10th Annual Graduate Student Conference
The Spring of Our Discontent
Renewal, Recycling, Re-Assembling
Keynote Speaker
Prof. Paula Willoquet-Maricondi
Sponsored by The Graduate Forum
Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Wayne State University
Conference Date: Saturday, April 7, 2012
Submission Deadline for Abstracts: Friday, February 17, 2012
From Rachel Carson's Silent Spring to the Arab Spring, our world is confronted by multiple environmental, political, social, and cultural crises. How do crises drive us to demand change and rethink our choices? How does crisis compel us to re-imagine ourselves? How might literature, arts, scholarship and media shape or drive protest? How do traditional understandings of gender and other social roles change? What stories do we tell ourselves about our cultures and their crises? Do we strive to radically break with the past and invent new forms?
Do we recycle or renew what is already there? This conference seeks to examine the roles of literature, language and culture in responding to local and global crises.
• Abstracts for 20 minute papers are welcome, and might include the following topics:
• Language, Linguistics, and Crisis
• Political and Environmental Revolution
• Violence, Non-violence, and Protest
• The Social Ramifications of Ecology
• Gender Roles
• Addiction, Paranoia, and Existential Unrest
• Historical Memory
• Deconstructing the Past
• Building or Imagining the Future
• Peace and Conflict
• Empire and Resistance
• Discontent, Indignation, Occupation
• Submission Criteria:
1. Abstracts must be in English
2. Abstracts must not exceed 200 words
3. Abstracts must contain the following information: name of the presenter, affiliation and status, mailing address, e-mail address, the title of paper
4. Presentation time limit 20 minutes (8 pages maximum)
For further information and submission, gsc10, or contact:
Lukas Pawelek (dv9571@wayne.edu) or Julie Koehler (aq9924@wayne.edu)
go to http://linguistlist.org/confcustom/gsc10