Alabama’s Department of English, "Captivity Writing Unbound" is a small interdisciplinary conference whose aim is to explore and extend the traditional boundaries of the study of captivity writing.  The papers chosen for inclusion make use of a wide range of theorists and an equally wide range of approaches and/or lenses to discuss topics ranging from uterine captivity to the Vietnam War memorial with materials as disparate as liturgical documents from 11th century Iberia and the novels of Tsitsi Dangarembga, George Eliot, and Jean Rhys.  We are pleased to have as our keynote speaker Early Americanist scholar Michelle Burnham of Santa Clara University.

For more information, please visit the Captivity Writing Unbound conference website.