CFP: Figures of Convulsion (grad) (9/1/05; 11/18/05-11/19/05)

The graduate students of the Department of German at Princeton
University announce a graduate conference to be held November 18-19,
2005. We invite abstracts from graduate students in German studies and
other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences:

Figures of Convulsion

Literature, philosophy, visual art, music and film often figure
discontinuity and interruption as moments of convulsion. Originally a
medical term, convulsion has come to refer to both bodily and psychic
phenomena--for instance, spasms, shivers, laughter, contractions,
hysteria, paroxysm, orgasm and epilepsy. These conditions raise the
question of what constitutes a convulsion. Is paroxysmal activity
necessarily irregular, unpredictable, and discontinuous? To what
extent is it involuntary? Must it always be pathological, or can it
manifest itself as benign or even therapeutic?

We are interested not only in how the figure of convulsion represents
the intersection of certain bodily and psychic activities, but also in
how this trope gains currency in a variety of discourses. The
vocabulary and imagery of convulsion is used to describe certain
political and social experiences, such as agitation, unrest, excitement
or revolution, as well as violent geological disturbances (earthquakes
or volcanic eruptions). Further, convulsion is often also a means of
representation=97for example, unstable images produced by certain
photographic and filmic practices, as well as explosive sounds that
destabilize the relation of signal, noise and silence.

We are seeking papers that examine interruptions of any kind that
result in a transformation or radical shift, whether as formal quality
or thematic element.

Please send a 50-word summary and a 500-word abstract to
kgellen_at_princeton.edu, kmcewen_at_princeton.edu, and
mmcampbe_at_princeton.edu by September 1, 2005.

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Received on Thu May 19 2005 - 10:46:20 EDT