Proposals sought for a panel at the 2008 CCCC, April 2-5, 2008, in NewOrleans, LA.

CCCC 2008 theme: "Writing Realities, Changing Realities"

Specifically, this panel, entitled "Illusions, Delusions, and theRealities of First-year Composition Students at Community Colleges,"would be practical rather than theoretical, drawing on the experiencesof Community College instructors of first-year composition, and wouldprovide dialogue and sound pedagogical strategies to a variety ofquestions, including but not limited to the following:

What are the obstacles to success that community college students facein first-year composition?

How do instructors work to bridge the success gap of community collegefirst-year composition students?

What kinds of learner-centered methodologies are employed to (1) engagestudents, (2) strengthen critical thinking skills, and/or (3) accountfor unpreparedness in basic writing skills?

In what ways do community college English instructors get instructorsfrom other disciplines to support writing instruction?

How do community college English instructors engage in objectiveassessment when so much subjectivity is involved? What kinds of rubricsor other methods are used?

What kind of gap exists between student and teacher expectations infirst-year community college composition classes? How is that gapclosed?

500 word proposals are due by April 27, 2007.

Please send your proposals, with a short (very!) biography, to Lisa

Dresdner at .

______

Lisa Dresdner, Ph.D.

Chair, English Department

Associate Professor of English

NorwalkCommunity College

188 Richards Ave.

Norwalk, CT06854

(203) 857-7291

Proposals are invited for a special session exploring the intersections of Feminism and Writing Program Administration. Presentations may draw from broad definitions of Feminism and may include, among others, examples and discussions of First-Year Writing, WritingCenters, Writing Across the Curriculum, and Graduate Writing Programs.

Please send 250-word abstracts with name, phone number, email, mailing address, and institutional affiliation to Letizia Guglielmo, Dept. of English #2701, KennesawStateUniversity, 1000 Chastain Rd., Kennesaw, GA30144 or email (attach Word document or RTF) to .

Letizia Guglielmo

Instructor

Dept. of English

KennesawStateUniversity

1000 Chastain Road

Kennesaw, GA30144

770-423-6764 phone

770-423-6524 fax

Call for Proposals

The Redwood Writing Project, The HumboldtState UniversityEnglish Department & The Redwood Chapter of CATEinvite proposals for FESCUE: Fall English Studies Conference Uniting Educators

Friday & Saturday, 21-22/09/2007

Founders Hall, HumboldtStateUniversity

* Featuring Keynote Speakers Carol Jago and Timothy J. Lensmire *

The Fall English Studies Conference aims to increase awareness of theinterdisciplinarity of English Studies. This year’s theme, CrossingBorders, encompasses and questions:

* Different Englishes *

* Narratives of place *

* Boundaries of texts/language *

* Geographical, cultural, and ecological landscapes *

* Multiple identity constructions *

* Genre experiments *

* Uncommon allegiances *

* Textual interventions *

* Marginalized groups *

FESCUE brings together educators, researchers, students, and the communityfor the purposes of professional development, creative presentations,dialogue, and research dissemination. This two-day Conference is comprisedof panel discussions, workshops, creative readings, lectures, andsymposia. Proposals are encouraged that engage two common readings:Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

Primary Proposal Submission Deadline: Friday, 1/06/2007

Proposals received after this deadline will be considered on aspace-available basis.

Electronic submissions are preferred.

Proposals should be emailed as MS Word or RTF files toFESCUE Committee, at .

FESCUE 2007 Proposal Guidelines

Proposals will be judged on the following criteria:

•Level of appeal to a broad audience. FESCUE brings together a wide range of people: kindergarten through college teachers, students,researchers, community activists, and more.

•Quality of proposal. Proposals should be well written and well conceived.

•Relationship to theme. Proposals that address the Crossing Borderstheme will be preferred over general ones.

There are two options for presenting at FESCUE. Please clearly indicatewhich option you prefer.

Option 1 = 75 Minute Session: One or more presenters who have togetherconstructed 75 minutes worth of activities, presentation, lecture,reading/performance, and/or discussion along a central theme, text, orissue.

Option 2 = 10-30 Minute Panel Presentation: An individual who hasresearched and/or has expertise with a specific topic that she/he wouldlike to share as part of a panel to be organized by the conference team. Original creative nonfiction, short fiction and poetry are welcome. Please indicate a preferred length of time for your presentation.

