CFP: Crossing the Pre-Modern and the Post-Modern: Challenges to Global Ethnic Networks (10/8/03; ACLA, 4/15/04-4/18/04)

The following is a call for papers for a seminar at the annual
conference for the American Comparative Literature Association (Ann
Arbor - April 15-18, 2004).

The ACLA has a unique format of seminars in which the same
participants meet for two hours each day for the three meeting days
of the conference. This is an exciting forum for intellectual
exchange as the same group presents and discusses material around the
same topic for three days, thus offering more depth than most
traditional conference panels. Participants in this the seminar
"Crossing the Pre-Modern and the Post-Modern" will be expected to
share some preliminary work in advance of the conference.

Crossing the Pre-Modern and the Post-Modern: Challenges to Global
Ethnic Networks

This seminar invites papers that navigate a crossing between pre- (or
early) modern works of literature and post-modern theories of
subjectivity in order to deepen and/or to challenge the terms
constitutive of "global ethnic networks." Until relatively recently
(the past few hundred years), the words "global" and "ethnic" were
predominantly descriptive terms, the former designating spherical
shape (with all its divine symbolism) and the latter, from its Greek
root, referring to a "nation" (but particularly to any
non-Judeo-Christian people). In contemporary usage, "ethnic" and
"global" retain these basic definitions. However, these words now
function within complex networks that are grounded in modern,
Cartesian notions of subjectivity, a term which also had very
different connotations in the classical, medieval and even the early
modern world. In the latter half of the 20th century, certain
philosophers and literary scholars began to criticize ideologies of
subjectivity (including ethnicity and globalism). In the "premodern"
and the "postmodern" periods, there exist historical and theoretical
challenges to the conceptions of "ethnic" and "global" that have come
to dominate much discourse in literary studies and the world at
large. This seminar will pursue the following general questions: Were
there such networks (in practice if not by definition) in
historically and culturally distant times? How can they be compared
to more modern networks? Conversely, does the conceptual lack of
"globalism" and "ethnicity" in earlier periods raise questions about
the modern terminology? Is it anachronistic to apply these terms to
historically and culturally distant periods?

Papers must be grounded in at least one pre- or early modern literary
text (roughly antiquity through the Renaissance). Proposals should
offer a clear definition of terms and provide a careful theoretical
framework by which to navigate the crossing. One-page proposals (300
words), electronically or by snail mail.

Brenda Machosky
Stanford University
machosky_at_Stanford.edu

mailing address:
Introduction to the Humanities
Building 250-251J
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-2020

Deadline for Abstracts: October 8, 2003.

For additional information, please contact the organizer of the
seminar. You can consult the conference website through:
www.acla.org

-- 
Brenda Machosky, Ph.D.
Fellow in the Humanities
Stanford University
Building 300 Room 208
(650) 725-0708  (office)
(650) 424-8798 (home)
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