Call for PAMLA 2016 Special Session Proposals: “Archives, Libraries, Properties” (Deadline January 15, 2016)

Call for PAMLA 2016 Special Session Proposals: “Archives, Libraries, Properties” (Deadline January 15, 2016)

The theme for PAMLA 2016, the 114th Annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference, to be held on November 11-13, 2016 in Pasadena, California, will be “Archives, Libraries, Properties.” Proposals for special sessions are welcomed on any areas or topics not covered by one of our regular, standing sessions, but we would especially welcome proposals on topics related to this theme, ranging from such issues as intellectual property and copyright, the nature of books and texts as material and virtual objects, the changing role of the library and the collection, to broader themes related to how knowledge is organized, preserved or represented in literary and visual cultures.  This theme is meant to relate PAMLA’s meetings with the many local institutions that map the intellectual geography of Southern California, from the Huntington Library to the Getty Center to its many museums.

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: books and book production and the transformation of the book; handwriting, the typewriter, and other ways to write; collective, corporate, and individual ownership and literary tradition; the book or the page as work of art; the curation of memory.

Please send your name, affiliation, email, proposed session title, brief abstract (50 words), and a longer (100-200 word) proposal for your proposed session to Andrea Gogrof (Western Washington University) by the extended deadline of January 15, 2016: [email protected] (please send this info as a Word attachment, to ensure that your formatting gets to Andrea).

Should your special session be approved, you will become the session’s presiding officer, and PAMLA members will have until early May to propose a paper for the session, using PAMLA’s online submission system. Special sessions are on more focused topics than PAMLA’s General Sessions. Professor Gogrof will be in touch with all proposers before the end of January concerning their proposals.