ALL SESSION PROPOSALS should include the following:

a.Specify option 1 or 2.

b.A [catchy!] title for the session.

c.An abstract of no more than 100 words in length, to be included in theconference program.

d.Full description of 500–750 words, which details the nature and lengthof the presentation.

e.The full name and affiliation of each presenter, including email andtelephone.

f.The body of the proposal should detail the composition of the session,describing, for example, the presentation topics, the workshop activities,

etc.

g.Audio/Visual needs.

The academic symposium of the Horton Foote American Playwrights Festivalseeks papers on a range of topics for the October 24-27, 2007 event onthe campus of BaylorUniversity.

The Festival features a lively mix of theatre productions, stagedreadings, professional panels, guest artists, and scholarly papers. Previous honorees were Horton Foote (2003) and Romulus Linney (2005).The 2007 festival will celebrate Tina Howe, although the academicsymposium will include panels on other writers and on a variety ofissues related to theatre and drama in the United States.

Possible paper panels for the 2007 festival:

Playwright Horton Foote

Playwright Tina Howe

Contemporary Women Playwrights in the U.S. Theatre

Historical issues of Women Playwrights in U.S. Theatre

New Play Development in practice

Issues of teaching playwriting in U.S. higher education

Historical considerations of the role of the playwright in the U.S.

Themes of America in plays by U.S. authors

Regionalism and the U.S. Playwright

U.S. playwrights and U.S. critics

Playwrights of the Americas

Abstracts (250 words max) for 10-15 page papers are due by May 15.

Submit abstract electronically with brief biographical statement anduniversity affiliation to <mailto:>

Notices will be sent out by June 30.

CFP: Renaissance Studies and New Technologies

Renaissance Society of America Annual Conference

Chicago, 3-5 April 2008

For the past seven years, the RSA program has featured a number of sessionsthat document innovative ways in which computing technology is beingincorporated into the scholarly activity of our community. At the 2008 RSAmeeting (Chicago, 3-5 April 2008), several sessions will continue to followthis interest across several key projects, through a number of thematictouchstones, and in several emerging areas.

For these sessions, we seek proposals in the following general areas, andbeyond:

a) new technology and research (individual or group projects)

b) new technology and teaching (individual or group projects)

c) new technology and publication (e.g. from the vantage point of authors, traditional and non-traditional publishers)

Proposals for papers, panels, demonstrations, and/or workshop presentations that focus on these issues and others are welcome.

Please send proposals before May 15 to siemens_at_uvic.ca.

Ray Siemens

English, CRC Humanities Computing, University of Victoria

and

William R. Bowen

Chair, Department of Humanities, University of Toronto, Scarborough

R.G. Siemens

English, University of Victoria, PO Box 3070 STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada.

V8W 3W1

Phone: (250) 721-7272 Fax: (250) 721-6498

Medieval-Renaissance Conference XX

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise

September 20-22, 2007

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise Medieval-Renaissance Conference promotes scholarly discussion in all disciplines of Medieval and Renaissance studies. The conference welcomes proposals for papers and panels on Medieval or Renaissance literature, language, history, philosophy, science, pedagogy, and the arts. Abstracts for papers should be 250 or fewer words. Proposals for panels should include: a) title of the panel; b) names and institutional affiliations of the chair and all panelists; c) abstracts for papers to be presented (250 or fewer words). A branch campus of the University of Virginia, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise is a public four-year liberal arts college located in the scenic Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia. For more information, please visit our website:

Deadline for Submissions: June 17, 2007.

