EGO conference: Help us out!
To all English graduate students,
EGO is currently in the initial planning phase for a spring 2008 graduate conference in English to be held at UNH. A potential theme is below. At this point, we're open to any and all ideas, so please respond to this post by suggesting additions or changes... or feel free to suggest entirely different ideas.
Respond by clicking "Post a comment." If you don't have a Blogger account, you can post under your name by replying as "Other."
We would like the theme to be broad enough to appeal to a wide range of interests, and we also wish to include graduate students from Literature, Rhetoric/Composition, and Creative Writing programs. The theme should not be so broad, however, that it is meaningless. Tell us what you think!
EGO is currently in the initial planning phase for a spring 2008 graduate conference in English to be held at UNH. A potential theme is below. At this point, we're open to any and all ideas, so please respond to this post by suggesting additions or changes... or feel free to suggest entirely different ideas.
Respond by clicking "Post a comment." If you don't have a Blogger account, you can post under your name by replying as "Other."
We would like the theme to be broad enough to appeal to a wide range of interests, and we also wish to include graduate students from Literature, Rhetoric/Composition, and Creative Writing programs. The theme should not be so broad, however, that it is meaningless. Tell us what you think!
GRADUATE CONFERENCE
"What Happens Next?: Reading, Writing and Living the Future of English Studies"
As higher education struggles to maintain a sense of purpose while coping with the rapid changes of the 21st century, the role of English Studies in particular is a frequently discussed topic. Recent years have seen a shift in the way the language is both used and studied, which threatens to widen the gap between English departments and the world on which they comment. Scholarly interests in literature and composition are increasingly testing established theoretical, canonical and historiographic boundaries. Ethical considerations have arisen as the concepts of plagiarism and "intellectual property" have become more prominent. And practical matters have a greater impact than ever: the influences of vocationalism and standardized testing continue to exert pressure on English instruction at the college level, even among the areas of study that have traditionally ignored or resisted such pressure. Perhaps most importantly, these changes are mediated by new technology, a development that might seem frightening to a discipline that often seems best equipped to operate among books and essays.
Yet new scholarship continues to keep English Studies relevant, and the work of graduate students often takes the lead in disciplinary innovation. As we look toward the future of the discipline, we should seek to strengthen the connections among these scholars. The proposed conference seeks contributions from graduate students who are seriously engaged in the valuable work of aligning their profession with the new realities of the century in which they live.
Labels: CFP, grad conference
posted by Mike G at 11:47 PM
Comments (7)
To do: Add more of an emphasis on emerging areas of inquiry in literature. Need some help from the lit folks for this (hint hint).
I think this is a great start-- one of the underlying questions I see is "What is the point of graduate study in English (whatever your focus)?" It seems to me that every grad student (particularly PhDs) need to be able to answer that question for themselves, if not for others as well.
One comment: I'm not comfortable with the presumption that lies behind: "the influences of vocationalism and standardized testing continue to exert pressure [...] even among the ares of study that have traditionally ignored or resisted such pressure."-- that vocationalism and standardized testing are universally bad. This is a question well worth exploring -- maybe it could be reworded more neutrally in a list of "possible topics", but I'm not sure the call itself should take a stand on this.
Some ideas for possible topics:
--the influence of standardized testing on students' expectations in first-year English courses
--is there a common English grad student experience?
--What potential lies in the interactions with grad students who focus on areas other than your own?
I'm not comfortable with the presumption that lies behind: "the influences of vocationalism and standardized testing continue to exert pressure [...] even among the ares of study that have traditionally ignored or resisted such pressure."-- that vocationalism and standardized testing are universally bad. This is a question well worth exploring -- maybe it could be reworded more neutrally in a list of "possible topics", but I'm not sure the call itself should take a stand on this.
Hmm. I don't see the bias or "stand-taking" in that excerpt. Where do you see the presumption that testing and vocationalism are bad? Do you find the word "pressure" negative?
The following interpretation also seems possible: that English departments ignore or resist these things because of their, uh, "behindness." This would be a pro-testing, pro-vocationalism interpretation.
In other words, I'm trying to figure out how much of the bias is in the text and how much will be supplied by readers. Help me out if you can.
As I read it (though perhaps my reading is not the typical one), the sentence I quoted seems to invite (welcome) criticisms of vocationalism and standardized testing while closing the door to any arguments that embrace or somehow speak positively about how those influences might shape instruction. I see how you come up with your alternative interpretation, but it doesn't seem likely that individuals who held that view would feel welcomed to talk about it here.
Also, the "even among" seems to set up the influences as unwieldy and the ignorers and resisters as heroic or noble.
I can't say that my reading is bias-free, though I can say that I tend to read English-ese from a more traditionally conservative point of view-- I think that English dept. discourse is often uncomplicatedly liberal in ways that shut down certain arguments before they can begin.
All that said, I don't see it to be that big of a deal. Just starting the conversation.
I see how you come up with your alternative interpretation, but it doesn't seem likely that individuals who held that view would feel welcomed to talk about it here.
Heh, that's interesting, 'cause I hold the "alternative" point of view and I wrote the sentence. Did I manage to shut myself out?
Only one answer: it needs to be revised. I'll see what I can do (any suggestions?).
I'm not yet ready to move it to a bullet point at the end, though. Thanks to new legislation in the works, those two influences will be *huge* a year from now when the conference happens (might even be keynoter topics, if we stick with this theme)...
My main concern with this cfp is that it seems to invite papers that reflect on the state of the profession but that it doesn´t really allow for papers on specific texts, authors, etc. For instance, what one would do with her paper on Borges´s early fiction? Is there a way to modify this cfp to clearly invite these papers? Or do we want to go in a different direction?
That's a good question, Matt-- it seems to me to get at how we do something that not only invites people from across the English subdivisions, but that also appeals to people from across the subdivisions.
My sense of conference-attending is that first, I want to be accepted, and that second, I want to be able to attend panels that speak to something familiar to my experience. Going with commentary on the profession is a way to both invite and appeal to everyone, though probably not the only way.
Post a Comment