*******************************************************************************
AESTHETICS AND MULTICULTURALISM:
AN ANALYSIS OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL, POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS
Abstracts (1-2 pages) and brief vitae sought for a Special Session of
Modern Language Association's (MLA) annual Convention:
December 27-31 1999 in Chicago
Submission deadline: March 1, 1999
The interplay between multiculturalism and aesthetics continues to be an
actively debated and controversial issue in American universities. Many
current critics disparage the traditional, consensus-based reading of
American national identity. Voices calling for diversity may not desire
to dismantle wholesale the notion of a unified cultural identity as much
as redefine how such a common culture should be articulated and for what
purpose. This newer approach has often highlighted terms such as
hybridization, fragmentation, interaction, and empowerment rather than the
universalist vocabulary of aesthetic excellence, the human condition, and
disinterested literary merit.
This panel seeks to explore how these distinct movements play off each
other. These two radically dissimilar approaches are not easily
understood as just another contemporary version of the well-known battle
between the "moderns" and the "ancients." Perhaps the key arguments in
these debates have become repositioned and need, once again, further
clarification and elaboration. Much of the disagreement, for example,
centers around sociological, anthropological, and postmodern objections to
meta and organic narrative themes. And yet, on the other hand, a good
portion of these arguments are no longer contentious in obvious ways.
For example, almost everyone agrees that signification and the sign
only arise under shifting, unstable, radically contingent conditions.
But in spite of this agreement on the rupturing of fixed identities and
authoritative knowledge, something "meritorious," "literary," and
"aesthetic" still manages to distinguish itself under the notion of a
"work of art." And yet, just as surely, such distinction has been altered
through desires for a democratic American canon, one that accents social
equality, empowerment, and ethnic solidarity.
How exactly shall we read these notions of aesthetics and excellence in
our multicultural age? An ancillary and broader question might be: what
is the current state of multiculturalism within American canonicity today?
A few possibilities include (but are not limited to):
the role of American democracy in relation to aesthetics
gender/sexuality/ethnicity and transcultural literary merit
cultural relativism and American exceptionalism
social equity and the politics of canonicity
the utopian role of "disinterest" and American diversity
rationality as a grounding for literary evaluations
theories of commonality and contingencies of truth
the human community as a meta-narrative for multiculturalism
hierarchies of value and canonical/cultural representation
ideological power and a "moral" multiculturalism
Send brief vitae and abstracts Lou Caton
for 15 minute papers to: English Department
Auburn University
9030 Haley Center
Auburn, AL 36849-5203
Deadline: March 1, 1999
Hard Copy submissions only phone: (334) 844-9002
Conventional Mail or FAX FAX: (334) 844-9027
===============================================
From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
CFP@english.upenn.edu
Full Information at
http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP/
or write Erika Lin: elin@english.upenn.edu
===============================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 09 2000 - 13:50:16 EST