Microcosms and Macrocosms: Inner and Outer Spaces in Texts - University of Miami

Microcosms and Macrocosms:

Inner and Outer Spaces in Texts

Keynote Speakers: Dr. Jean Michael Dash (New York University) and Dr. Marc Brudzinski (University of Miami)

Co-sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the Joseph Carter Memorial Fund

University of Miami, Coral Gables

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

March 27th-28th, 2009

The Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami and the Program of Latin American and Caribbean Studies are pleased to announce its Spring Graduate Conference (March 27th -28th, 2009) to engage in a dialogue on the significance, meaning, and consequences of spatial tropes in "texts". We will accept proposals on any world texts. Papers must be written in French, Spanish, or English.

Among the themes of interest are the following:

* Trans-national boundaries
* Cosmopolitan/urban vs. rural spaces
* Memory as a historiographical space
* Use of space in comics, films, television, and theater
* Digital and virtual spaces (Internet, video games, and archives)
* Literary spaces: Avant-garde vs. Traditional literature
* Migration/crossing borders
* Spaces of exile/ Asylum (home away from home)
* Psychological spaces (dreams and the unconscious)
* Spaces of belonging
* Real/Fantastic spaces
* Identity and the creation of intimate/personal space
* Space within nationalist discourse
* Queer space (s)
* Gendered space (s)
* Space within postcolonial discourse
* Mapping or charting spaces
* Artistic spaces (visual and plastic arts)

Proposals should include a 250-word abstract and title, as well as the author’s name, address, and institutional affiliation. Please submit abstracts via email to: mllconference2008@gmail.com by January 26th, 2009. Acceptance of proposals will be notified via e-mail by February 10th, 2009. Each conference attendee is required to pay a registration fee of $40.00.

ABOUT THE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Dr. Jean Michael Dash:
Professor of French, Social and Cultural Analysis. Research Interests: Francophone/Caribbean Literature; literary theory; translation French to English. Selected Works: Culture and Customs of Haiti (Greenwood Press, 2001), Libete: A Haiti Anthology, Ed. with Charles Arthur (Latin American Bureau, 1999), The Other America: Caribbean Literature in a New World Context (University Press of Virginia, 1998), Haiti and the United States (MacMillan, 1997), Edouard Glissant (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Literature and Ideology in Haiti: 1915-1961 (MacMillan, 1981), Jacques Stephen Alexis (Black Images, 1975).

Dr. Marc Brudzinski:
Assistant Professor Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean Literature. Research Interests: Current research interests concern theories of the Caribbean culture and literary imaginations of networks of communication within and beyond the nation. Interests also include postcolonial theories of space and the relationship between lived space and literary sensibility in the Caribbean. He is currently finishing a manuscript on the literary and cultural dimensions of secrecy in the French and Spanish Caribbean from the 19th to through the 20th centuries. Publications: Sargasso, Small Axe, and Nepantla. He has also contributed to the edited volume Post Colonial Politics of Identity (Rodopi 2009). His book, Island Secrets, is forthcoming from Lexington Books.