UPDATE: Rhetorics of Place (9/15/04; NEMLA, 3/31/05-4/2/05)

Revised: Roundtable now open to all presenters: faculty and graduate
students alike; see details below and consider participating in a new
conference presentation format for NEMLA.

Rhetorics of Place in Literature: Issues in the Field
Northeast Modern Language Association Conference
March 31-April 2, 2005
Boston, MA

Roundtable Description: Presentations sought for Northeast Modern
Language Association Conference in Boston (March 31-April 2, 2005) that
address contemporary discussions about rhetorics of place; in
particular, this roundtable will discuss how writers today examine the
influence of place upon individual and/or communal identities and how
such influences translate into efforts to protect the environment.
Papers drawing upon ecocriticism and ecofeminism encouraged. Email
500-word abstracts to Jen Riley (j1riley_at_umassd.edu) by Sept. 15, 2004.

Detailed proposal:
This roundtable will provide an opportunity for presenters to engage in
a discussion regarding the growing literary fields of ecocriticism,
ecofeminism, and what many scholars are calling a rhetorics of place.
Many writers today are part of a rhetoric of placean ongoing discussion
of place and its influence today. There are a number of questions that
arise during this discussion, among them:

**How do we define place?
**How does ones country and history, both individual and national,
affect ones sense of place?
**What does it mean to be a placed person?
**What are the differences between a placed person and a displaced
person?
**What do people gain from knowing and understanding the idea of place?

More importantly, how can knowing our sense of place lead to protection
of the environment? These questions point to the need to examine how
history, national identity, environment, and community affect peoples
sense of place and peoples identities. In our ever changing locations
and our growing urban centers, how to locate, establish, and understand
place appears increasingly important. Perhaps Wallace Stegner says it
best: Only in the act of submission is the sense of place realized and
a sustainable relationship between people and earth established (206).

The following steps will be taken for this roundtable:

1. Selected papers MUST BE COMPLETED FIVE weeks prior to the conference.

2. Papers will then be posted on a website that will be password
protected (my campus will provide this service).

3. All presenters will read the papers prior to the panel session.

4. The roundtable session will be composed of brief presentations
(overviews of the papers) that provides a sense of the major issues
regarding the growing discussions regarding a rhetorics of place that
emerges in all of our respective works, followed by an open discussion.

The objective of this roundtable format is to create conversation about
the issues, rather than static presentations that tend to ensue when
papers are merely read to an audience. In particular, graduate student
presenters can gain something practical from the experience, such as
practice for oral comps and dissertation defenses and questions that
will help them build their conference presentations into articles to
send out for review. Also, the audience will gain a sense of the
conversation of this particular area in literary studies. The
significance of this roundtable is that the format provides a different
model for NEMLA to pursue, as the director suggested at the 2004
conference in Pittsburgh.

Please email 500-word abstracts to Jen Riley (j1riley_at_umassd.edu) by
September 15, 2004. Please indicate in the email subject line that you
are submitting for the NEMLA Rhetorics of Place Roundtable. Note: All
roundtable presenters must become NEMLA members. Thanks.

-- 
Jeannette E. Riley
Director, Women's Studies
Assistant Professor, English
UMass Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Road
N. Dartmouth, MA  02747
508.999.8279
j1riley_at_umassd.edu
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