Call for Proposals: First International Doris Lessing Conferencebr
April 1-4, 2004
New Orleans

The Doris Lessing Society, an Allied Organization of MLA, welcomes paper proposals for the First International Doris Lessing Conference to be held in New Orleans, April 1-4, 2004. Any topic pertaining to Lessing is welcome. Possibilities include Lessing's relationship to postcoloniality, postmodernism, spirituality, narrative, memory and nostalgia, connections with other modern or contemporary writers, politics, fairy tales and fantasy, her attitudes toward gender, older women, men, Africa, teaching Lessing, and reviewing. Any topic pertinent to Lessing, however, is welcome. Special award for the best student paper.

Deadline for Panel Submissions: April 15, 2003
Deadline for Individual Submissions: June 15, 2003
Send one-two page proposals to both Debrah Raschke, English Dept., MS 2650
Southeast Missouri St. University Cape Girardeau, MO 63701, tel. (573)-651-2623
email:draschke@semovm.semo.edu and Phyllis Perrakis, Dept. of English,
University of Ottawa, Canada K1N 6N5; email: pperrak@uottawa.ca; Tel. (613) 730-2096.

Debrah Raschke
Associate Professor
English Dept.
Southeast Missouri St. University
Cape, MO 63701
573-651-2623
http://cstl-cla.semo.edu/raschke/

Please do consider sending something in for this conference at Ohio State in October 2003. I can guarantee you that central Ohio is actually lovely at this time of the year (the remains of what was once the most varied hardwood forest in the U.S. is in superb fall foilage at this time). Plus, you can come and learn about the new DS program here, meet the world's greatest university ADA coordinator (Scott Lissner), and marvel at the country's largest college football stadium (which really is a beautiful piece of architecture).

I do plan to have one of the keynote speakers addressing feminisms and disability issues particularly.

You can access the conference website for the CFP and more directly at: http://www.english.ohio-state.edu/femrhet/cfp1.htm

But here's the CFP right now too:

The Fourth Biennial
Feminism(s) & Rhetoric(s)
Conference

Call for Proposals

The Rhetoric and Composition Program of the Department of English at Ohio State University is pleased to announce the Fourth Biennial International Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference, to be held October 23-25, 2003 on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University. Recognizing the cross-disciplinarity and multivocality of feminisms and rhetorics, this conference invites the participation of scholars, activists, and artists in feminist theory, literacy theory, rhetorical theory, speech communication, art and art theory, creative writing, literary theory, women's studies, education, comparative studies, composition, linguistics, history, postcolonial theory, and other fields.

We invite proposals that explore critical intersections of rhetorics and feminist discourse. Topics might include (but are certainly not limited to) theoretical and practical explorations of the rhetorics of gender, race, class, culture, age, sexuality, and ability in the areas of performance/enactment; space, place, and mapping; digital technologies and media; visual culture; feminist research methodologies; literacies; historical-rhetorical depictions of women; rhetorical discourses of the body; individual and professional identities; revisions of canonical, literary, artistic historical and rhetorical perspectives; the rhetorics of masculinities and men's studies; geopolitical and public policy; institutional practices of school, church, home, workplace; and the rhetorics of recovery and revisions of marginalized groups.

Please watch for UPDATES on conference themes, topics, and featured speakers. The conference web site address is http://english.ohio-state.edu/femrhet

Formats may include individual presentations (20 min.), 3-4 member panels (1 1/2 hours), and workshops or roundtables (1 1/2 hrs.). Although traditional presentations are acceptable, we encourage participants to create formats that go beyond the read-aloud academic paper. Interactive sessions that include discussions, dialogues, and performances are especially welcome. Please, each applicant may submit only one proposal.

For individual presentations:

Submit three copies of a 250-word description of the presentation and title. Please indicate the format of your presentation (traditional scholarly paper, performance, dialogue, audience discussion, other alternative form). On a separate cover page, provide the title of your proposal and a brief (25 word) description or abstract. Also list your name, address, phone, e-mail, and institutional affiliation.

