UPDATE: WAR: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Conflict (2/20/03; 4/11/03-4/13/03)

Please note the extension of proposal and panel submissions deadline to
February 20, 2003.
WAR: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Conflict
April 11-13, 2003
The University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH, USA
Deadline for submission: February 20, 2003

Plenary Speakers include:
Herman Rapaport, University of Southhampton. Professor Rapaport is the
author of _Between the Sign and the Gaze_ and _The Theory Mess:
Deconstruction in Eclipse_. He will be speaking on "Derrida's Conflicts of
Mind."

Michael Ferber, University of New Hampshire. Professor Ferber's publications
include _The Dictionary of Literary Symbols_. He will be speaking on Percy
Shelley and tyranny.

"I shall risk this proposition: each time forgiveness is at the service of a
finality, be it noble or spiritual (atonement or redemption, reconciliation,
salvation), each time that it aims to re-establish a normality
(social,national, political, psychological) by a work of mourning, by some
therapy or ecology of memory, then the 'forgiveness' is not pure--nor is its
concept. Forgiveness is not, it should not be, normal, normative,
normalising. It should remain exceptional and extraordinary, in the face of
the impossible: as if it interrupted the ordinary course of historical
temporality."
---Jacques Derrida, _On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness_

If resolution functions as something other than a mode of normalising, what
might that other function be? How do we "resolve" the exceptional, the
extraordinary, the impossible? Does the structure of war demand new
approaches to resolution? What role do the humanities and social sciences
have in constructing these new approaches?

This conference seeks to open new possibilities for our understanding of
conflict and resolution. The English Graduate Organization and the Center
for the Humanities at the University of New Hampshire welcome paper and
panel proposals addressing all aspects of war, conflict, and resolution. We
encourage literary subjects and approaches (theory and criticism, genre and
period studies) and cross-cultural and interdisciplinary treatments (law,
philosophy, psychoanalysis, history, cinema). Papers and panels might
include, but are not limited to the following subjects:
--The place and function of the academy
--War and foreign policy
--Peace studies
--Trauma and memory
--Theory and post-theory
--War in literature
--Public intellectuals
--Modes of commemoration
--Reconstruction
--Topographies of war
--The body at war
--Media and war
--War and the limits of representation

Please send two copies of a 250-500 word abstract by February 20, 2003 to:
Scott Massey
Conference on Conflict
Department of English
Hamilton Smith Hall
95 Main St.
The University of New Hampshire
Durham, NH
03824

E-mail submissions are also welcome. Please submit a 250-500 word abstract
to: warconference_at_hotmail.com. Please cut and paste your abstract into the
body of the message. No attachments, please.

All submissions must be accompanied by participant's name, paper title,
institutional affiliation, and both email and snail-mail addresses. Panel
proposals should include individual abstracts and a brief precis introducing
the panel.

For further information, please contact Scott Massey at
masseycs_at_hotmail.com.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
"Whichever word you speak--
you owe to
destruction."
--Paul Celan

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Received on Sun Feb 09 2003 - 19:12:22 EST