Call for Papers: 9th Annual Graduate English Organization Conference
“Perversions”
Department of English
University of Maryland, College Park
March 12, 2016
“Perversions”
Department of English
University of Maryland, College Park
March 12, 2016
“All humans are innately perverse,” Freud claims. Freud defines perversion as a form of sexual behavior that deviates from the culture’s norm. Though this psychosexual definition is prevalent, the term has other valences as well. In the 3rd century, the term focused on the inversion or corruption of text, especially of the religious text. Recent usages of term have likewise broadened to the social and political. For instance, legal discourse describes certain political offenses as “perversions of the course of justice.” In economics, the term “perverse incentive” refers to a policy that produces an effect contrary to the policymaker’s intention. In this case, perversion denotes activity that is counter-intuitive, not merely subversive. But |
regardless of its temporal placement, the concept of “perversion” tends to invoke a structural relation between authority and the non-normative.
Besides these varied definitions, what can/does it mean to be marked as a pervert? How do literary texts characterize perverts? Is the pervert a hero or a villain? Or is the pervert something else entirely? How does the pervert’s logic advance or hinder an emancipatory politics? And how does the logic of perversion, broadly conceived, relate to the production and consumption of texts? What constitutes a perverted reading of a text and how are such readings useful as a critical hermeneutics?
In addition to critical presentations, we welcome creative work in Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Dance, Arts, and Film. Topics of potential essays can include, but are not limited to:
• Perversions of National Identities or Ideologies
o Transnational identities or literatures
o Travel narratives
o Colonization
o Religious texts or hermeneutics
o Revolutions or political upheaval
• Perversions of genre, forms or fields
o Transmedia and generic hybridity
o Subversions of canon
o Writing and research in the digital age
• Perversions of teleology
o Ruptures in history and time
o Re-periodization
o Alternative epistemologies
• Innovative pedagogical approaches
o Editorial theory and the language of “corruption”
o Censorship of the “perverse”
• Perversions of the fixed identity/subject
o Outlaw emotions, transgressive memories
o Reconstructions of race, gender or sexuality
o Discourses of the “weird,” “strange” or “peculiar”
Please submit your proposal for a fifteen-minute paper in a 300-word abstract. Proposals on creative work must be a short sample from an original composition. Panel submissions (3-4 participants) are highly encouraged. Panel abstract should not exceed 500 words. Full papers may accompany abstracts. Please include your full name and email address.
Abstracts are due December 7, 2015 and should be e-mailed to [email protected].
Besides these varied definitions, what can/does it mean to be marked as a pervert? How do literary texts characterize perverts? Is the pervert a hero or a villain? Or is the pervert something else entirely? How does the pervert’s logic advance or hinder an emancipatory politics? And how does the logic of perversion, broadly conceived, relate to the production and consumption of texts? What constitutes a perverted reading of a text and how are such readings useful as a critical hermeneutics?
In addition to critical presentations, we welcome creative work in Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Dance, Arts, and Film. Topics of potential essays can include, but are not limited to:
• Perversions of National Identities or Ideologies
o Transnational identities or literatures
o Travel narratives
o Colonization
o Religious texts or hermeneutics
o Revolutions or political upheaval
• Perversions of genre, forms or fields
o Transmedia and generic hybridity
o Subversions of canon
o Writing and research in the digital age
• Perversions of teleology
o Ruptures in history and time
o Re-periodization
o Alternative epistemologies
• Innovative pedagogical approaches
o Editorial theory and the language of “corruption”
o Censorship of the “perverse”
• Perversions of the fixed identity/subject
o Outlaw emotions, transgressive memories
o Reconstructions of race, gender or sexuality
o Discourses of the “weird,” “strange” or “peculiar”
Please submit your proposal for a fifteen-minute paper in a 300-word abstract. Proposals on creative work must be a short sample from an original composition. Panel submissions (3-4 participants) are highly encouraged. Panel abstract should not exceed 500 words. Full papers may accompany abstracts. Please include your full name and email address.
Abstracts are due December 7, 2015 and should be e-mailed to [email protected].