The University of Tulsa’s English Graduate Student Association is currently accepting applications for our 2019 multidisciplinary conference, “This Land is My Land”: Reclaiming Spaces and Narratives. We would love to have your applications, so much so that we have extended the deadline until December 9th. See the call for papers below for more information.
CALL FOR PAPERS
“This Land is My Land”: Reclaiming Spaces and Narratives
7-9 March 2019
10th Sesquiannual University of Tulsa English Graduate Student Conference
Tulsa, Oklahoma
In the original recorded version of Woody Guthrie’s most famous song “This Land is Your Land,” two controversial verses were expunged in order to paint a sunnier portrait of America. The missing lyrics depict much darker American stories of exclusion and disenfranchisement, which causes Guthrie to change his statement to a question: “Is this land made for you and me?” While later folk artists would reclaim the missing lyrics, this story of neglect and reclamation informs the theme of this conference. Guthrie aptly identifies in his lyrics the way that place shapes our experiences, emphasizing how different people experience place differently. The theme for the 2019 University of Tulsa English Graduate Student Conference, “‘This Land is My Land’: Reclaiming Spaces and Narratives,” thus centers on the reclamations of spaces and narratives, defining “space” in both literal and figurative terms. It seeks to answer questions such as how people have appropriated not only cultures but cultural spaces; how archives negotiate ownership—thinking about who has a right to what physical spaces, histories, and narratives; how we approach narratives outside of our own cultural experiences as instructors, researchers, and scholars. We seek to address the following questions: how can we approach regional spaces and narratives in ways that honor their uniqueness while acknowledging their larger context?; How do we determine what texts, spaces, or narratives to claim or to reclaim? How do (or should) we separate our personal heritage from the larger forces which govern cultural spaces? In exploring these questions, and listening to those voices that have been previously silenced, we as a community of scholars, teachers, students, and creators can revisit the histories of those around us to shape our future practice.
We invite papers and presentations that fit within this theme and address issues of geographical location and landscape, regionalism, difference, cultural memory, inheritance, trauma, appropriation, sustainability, ecocriticism, minority writers, diaspora studies, folk studies, gender studies, Native American studies, African-American studies, postcolonial theory, queer theory, archival recovery, and Oklahoma writers, among others.
Because our theme includes varied and interdisciplinary concerns, we plan to host different kinds of panels and presentations incorporating both traditional and experimental methods of research. As many of these themes involve personal experiences, both as subject and researcher, we invite varied forms of presentations in order to bring attention to the different kinds of research, labor, and histories that we engage with as students, teachers, scholars, and creators. We therefore invite submissions for the following categories:
- Paper submissions
- Creative writing projects
- Panel submissions
- Roundtable submissions
- Presentations on Digital Humanities projects
- Presentations on pedagogy
We encourage papers from other disciplines including Art, Anthropology, Communications, Music, History, Journalism, Sociology, Political Science, Psychology, and Women’s Studies, as well as papers not directly related to the conference theme. Undergraduate and Creative Writing submissions welcome.
For paper submissions:
Please submit abstracts of 200-350 words to tulsagradconf@gmail.com by 9 December, 2018. Please include the title of your paper or project, your name, your contact information, institutional affiliation, and any presentation requirements (laptops, projectors, etc.) you may have.
For panel and roundtable submissions:
Please submit abstracts of 200-500 words to tulsagradconf@gmail.com by 9 December, 2018. Please include the title of the panel, the name of the panel organizer and contact information, institutional affiliation, any presentation requirements (laptops, projectors, etc.) you may have, and also the name, paper title, contact information, and institutional affiliation of each presenter.
For digital humanities and pedagogy presentations:
Please submit a short description of your presentation of no more than 350 words to tulsagradconf@gmail.com by 9 December, 2018. Please include the title of your presentation, your name, your contact information, institutional affiliation, and any presentation requirements (laptops, projectors, etc.) you may have.
For creative writing submissions:
Please submit short samples of your creative writing of no more than 500 words to tulsagradconf@gmail.com by 9 December, 2018. Please include the title and genre of your work, your name, your contact information, institutional affiliation, and any presentation requirements (laptops, projectors, etc.) you may have.
There is a registration fee of $15 for all presenters (excluding TU graduate students who can register for $10 and TU undergraduates who can register for $5).
If you have any questions or require further information, please e-mail the conference director Lily McCully at tulsagradconf@gmail.com. You can also visit our conference website at tulsagradconf.wordpress.com.
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