CFP: In/Between 2014
Papers on All Topics Are Welcome!
THE SOUNDSCAPES OF CULTURE
February 27-28, 2014
The School of Literatures, Cultural Studies and Linguistics invites papers connected to this year’s overarching theme of sound, as well as papers based on all current research by our faculty and graduate students. By designating a conference theme we aim to provide an opportunity for extended discussion of one particular concept that ramifies for the scholarly disciplines represented in the School. However, other goals of the School’s annual conference include showcasing the diversity of our research projects, sharing with our colleagues our current interests, and being maximally inclusive of all our community members. To those ends, we welcome proposals on all topics.
We are accepting proposals for individual papers as well as panels and roundtables. Please send 250-word abstracts to Heather Cohen (cohenh@uic.edu) and me (cmcquill@uic.edu) by December 13, 2013. Indicate at the top of the abstract the category for which you are submitting a proposal: 1) an individual paper (20 minutes); or 2) a panel or a roundtable (one hour). If you are submitting a proposal for a panel or a roundtable, please include the names of the individuals who comprise the panel or roundtable. If the proposal is for a panel, please also include the titles and short abstracts of the panelists’ papers.
Against the backdrop of today’s scopocentrism fueled by the omnipresent screens of visual media, sound is beginning to reclaim scholarly attention in literary and cultural studies. Part of this conference will be dedicated to examining the role of listening practices and acoustic ecologies in our reception and interpretation of speech, music, and noise. We are interested in sound as a medium of communication, and as an instrument in fashioning and preserving cultural communities. Topics that speak to our interest in exploring the relationship between sound and culture include: silent films, soundtracks, dubbing; oral dialects and code-switching in conversation; mnemonics and tongue twisters in language learning; lyrical voice, poetic rhyme schemes, and declamations of verse; discourse analysis, narratology, and story telling; realizing dramatic scripts on stage, audience reception of musical compositions, and acoustics; oral histories and oral literature; phonology and phonetics; recording technologies used in language learning; intertextual echoes and stylistic resonances; and connections between movements in music and literature.