Please direct submissions on English Language and Literature and requests for general information to:

Kenneth J. Tiller

Department of Language and Literature

UVA’s College at Wise

Wise, VA24293

(276) 376-4587

Submissions on History or Philosophy:

Tom Costa

Department of History and Philosophy

UVA’s College at Wise

Wise, VA24293

(276) 376-4573

Submissions on Art, Music, and Continental Literature:

Amelia J. Harris

Academic Dean

UVA’s College at Wise

Wise, VA24293

(276) 376-4557

______

Kenneth J. Tiller

Associate Professor of English

Chair, Department of Language and Literature

University of Virginia's College at Wise

Zehmer Hall 130

276-376-4587

FAX: 276-328-0173

CONTRIBUTORS WANTED

Kermit Culture: Perspectives on Jim Henson's Muppets

Anissa M. Graham and Jennifer C. Garlen seek contributors for a collectionof essays considering Jim Henson's Muppets. All aspects of The Muppet Showand other productions or performances featuring the Muppets may beconsidered, although the editors particularly seek proposals for articlesfocusing on the original Muppet Show cast of characters. Papers may considerthe various films featuring the Muppets, episodes of the original show,Muppets Tonight, appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, particular charactersfrom these programs, their significance as cultural icons, etc. Thiscollection of essays will attempt to demonstrate the importance of TheMuppets' influence and appeal, as well as their importance to popularculture studies as a whole.

Some potential subjects of interest include: consumption as recurring motifon The Muppet Show; commentary on stagecraft; the significance of theBritish-only sketches excluded from American broadcasts of The Muppet Show;representations of science; gender issues, voyeurism, nationhood and therepresentation of nationalism; literary adaptation in Muppet films; parody;images of the monstrous and deformity.

Proposals should be 150-200 words in length. Please include contactinformation with the proposal, including academic affiliation, if any.Please title the subject line of the proposal "Kermit Culture" to ensurespeedy response, and include the proposal as the text of the email messageas well as in attachment form.

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: June 15, 2007

The editors hope to have complete articles ready for submission topublishers by Fall 2007 and will be discussing the project with potentialpublishers as soon as possible.

Prospective contributors may send proposals or complete articles to:

Anissa M. Graham, University of North Alabama,

Jennifer C. Garlen, University of Alabama-Huntsville,

(Please cc proposals to both editors!)

CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS

_Contraband in the Americas_

Deadline: November 15, 2007

We invite chapter proposals for an edited volume that will focus on therepresentation of contraband in the Americas. We are primarilyinterested in the illegal movement of goods across borders or otherfrontiers, and how this contraband economy changes the way the Americasare imagined. This project responds to an emerging body of literary andcultural criticism on the topic of informal/illegal economies and secretcommerce. Our volume seeks to show that these individual studies form anew field in the cultural history of the Americas.

Central to this project will be a theorization of the way the multiplecultures and nations of the Americas have been formed in relation toillegal economies and the illicit crossing of borders of all kinds. Assuch, this volume invites papers that deal with contraband not onlybetween the various countries of the Americas, but also in transatlanticand transpacific exchanges. At the same time, this volume proposes abroad historical scope: from colonial discussions concerning themercantile system, to 18th- and 19th-century debates on the free market,to more contemporary representations of the trafficking of music, drugs,humans, organs, and sex in and throughout the Americas. We aretherefore interested in different forms of contraband and welcome avariety of approaches and methodologies.

The aim of _Contraband in the Americas_ will be to explore the role of theblack market, broadly defined, in literature and culture across theAmericas. The volume will ask: Does the smuggler interrupt thedevelopment of a nation, or is this figure a necessary part of any kindof imagined community? What are the different forms of contraband andhow have these forms changed in different economic and political

systems? How is the notion of a contraband economy important forrethinking political narrative? How is the notion of a secret economyused as a figure for political movements? How can smuggling betheorized not only as a motif in literary and cultural texts, but alsoas a figure for the act of writing in the Americas? In the end, is thehistory of the Americas also a history of contraband?

Possible themes include, but are not limited to:

- Literary and cultural representations of contraband

- The figure of the contrabandist, the pirate, the privateer, the filibusterer

- Contraband and the imagined community

- Contraband as a form of politico-economic resistance

- Contraband as a form of politico-economic hegemony

- Illicit trade and trade routes

- Illegal border crossings

- The counterfeiting of metals and moneys

- Smuggling as gendered space

- Contraband and race

- Contraband and the commodification of the human

- Writing as a form of contraband

- Contraband as a model for political storytelling

Send inquiries, 2-page abstracts, or completed essays by November 15, 2007 toJeremy Paden, , or David Kelman,, or mail to Jeremy Paden, AssistantProfessor, Modern and Classical Languages, GeorgiaStateUniversity, P.O. Box3970,

Atlanta, GA30302-3970.