Call for Papers    

Southern Women Writers and the World

Deadline: March 31, 2005

 

Sixth Biennial Southern Women Writers Conference

Berry College, Rome, GA September 22-24, 2005

Featured speakers include: Tina Ansa, Carmen Deedy, Trudier Harris, Elizabeth Spencer, Sidney Wade, Patricia Yaeger. Music by the Magnolia Sisters.

Recent publications in southern studies have drawn on developments in "New World" studies to problematize conventional definitions of "the South" and "the southerner," drawing comparisons between the southern U.S. and other plantation societies in the Western Hemisphere. Others
examine the history and current state of international cultural transactions made by writers from the southern U.S. and by non-U.S. writers who have written about the U.S. South, or trace the region's
currents of immigration in the past and present. We invite critical and creative submissions that explore any aspects of southern women's writing, but we are particularly interested in submissions that address the ways in which women writers and artists have participated in or reacted to these global transactions, including but not limited to:

* canonical and non-canonical works of fiction, poetry, autobiography, and drama

* non-discursive works (film, photography, performance art, etc.)

* works by non-U.S. southerners set within the traditional boundaries of the U.S. South

* works by native U.S. southerners set outside the traditional boundaries of the U.S.

* works set in the cosmopolitan/immigrant South

* works set in distinctive sub-regions of the South that reflect non-English cultural traditions (Appalachia, Sea Islands, Acadiana, etc.)

We especially encourage theoretical and disciplinary approaches that seek to remap the conventional boundaries of the southeastern U.S.

Please send 300-word abstracts or completed papers that can be read aloud in twenty minutes. If submitting a proposal for a panel, please include the names of participants and abstracts for individual papers.

Since its inception in 1994, the Southern Women Writers Conference has been devoted to showcasing the works of well-known and emerging southern women writers, expanding the literary canon, and developing critical and theoretical understandings of the tradition of southern women's writing.

All submissions should be sent no later than March 31, 2005 and may be sent via e-mail as attachments in MS Word format to swwc@berry.edu  or by regular mail to:

Southern Women Writers Conference; Berry College; Box 490350; Mt. Berry, GA 30149

Requests for multi-media equipment should accompany submissions.

For more information, visit the conference website at www.berry.edu/swwc/2005 .