CFP - Material Cultures

This looks interesting:

Call for Papers - 2011 Canadian Literature Symposium (May 6-8, 2011)

Material Cultures

May 6-8, 2011
Department of English, University of Ottawa

How do objects circulate in our social, imaginary, and textual worlds? What are the politics of material culture and how does this inform our reading of historical and contemporary texts? In what ways do we perceive and come to know the material world, and in what ways does the material make and unmake this "we"? Proposals are invited for a conference on Material Cultures in Canadian and Transnational Contexts, the 2011 edition of the Canadian Literature Symposium at the University of Ottawa. Interdisciplinary, hemispheric, and theoretical approaches to the conference theme are welcome.

Proposals may consider, but are not limited to:

• things
• physical environments/nature/architecture
• the human/extrahuman/animal
• art objects/craft
• commodities/goods/resources
• artifacts
• collectibles
• dirt/waste/garbage/junk/treasure
• miniatures/gigantica
• objects and ideology
• book-as-object/materiality of the text
• theories/philosophies of technology
• machines and the machine-made
• affect and objects
• toys
• animate objects

Keynote speakers:

Bill Brown, University of Chicago
Jeff Derksen, Simon Fraser University

For further details and updates visit: www.canlit-symposium.ca

Proposals (300-400 words) for papers are welcome, as are proposals for panels. For panel proposals please include abstracts for each paper to be presented and a title for the panel. Send proposals by September 15th to:

Tom Allen: tallen@uottawa.ca, and
Jennifer Blair: jennifer.blair@uottawa.ca

Or by mail:

Department of English
Arts 338
70 Laurier Ave. E
Ottawa, ON
K1N 6N5