I am not sure if this conference has been posted on this list but if not
here it is 
 
Poetry and the Trace: An International Conference
Monash University, July 12-14 2008
Venue: State Library of Victoria
Confirmed Keynote speakers: Susan Stewart, Joan Retallack, Rachel Blau
DuPlessis, Lionel Fogarty.
Confirmed speakers (to date): Philip Mead, John Kinsella, David Brooks,
Bronwyn Lea, John Tranter, Peter Minter, Kate Fagan, Michael Farrell, John
Jenkins, Adam Aitken, Christopher Pollnitz
Convenors: Ann Vickery, Rose Lucas, John Hawke
Poetic language speaks of the elusivity, the impossible seductions of the
trace ? trace of memory, desire, the dreams of an impossible language which
encompasses, of a presence which underpins

The language of poetry, with its rhythms of pulse and silence, the
reflective pause of metaphor and the capacity for representation, is
inextricably related to the language of memory and desire ? both subjective
and social. This conference broadly investigates the relationship between
poetry, trace and memory and whether collective and private pasts and
subjectivities can find articulation through the flexible forms of poetic
language. Is poetry a mode which at least partially restores the fragments
of the past or transforms them to new political and ethical ends? How does
poetry negotiate bad histories and bad timing? Whose memory is being voiced
or heard? What is the relationship between memory and feeling? How might new
technologies impact on structures of memory? Is poetry possible today and if
so, what is its future? Can poetry evidence a archaeology of desire while
engaging in a politics of ethical relationship?

Papers are invited which consider the theme of the trace in relation to
poetry of any kind from classical antiquity to the contemporary. The
following list suggests some possible areas for development, but proposals
in any area relating to the conference theme of poetry and the concept of
trace will be welcome:

Trace; aura; fragment
Mourning and melancholia
Is Postmodern Poetry Beyond Mourning?
Canon, Reputation, and Institutionalisation
Is poetry possible in the new millennium?
The Unrecoverable: Gaps, Absence, Silence
The making of history
Memory, repetition, and seriality
Electronic Dreams: Digital memories
Whose memory?: Historicising poetic movements and coteries
Memory, nation, identity
Memory of sensation/the sensation of memory: Rethinking the Relationship
between Word and Affect
Memory and the Body
Memory and Desire
Belatedness
Bad history; bad timing
Poetic compost: recycling the past for present and future uses
Collective memory; cultural memory
Disputed memory; false memories; error and memory
Fugitive memory and the fugacious
Conference papers are 20 minutes in length. To submit a proposal for the
conference, please forward a 200-300 word abstract and brief biographical
note as an email attachment to either:

Ann Vickery
John Hawke
Rose Lucas
A website address will be posted shortly to everyone on this mailing list.

Deadline for submission of proposals: 1 February 2008
Notification of acceptance: 1 March 2008
This conference is being held jointly by Monash University’s School of
English, Communications and Performance Studies, and the Centre for Women’s
Studies and Gender Research.

Prof. Hazel Smith
Writing and Society Research Group
College of Arts (Bankstown 1.1.163)
UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY
Locked Bag 1797
Penrith South DC NSW 1797
tel: 9772 6400
email: [log in to unmask]