CFP: Is There Anything Left to Say About "The Rape of the Lock"? (5/20/05; GEMCS, 12/1/05-12/4/05)

Is There Anything Left to Say About "The Rape of the Lock"?
Deadline: May 20, 2005

Almost three centuries have passed since the first edition of Alexander
Pope's The Rape of the Lock was published, followed by later editions,
parodies, "The Key to the Lock", and many other miscellaneous responses
and outcries. A long history of scholarly work on the poem has dealt largely
with its "thingness" - the abundance of material goods and exotic luxuries
- in order to read the poem as a light and airy celebration of
18th-century colonialism. Other scholarship has examined the poem and
its author in relation to issues of gender and sexuality in the 18th
century, aesthetics and literary form, consumption culture, the rage of
political party, and the list goes on.

This proposed special session for the 13th Annual Conference for the Group
for Early Modern Cultural Studies (GEMCS) will take this history of
scholarship on Pope's The Rape of the Lock as its starting point in order to
pose and respond to the question: Is there anything left to say about The
Rape of the Lock? In addition to other approaches, papers might explore ways
the modern critical response to the poem differ from contemporary responses;
how changes between the 1712 and 1714 edition (in which sylphs were added)
have shaped its legacy in 18th-century studies and beyond; whether or not
this mock-epic is still a useful cornerstone in literature courses and why;
whether or not the poem can be "read" outside of its complex and shifting
historical, social, cultural contexts; how feminist responses to the poem
have dramatically changed positions many times about what Pope may have been
trying to "say" about women of his period.

Please e-mail brief paper proposals (no more than 500 words) and Vitae to
Courtney Beggs at cbbeggs_at_tamu.edu by May 20th.

The 13th Annual Conference for the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies
(GEMCS) will be held December 1-4, 2005 in San Antonio, TX.

-- 
Courtney Beggs
Department of English
Texas A&M University
         ==========================================================
              From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List
                        CFP_at_english.upenn.edu
                         Full Information at
                     http://cfp.english.upenn.edu
         or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
         ==========================================================