For group presentations:

Submit three copies of a 250-750-word description of the presentation and title, indicating the role(s) of each participant. Please indicate the format of your presentation. (traditional scholarly paper, performance, dialogue, audience discussion, other alternative form) On a separate cover page, provide the title of your proposal and a brief (50 word) description or abstract. Also list the names, addresses, phones, e-mails, and institutional affiliations of all participants. Please specify one member to serve as a contact.

All submissions should be received by February 1, 2003. Mail them to:

Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference
Rhetoric and Composition Program
Department of English
The Ohio State University
421 Denney Hall
164 West 17th Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210

The conference web site address is johnson.112@osu.edu or (614) 292-5774, or Susan Delagrange at delagrange.2@osu.edu or (419) 755-4235.

Bioethicists as well as health and mental health professionals often couch end-of-life issues in terms of quality-of-life, autonomy, and personhood. These issues are frequently seen quite differently by people with disabilities. Often, people with disabilities report that, from their perspective, health care professionals and bioethicists have written off their concerns as unimportant and that they demonstrate a striking lack of understanding of the social context of disability. As an attempt to bring divergent perspectives together in one place, this special issue will provide a forum for discussion of diverse perspectives, primarily from the point of view of people with disabilities/disabled people on end-of-life issues. One purpose of this journal issue is to make available material about end-of-life issues that can be useful to policy makers and which, to that end, reflects the perspectives of people with disabilities as well as those of health care professionals, bioethicists and related professionals.

For this special issue, we seek manuscripts of the following types, all of which should either incorporate the social model of disability or demonstrate an understanding of it (generally as practiced in the field of Disability Studies) and accord social model perspectives legitimacy: (a) papers describing case examples of end-of-life issues, including first person accounts; (b) empirical investigations of end-of-life related areas of concern to persons with disabilities; and (c) policy papers analyzing end-of-life issues, including service and funding concerns and (d) advocacy papers for specific end-of-life issues.

Authors are encouraged to submit four (4) copies of manuscripts to Timothy H. Lillie, Ph.D., Special Issue Co-Editor, Department of Curricular & Instructional Studies, The University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-4205. A 3.5 inch floppy disk with an electronic version of the document, in Word 2000 format, must be submitted within two weeks of acceptance of the paper. All manuscripts should be prepared using APA-style (5th ed.) and allow for blind review (complete author information, including contact information for first author on the title page; author names should not appear on other pages of the manuscript). Manuscripts should be no longer than 20-25 pages total. Contact the first editor (Dr. Lillie) for questions concerning format and style, especially if the author is not an academic author. For other questions, contact either Timothy Lillie (330-972-6746 or e-mail: tlillie@uakron.edu) or James L. Werth, Jr., Ph.D. (330-972-2505 or email: jwerth@uakron.edu). Due date for submission of manuscripts is April 1, 2003.

Timothy Lillie, PhD
Dept. of Curricular & Instructional Studies
The University of Akron
Akron OH 44325-4205
330-972-6746 (Voice)
330-972-5209 (Fax)

Currents in Electronic Literacy (ISSN 1524-6493) is now accepting submissions for its Spring 2003 issue, "Whose Web Is It Anyway?"

Completed articles for this issue are due February 15, 2003.

The surge in the use of technology and the Internet in education and in society more generally raises a number of questions, both for those who use these technologies and those who do not.

Among these questions are:
* How does the Internet limit or offer new possibilities for various groups of people, including those with low incomes, those with disabilities, or others?
* How visible are race and gender on the Web?
* What relationship exists between globalization and the use and spread of new information technologies?
* What role does technology play in cultural memory and cultural literacy?
This is by no means an exhaustive list of the questions that interest us; Currents welcomes articles that address these and other questions from a literary, critical, theoretical, aesthetic, rhetorical, practical or pedagogical standpoint.

While our focus for the Spring 2003 issue will be these issues, we also welcome submissions on any aspect of electronic literacy for this issue.

