CALL FOR PAPERS
Annual NEMLA conference at Buffalo (NY) April 7-8 2000

"Scientific Nightmares and Literary Monsters: From Frankenstein to Dolly"

         Even before the literary category of science-fiction was invented,
science and scientific discoveries, perspectives and methodologies had
already been abundantly used in literature.  Far from being only ways to
imagine or prefigure possible future scientific developments and perils,
narratives discussing or representing science and its more or less
beneficial developments have also tried to create moral or ethical
frames into which uses of scientific issues were problematized and
analyzed from different perspectives.
        In this panel I would like to give room to papers dealing with the
variety of ways in which literature has been giving voice to the "scientific
nightmares" that have long inhabited our imagination: from aspirations
towards the God-like power to create (or re-create) new human beings
(as in Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_, or in Aldous Huxley's _Brave
New World_, or even in _Heart of Dog_ by Michail Bulgakov for
instance), to utopic/dystopic possibilities to change the past, or to
more recent experimental narratives describing the future as chaotic
cyber-realities.
         Papers discussing any aspect echoing our conscious or unconscious
 anxiety about the social changes imposed by the fast advance of
technology will be regarded with particular interest.  Cloning,
instances of hybridity, new concepts of the body, dystopias,
representations of good and evil science are all possible topics to be
submitted to this panel.

Send abstracts (300-400 words) and a brief bio by email (both as text
in the body of the mail and as an RTF attachment, please) to:

Julie Perco
Department of Comparative Literature
Pennsylvania State University
Email: [log in to unmask]

Deadline: 15 September 1999
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Please note:
You need not be a member of NEMLA to submit your proposal, but
membership is required to present your paper at the conference.
Abstracts (due  by September 15) should include any audio-visual requests.
Late requests cannot be honored.



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