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The following call for papers is for a seminar that will be submitted
for inclusion in the program of the annual meeting of the American
Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) to be held at Yale
University, February 25-27, 2000. The overall theme of the
conference is "Interdisciplinary studies: in the middle, across, or in
between?"
Please note that the ACLA has a somewhat unusual conference
format: panels take the form of 12- or 8-person seminars, meeting
two hours a day for the three mornings or the two afternoons of the
conference, with four papers presented each day. This gives
participants an opportunity to dig a little deeper than is usually
afforded while also letting them float freely among individual
sessions in other seminars.
CFP: Between literature and economics: gap or dialogue?
It has been argued that a critique that comes from outside a
discipline will be of no consequence to that discipline as such, i.e.,
to the extent that it is different from all the others. If this is correct,
can a genuinely interdisciplinary conversation obtain?
Scholars from literature as well as economics (and, possibly, one
or more other fields) are invited to address this issue. The
intersection of literature and economics is particularly interesting in
that it would seem to be an extreme case of interdisciplinarity.
Indeed, the respective emergence and consolidation of literature
and economics as modern discursive formations have depended to
a large extent on their being constructed in opposition to one
another and avoiding contamination. Yet, an occasionally genuine,
albeit strained, conversation is taking place, along with some fertile
cross-disciplinary borrowings, all of which suggests that something
is going on "between" literature and economics that goes beyond a
case of short-lived and mutually opportunistic infection.
A few areas of inquiry are particularly promising:
--Comparative histories of literature and economics as discursive
practices
--"It's the economy, stupid!" or, what uses is the word "economy"
put to outside the field of economics?
--What benefits has the field of economics derived from its concern
with rhetoric, aesthetics, poetics, and critique (and vice versa)?
What is missing from the conversation?
--Are economists and literary scholars pursuing a crossdisciplinary
conversation or are we instead cannibalizing what goes on in each
other's disciplines only to pursue an existing, internal
conversation? And, either way, does it matter?
--Which discourse is more "imperialistic" (in its self-definition and
in its results)?
--What are the institutional and professional implications of this
"conversation"?
--To what extent is the "rhetorical turn"-broadly conceived-of
economics (un)like the interest evinced by disciplines such as law,
philosophy, history, physics, etc.)?
Proposals that deal with these and related issues are welcome.
Please mail one-page abstracts to: Catherine Labio, Department of
Comparative Literature, Yale University, P.O. Box 208299, New
Haven, CT 06520-8299 (USA). If, and only if, you use a private
courier service such as Fedex or UPS, use the street address: 344
College Street, 105 Connecticut Hall, New Haven, CT 06511 (USA).
Be sure to include YOUR NAME, DEPARTMENTAL AND
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION, POSTAL ADDRESS, and E-MAIL
ADDRESS.
Deadline for the reception of abstracts: September 15, 1999.
Note: Abstracts which cannot be accommodated for this particular
panel will be forwarded to the Conference Program Committee
unless you instruct the organizer otherwise.
For more information on the Conference, consult its web page at
http://www.yale.edu/complit/acla2000.htm
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