Critical Thinking and the Rhet/Comp Classroom: Assessment
Critical Thinking and the Rhet/Comp Classroom announces two sessions focused on the complexities, complications, and influence of assessment programs in the shaping of the horizons as well as day-to-day experiences of the college rhetoric and composition classroom.
1. Assessment and the college writing program
We welcome paper proposals that describe departmental assessment tools and metrics and evaluate their effectiveness, consider the role of assessment in shaping departmental and curricular standards, or that theorize new assessment tools and objectives for the rhetoric and composition class. We also welcome paper proposals that reflect upon historical transformations of the identities and objectives of rhetoric and composition programs, as assessment becomes an increasingly sophisticated and influential presence in universities’ attitudes towards the humanities.
Submit presentation abstracts of no more than 150 words by April 1st to: Dr. David Brauer, Palm BeachAtlanticUniversity, Borbe Hall 209, 901 S. Flagler Drive, WestPalm Beach, FL33401. Electronic submissions
to DAVID_BRAUER@.pda.edu
2. Assessment and the college writing classroom
We welcome paper proposals that describe instructors experiences adapting / adapting to writing classroom environments informed by broader assessment initiatives, expectations, and outcomes. How have assessment initiatives influenced instructors design of assignments and classes? How have they affected instructors classroom interactions with students and evaluations of student competence? What knowledge and skills receive emphasis in the classroom as a result of considering assessment objectives, and at what expense? Lastly, we also welcome papers that consider the impact of assessment on instructors professional development. What roles do assessments play in developing careers and professional identities?
Submit presentation abstracts of no more than 150 words by April 1st to: Dr. Tom Lilly, Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, Atlanta, GA30332-0165. Electronic submissions to
The Community Calls Forth the University
The Fourth Annual University-Community Partnership Conference
July 18-20, 2007
The Inn at Virginia Tech and SkeltonConferenceCenter
Blacksburg, Virginia
CALL FOR PRESENTERS
Proposals Due: March 9, 2007
How do communities define engagement with institutions of higher education?Last year, participants of the University-Community Partnership Conferenceaddressed the challenge of engagement as an imperative of the highereducation mission. The 2007 event seeks to extend this conversation byexploring the perspective of community partners in the engaged partnershipprocess. What does it mean for communities to choose engagement with highereducation? And what are the implications when communities call forth theiruniversities?
Our Keynote Speaker, Alice Lovelace, is considered one of Atlanta's premierepoets. She received her Master's degree in Conflict Resolution from AntiochUniversity and she is a performance poet, playwright, essayist,arts-in-education specialist, and community consultant. She is alsocurrently the 2007 US Social Forum National Organizer. Lovelace'spresentation will be followed by facilitated discussion through StoryCircles designed to draw forth participants' stories, memories, andreflections on the meaning of authentic engagement.
Plenary speaker Nadinne Cruz, internationally respected speaker, author, andeducation consultant and former Director of the HaasCenter for PublicService, will provide further exploration of the conference theme by sharingthe compelling outcomes of the Community Voices project, which she played akey role in facilitating. Throughout our time together, the conference willoffer a rich combination of practical and interactive workshops, casestudies, best practice presentations, and a Community Partners ResourceFair, all of which will provide participants with multiple learningopportunities to launch their own partnership efforts and to examinecritical issues and challenges that are foundational to partnershipdevelopment and sustenance.
You are invited to listen, respond, lead.
We are soliciting proposals that outline dynamic 45, 60 or 75-minutepresentations that are interactive, applied, and lead participants to aconcrete outcome. Preference is given to team presentations that includeboth community and university stakeholders. Specifically, we are interestedin the following topical areas:
1. Explore the Mechanics of Building Partnerships. These sessionsfollow a workshop format that is interactive. Topics may includenegotiating objectives that bridge university and community interests;developing memorandums of agreement; sharing risk and other legal mattersrelated to partnership development; clarifying roles and responsibilities;leveraging institutional support; or measuring success. You may specify aparticipation limit for a Mechanics Workshop.
2. Demonstrate Best Practices in University-Community Partnerships.Best practices presentations give in-depth descriptions of workingpartnerships that have already achieved positive results in theircommunities, and address how the partnership met and overcame challenges onthe road to success.
3. Engaged Scholarship. These presentations demonstrate research andteaching initiatives that are substantively rooted in the work of thecommunity and build on community assets.
It is expected that 60 and 75 minute presentations will build in asignificant amount of time for discussion and question / answer.
To Propose a Workshop, Presentation, or Poster:
1. Complete the cover page. Go to todownload the Call for Presenters.
2. Write a one-page description of approximately 300 words of theproposed workshop or presentation. Please describe both the content of thesession, as well as the format of delivery. Consider the following questionswhen writing your description: What is your inquiry or theory of change forthis project? What community expertise does your partnership leverage? Whatcommunity need is addressed? How do you demonstrate impact? How far areyou in the process with this partnership?
