Dear All,
This is a CALL FOR PAPERS for the Spenser
Roundtable at the Sixteenth Century Society Conference (SCSC) in Cincinnati (aka Porkopolis).
As many of you know, The Spenser Roundtable
is a beloved annual event at the SCSC that's always very well attended.
And we've now been upgraded to Plenary Status too! The last session on Spenser and Philosophy in Fort Worth was no exception.
I hope that many will consider both submitting abstracts for the Roundtable
and also attending this time as well. Typically, the Roundtable session
features 3-5 speakers who each present papers of about 10 minutes, before
we open up the session for discussion, which is always stimulating and
fun.
This year's topic is somewhat unusual "Humans, Non-Humans and Other Beings in Spenser's Work." How is "humanity," "human-ness" or "humaneness" understood in Spenser's various writings? What is the status and function of non-human entities (such as, Talus, the False Florimell, Alma, the Satyrs, Una's Lion etc.)? Can we move beyond dismissing their odd ontological/metaphorical status as allegory and study them through other lenses? In what ways do they shed light on the "human" figures? Are elfs different from humans? Are Spenser's Irish human -- or not? We especially invite provocative, whacky, quirky, or other experimental approaches to this question. The nature of the roundtable invites ideas, and hopefully, this topic will spur them on!
Please send an abstract of 200-250 words
to me ([log in to unmask]) by 10 APRIL (note that the final
SCSC submission deadline is 15 April). As in previous years, if there are
more exciting abstracts than the roundtable can accommodate, we will arrange
more Spenser sessions, so please do send me something if you have project
you are working on.
I look forward to seeing many of you
at the SCSC this fall!
Ayesha
Ayesha Ramachandran
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5350
(631) 632-7628
[log in to unmask]