More information is available at http://currents.cwrl.utexas.edu/

Please address any questions and submit completed articles via e-mail (preferred) or regular mail to:

Miriam Schacht
Coordinating Editor, Currents
mschacht@mail.utexas.edu

Jennifer Williams
Assistant Editor, Currents
voodoochile@mail.utexas.edu

Currents in Electronic Literacy
c/o Computer Writing and Research Lab
Parlin 3, University of Texas at Austin

South Central Modern Language Association Call for Special Session: Hot Springs, Arkansas, 2003. Abstracts invited for the following special session:

Aberrant Communities: Unhuman Survival within Hierarchical Humanity

Freaks, monsters, cyborgs: All are groups represented as both Other and irrevocably alien to human sympathy.

This session examines cinematic and literary treatment of how the rejected, feared, and abused survive and seek integrity through communities of necessity and sympathy. Questions to consider might include: What do "normal" social institutions define as freakish, monstrous, or non-human? How do such individuals create communities which provide for their survival, and what do these communities look like? Is survival, if liminal and abhored, even desirable?

Send abstract and short vita electronically or otherwise to:

Prof. Delia Fisher
Department of English
Westfield State College
Westfield, MA 01086
FAX 413-562-3613

The Flannery O'Connor Society (SAMLA) invites papers or proposals on "The Problem of Displacement in Flannery O'Connor's Works and Life" for the annual meeting of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association, held November 14-16, 2003 in Atlanta, GA.

Deadline: 3/28/03

The Society welcomes varying interpretations of "displacement," whether related to the author's life, letters, or works. Displaced persons, misfits, and trickster figures populate O'Connor's fiction, and depending on the reader's point of view, they either punctuate or pervert the author's intent. Whether they be explorations of location, the body, religion, or the mind or analyses of theme or characterization, papers should uncover the "roots" of that which has been "displaced."

Submissions should be eight to ten (8-10) typed pages with an anticipated reading time of fifteen to twenty minutes. Please submit as an e-mail attachment (in Word for Windows or WordPerfect) one copy of the completed paper or a two-three page abstract to lpaige@gasou.edu. Additionally, send regular mail one hard copy of the paper or abstract, along with Personal Contact Information, including phone and e-mail, to the session Chair:

Dr. Linda Rohrer Paige
Department of Literature and Philosophy
P. O. Box 8023
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460-8023

Include SASE for return of hard copy materials.
Inquiries may be made via e-mail.

Here's a CFP for a possible special session at the 2003 Modern Language Association convention (it will be in San Diego):

Deaf Literature and American Sign Language at MLA

• What is ASL's place in MLA and the academy? What is "Deaf literature"?
• How should it be "read"?

Abstract and brief cv by March 10 to: Brenda Brueggemann(Brueggemann.1@osu.edu)

Please submit proposals to the contact listed below:

"Extraodinary Bodies of Asian Americans"
Asian American literature and film through the lens of disability, illness, corporeal anomaly, or technological monstrosity. New perspectives on disability/cyborg studies through Asian American focus.

1-pg abstract, 1-pg CV by Mar. 10th. Rachel Lee, rlee@humnet.ucla.edu.

Call for Proposals

The Rhetoric and Composition Program of the Department of English at Ohio State University is pleased to announce the Fourth Biennial International Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference, "Intersections: Critical Locations of Feminist Rhetorical Practice," to be held October 23-25, 2003 on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University. Recognizing the cross-disciplinarity and multivocality of feminisms and rhetorics, this conference invites the participation of scholars, activists, and artists in feminist theory, literacy theory, rhetorical theory, speech communication, art and art theory, creative writing, literary theory, women's studies, education, comparative studies, composition, linguistics, history, postcolonial theory, and other fields.We invite proposals that explore critical intersections of rhetorics and feminist discourse. Topics might include (but are certainly not limited to) theoretical and practical explorations of the rhetorics of gender, race, class, culture, age, sexuality, and ability in the areas of performance/enactment; space, place, and mapping; digital technologies and media; visual culture; feminist research methodologies; literacies; historical-rhetorical depictions of women; rhetorical discourses of the body; individual and professional identities; revisions of canonical, literary, artistic, historical and rhetorical perspectives; the rhetorics of masculinities and men's studies;geopolitical and public policy; institutional practices of school, church, home, and workplace; and the rhetorics of recovery and revisions of marginalized groups. Featured speakers include Susan Jarratt and Andrea Lunsford. The conference web site address is http://english.ohio-state.edu/femrhet.