3. Include a one sentence description of all session presenters that maybe included in the conference program.
4. Send five paper copies or an electronic copy of the proposal to:
Michele James-Deramo
Conference Planning Committee Chair
VirginiaTechService-LearningCenter
202 Major Williams (0168)
Blacksburg, VA24061
E-mail:
Timeline:
Call Announced: January 3rd, 2007
Proposals Due: March 9th, 2007
Selections Made By: April 6th, 2007
Presenters Notified By: April 13th, 2007
For questions, contact Michele James-Deramo at 540/231-67.
--
Michele James-Deramo
Director
Service-LearningCenter
Outreach and International Affairs
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and StateUniversity
202 Major Williams (0168)
Blacksburg, Virginia24061
540/231-67 (phone)
540/231-6367 (fax)
O Memory, who holds the thread that links
My modern mind to those of ancient days.
(A. S. Byatt. Possession)
The ongoing Greek myth panel of the 61st annual RockyMountain MLA meeting in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, October 4-6, 2007, at the Westin Calgary Hotel, invites submissions on the relationship between memory and myth within ancient culture and on the impact of Greek myth on newer art works, especially literature in English. Suggested approaches include but are not limited to close readings of the role of memory in representations of specific myths, social contexts and needs for myth as an aid to memory, and formal reception of myth.
Submission Requirements: 500-word abstract.
Submissions must be received by March 1, 2007.
Send electronic submissions as a Word attachment to:
Panelists will be notified by March 15, 2007 and must secure or renew
RMMLA membership by April.
Call for Papers
Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association (RMMLA)
Calgary, Alberta at the downtown Westin Hotel
October 4-6, 2007
RMMLA invites submissions for its open session in Nineteenth-CenturyAmerican Literature. Please send 400-word abstracts to the program chair by
March 1, 2007:
Donna Campbell
Department of English
WashingtonStateUniversity
Pullman, WA99164-5020
E-mail abstracts (no attachments, please) are preferred. Presenters will benotified by March 15, 2007.
Submission and presentation guidelines are on the RMMLA Web site at
Anyone may propose a paper, but all presenters must be members of RMMLA byApril 1, 2007 to be included in the program.
IMPORTANT REMINDER: As of December 31, 2006, Americans will need a passportfor all air and sea travel to and from Canada.
Call for papers
Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference--2007
November 2-3, 2007
WesternWashingtonUniversity
Bellingham, Washington
Special Session:
Nineteenth-Century Nature Writing
Paper proposals sought for a panel on 19th-century nature writing.Proposals are encouraged that address this topic within a literary,philosophical, theological, ecological, or scientific framework. Allsubmissions acknowledged by email.
Submit to this special session by emailing osals should be two-pages (500 words) and should be submittedelectronically in the body of an email or as an attachment in .doc or.pdf format by March 1.
Chair: Elizabeth A. Campbell
2855 NW Jackson Avenue
Corvallis, OR97330
phone: (541) 757-8325
email address:
Literary scholars are invited to submit an article for the third specialissue of the Journal of Literary Disability (JLd), which will be entitledThe Representation of Cognitive Impairment.
Giorgio Agamben's concept of bare life, embodied in the figure of homosacer, as the life that can be killed without the commission of a crime - isfrequently cited in contemporary accounts of the politically excluded - therefugee, the interned at Abu Ghraib and GuantanamoBay. Yet his argument isfounded upon an analysis of the collusion of biomedical discourse with thebiopolitical imperatives of the modern state, citing the euthanasiaprogrammes of disabled people in pre-war Germany as an exemplary instance ofthe production of bare lives. Those deemed to be cognitively impaired(although this term is itself subject to debate) often fall outside receiveddefinitions of the human. Theoretical models that assume certain fundamentalattributes, for instance, full participation in a language community, thecapacity to engage in rational discourse, or particular forms ofself-awareness, implicitly exclude people without those cognitive abilities.Equally, discourses of 'access' and 'visibility' with their emphasis uponphysicality may be inadequate to the task of addressing forms of cognitivedifference. This special issue of JLD asks scholars to consider theproblems - political, ethical and aesthetic - at stake in literaryrepresentations of cognitive impairment. The issue will include articlesthat explore literary works, as well as those that consider and critiquecontemporary theoretical models.
The issue will be edited by Dr. Lucy Burke and Dr. David Bolt. The deadlinefor manuscripts is not until 1 September 2007, but you are urged to sendyour proposal to David as soon as possible:
To find out more about submitting an article to JLD, visit:
Literary scholars are invited to submit an article for the second specialissue of the Journal of Literary Disability (JLd), which will be entitledDisability and the Dialectic of Dependency.
