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***Abstract Deadline extended to 5 February 2009***
AVATARS: 3rd Annual Comparative Literature Graduate Conference
Date: 10 Apr 2009 - 12:00am
11 Apr 2009 - 12:00am
CALL FOR PAPERS
Department of Comparative Literature, Stanford University
3rd Annual Graduate Student Conference
April 10-11, 2009
AVATARS
PERSONAE, HETERONYMS, PSEUDONYMS
"Every individual human being, one may say, carries within him, potentially and
prescriptively, an ideal man, the archetype of a human being, and it is his life's
task to be, through all his changing manifestations, in harmony with the
unchanging unity of this ideal." - Friedrich Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic
Education of Man (1795)
Who can see us? How do we make ourselves visible, or readable, to the world
at large? How do we portray or define ourselves— to ourselves?
The Sanskrit word "avatara" means "descent"; an avatar, in Hindu theology,
embodies the descent of a deity from a higher to a lower realm. The term has
recently been repurposed for use in online interaction and gaming— notably in
the popular online multi-player environment Second Life— itself marking a kind
of descent from the hieratic realm of theology into the de-divinized world of
the Internet. The virtualization of certain areas of our societies has provided
new fora for experimenting with and reflecting on the images we construct
and project, the personae we mimic and adopt, and the ways in which we
interact with each other. That said, virtual culture may merely highlight issues
that have emerged in different forms through visual art and literature both
transnationally and transtemporally: for example, the use of gender-altering
pseudonyms as a method of alternative self-representation; the adoption of
myriad personae as a tool in artistic creation and performance; and the
veneration of icons both religious and social.
For the third annual Comparative Literature Graduate Student Conference at
Stanford University, we propose to trace the various descents, ascents,
descendants and ascendancies of the avatar, as well as the various
representational iterations of alternate or constructed personae, such as
pseudonyms. Topics include, but are by no means limited to the following
suggestions:
· Oracles and prophets
· Icons as objects, icons as people
· Masks
· Poetic personae
· Literary hoaxes; invented authors and their reception
· Ghostwriters
· Female writers with male pseudonyms and vice versa
· Gender, performance, corporeality, drag, self-portraiture
· Digital personae; dystopic/utopic movement toward the virtual
· Archetypes (Jungian, etc.)
· "Personality" or celebrity self-construction, "avatars" of human ideals,
cultural "icon" worship, public personae and the culture of self-representation
· Orality vs. textuality; textual history & hermeneutics
· Hiding/obscuring vs. highlighting/exaggerating
Presentations should be limited to 20 minutes in length (about 7-9 double-
spaced pages).
Please send abstracts of 500 words or less by January 10, 2009 to
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***Abstract Deadline extended to 5 February 2009***
Visit the Facebook Group "Avatars: Personae, Heteronyms, Pseudonyms" to
join the discussion, upload pictures and meet with attendees!
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