Formats may include individual presentations (20 min.), 3-4 member panels (1 1/2 hours), and workshops or roundtables (1 1/2 hrs.). Although traditional presentations are acceptable, we encourage participants to create formats that go beyond the read-aloud academic paper. Interactive sessions that include discussions, dialogues, and performances are especially welcome. Please, each applicant may submit only one proposal.

For individual presentations:

Submit three copies of a 250-word description of the presentation and title. Please indicate the format of your presentation (traditional scholarly paper, performance, dialogue, audience discussion, other alternative form). On a separate cover page, provide the title of your proposal and a brief (25 word) description or abstract. Also list your name, address, phone, e-mail, and institutional affiliation.

For group presentations:

Submit three copies of a 250-750-word description of the presentation and title, indicating the role(s) of each participant. Please indicate the format of your presentation. (traditional scholarly paper, performance, dialogue, audience discussion, other alternative form) On a separate cover page, provide the title of your proposal and a brief (50 word) description or abstract. Also list the names, addresses, phones, e-mails, and institutional affiliations of all participants. Please specify one member to serve as a contact.

All submissions should be received by February 1, 2003. Mail them to:

Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) Conference
Rhetoric and Composition Program
Department of English
The Ohio State University
421 Denney Hall
164 West 17th Avenue
Columbus, Ohio 43210

Proposals may also be sent as e-mail attachments (Word or rtf format) to Susan Delagrange at delagrange.2@osu.edu.

The conference web site address is http://english.ohio-state.edu/femrhet

For more information, contact Nan Johnson at johnson.112@osu.edu or (614) 292-5774, or Susan Delagrange at delagrange.2@osu.edu or (419) 755-4235.

DPI’s upcoming World Summit will be held in Winnipeg, Canada from September 8 to 10, 2004. The Summit’s theme is Diversity Within, with its primary focus on women, youth, and indigenous peoples with disabilities. For a more detailed description of the Summit and its theme, please visit
http://www.dpi.org/en/events/world_summit/06-23-03_summit2004.htm

We are seeking submissions for summit presentations, videos, and posters concerning these diverse groups within our community.
In our search for presentations, we have three major goals:

1. To address issues of those who are under-represented within the disability movement – women, youth, children, indigenous peoples, Arabs, etc.

2. To focus on disability issues that are themselves under-represented within the global movement – usually those that are “invisible,” such as psychiatric, learning, and developmental disabilities.

3. To celebrate cultural diversity surrounding key concepts within the disability human rights movement.

Below are some topic examples. Please do not be limited by these suggestions:

Women
• Leadership and the voice of women within the disability movement
• Reproductive health care for women with disabilities
• Opportunities for sustainable livelihoods for women with disabilities in developing countries

Youth
• Access to education for youth with disabilities
• Psychiatric consequences for children and youth living in war-torn areas
• Creating sustainable livelihoods for youth with disabilities

Indigenous Peoples
• Providing technical aids to indigenous people in isolated rural environments
• Understanding the perception vs. the reality of disability in the aboriginal community
• Networking among indigenous peoples with disabilities worldwide

Other
• The role played by culture in the disability movement
• Sexual diversity in the disability community
• How do we approach the involvement of under-represented groups in the global disability movement (ex: Arabs, youth)

If you are interested in presenting a workshop, or producing a video or a poster for the World Summit, please submit an abstract (preferably in English) at the online submissions page, located at
http://www.dpi.org/submit

Deadline for submissions is December 30, 2003. While DPI will not be able to subsidize the travel or accommodations of seminar presenters, a scholarship for presenters from developing countries may be available. It is suggested that candidates seek project funding that includes in its budget the expenses of attending and presenting at the World Summit. Should you have any further questions about this call for abstracts, or about the Summit in general, please send your inquiries to summit@dpi.org