The recent publication of Martha Nussbaum's Frontiers of Justice has focusedattention on an extensive scholarship on dependency relations in issues ofsocial justice, public policy and personal /social identity. A good deal ofthis work has concerned disability and the role of care-giving, reciprocaldependency and shared dependency work. The writings of Albert Memmi, EvaKittay, Alasdaire Macintyre, Michael Berube and others have asked whetherclaims for access, both to public spaces and social justice, can adequatelybe addressed by liberal models of independence and equality but must alsoinclude dependent and interdependent relations. This special issue of JLDasks scholars to think about the role of such relations in literaryproductions, whether in literary works that figure the relationships betweenpatient and family member or care-giver or in theoretical works thatproblematise the autonomy of the individual.
The issue will be edited by Dr. Michael Davidson and Dr. David Bolt. Thedeadline for manuscripts is 1 May 2007, so proposals should be sent to Davidas soon as possible:
To find out more about submitting an article to JLD, visit:
CALL FOR PAPERS: The 2007 Conference on John Milton
October 25-27, 2007
Sponsored by the Department of EnglishMiddleTennesseeStateUniversity
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Papers (not to exceed 20 minutes reading time) are invited on any aspect of Milton studies, from close readings of particular works to broader investigations of themes and trends.
Send two copies of completed papers by 30 June 2007 to
Charles W. Durham
2318 London Avenue
Murfreesboro, TN37129
For more information call, write, or e-mail the conference directors:
Charles W. DurhamKevin J. Donovan
& Kristin A. Pruitt P.O. Box 401
2318 London AvenueMiddle Tennessee State U
Murfreesboro, TN37129Murfreesboro, TN37132
(615) 895-2519(615) 898-5898
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See also the conference website:
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Featured speakers on the program include:
Richard J. DuRocherLaura L. Knoppers
St.OlafCollegePennsylvaniaStateUniversity
The conference will be held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Murfreesboro.
CFP: Becket and the Dread of Woman (1/30/07; IASIL, 7/16/07-7/20/07) "birth was the death of him: Beckett and the Dread of Woman". Proposals are sought for a special panel at the annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures (IASIL) in Dublin (July 16th-20th 2007), on the topic of Beckett and the Dread of Woman. The aim of the panel is to examine the problematic status of women in Beckett, and to explain how this feeds into the broader concerns of his work, especially his abhorrence of reproduction, fecundity/fertility. Three papers of 20 minutes will be selected for presentation. Please e-mail proposals by January 30th to Sean Kennedy, St Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia at . Membership of IASIL will be required in order to present.
Call for Panel Submission: "Literature & Fashion" Panel
RMMLA Conference, CalgaryAlberta, October 4-6, 2007.
* * * * * * *
The focus of the 2007 RMMLA panel on "Literature & Fashion" is open regarding genre and period; however, we are specifically interested in papers that explore the "materiality" of clothing in shaping the context of identity and in shaping the practices that continually [trans]form identity--or, adversely, impede its transformation or essentialize it--for either/both wearer and observer.
* performance (in any of its many [dis]guises)
* the process/act of dressing--or of being dressed
* cross-dressing
* how one 'wears' one's gender, class, age, sexuality, etc. and the prejudices this wearing of identity invites
* the relationship between clothing and 'passing' (racial, class, gender, sexual, age, religious, etc.)
* not having the proper clothes, being stripped of one's clothing or unclothed, undressing as an unmasking of identity/ies; clothing as "trappings," being trapped in/by clothes, etc.
Papers may also address how any of the following material, physical practices are explored in literary texts:
* shopping/window shopping; shopping as flannerie or failure/inability to shop as anti-flannerie/failed flannerie
* dressing, being wrongly or poorly dressed, cross-dressing
* mending, sewing, laundering, selling, modeling or other forms of labor related to fashion and clothing
* apprising the dressed self in mirrors, windows; voyeurism, other forms of surveillance/self-surveillance related to dressing, clothing and fashion
* buying/wearing used clothing, hand-me down clothing; instances of threadbare, torn, ill-fitting, or dirty clothing.
Papers that explore how the materiality of clothing and/or fashion operate on multiple levels in one work or across several works of fiction and/or poetry are especially encouraged.
* * * * * * *
The "Literature and Fashion" panel will ultimately feature three or four proposals that are associationally related or congruent in some fashion. The deadline for submitting is March 1, 2007. Please send proposals of 250-300 words, and a short bio containing your contact information (as Microsoft word attachments) to:
Catherine R. Mintler
"Literature and Fashion" Panel Chair
Submitters will be notified whether or not their proposals have been accepted for the panel by March 15, 2007.
* * * * * * *
Catherine R. Mintler
Assistant Director, Core Writing Program
Department of English (0098)
University of Nevada, Reno
Reno, Nevada89557-0098
775/682-6381;