Call for Papers and Panels.

(Media)tions: Translating the Body Politic
An Inter-Disciplinary DC Area Graduate Conference
Organized and Hosted by the University of Maryland Graduate English Organization

Deadline Extended–Abstract Submissions Due: 15 January 2009
Conference Date: 27-28 February 2009
Keynote(s): TBA

Our conference investigates the relationship between social discourses of the arts and sciences, social theory, and the human experience:

• In what ways are we affected by our use of the arts and sciences to translate our socio-political consciousness and experiences?
• In what ways have these discourses informed our status as subjects, as citizens, as humans?
• How have new media, new knowledge, and new audiences changed the way that we perceive or experience the body politic?
• Are there ethical limits on the ways we mediate these experiences?
• In what ways has the relationship evolved between these media (broadly construed as all aspects of transmission and publication) and our experiences?

To answer these and other questions, we invite the submission of panels and papers (250-350 word abstracts) from graduate students in the DC area. All fields, disciplines, and periods are welcome, and the presentations need not be in the traditional paper format-the use of film, music, visual arts or other media are encouraged. Panel submissions (3-4 people) are highly encouraged.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Media and the discourse of power
• Literature (or other media) and aesthetics of war
• The rhetoric of science in the public sphere
• Artistic scientists and scientific artists
• The history of the novel
• (Auto)biography, self as mediator
• Issues of canonization
• Identity politics: gender studies, colonial discourse, race theory, etc.
• Nationalist literatures and discourses
• Propaganda
• Censorship
• Satire and the ethics of representation
• Technology as mediator
• Social discourse in the age of globalization
• The rise (and fall?) of print culture
• Film and literature

Please submit abstracts of 250-350 words for panels and papers to: geoconference@gmail.com by 15 January 2009. Please articulate in your abstract how your presentation fits within the conference theme.