Anonymity
UBC English Graduate Conference
Green College, University of British Columbia
May 10 – 12, 2013
Keynotes: Larissa Lai (UBC) and Sneja Gunew (UBC)
Proposal Deadline: Friday January 11th, 2013
As Virginia Woolf tells us in her posthumously published essay “Anon,” the printing press kills the creative artist’s anonymity and all that seems to come with it: freedom from responsibility; freedom from the present; unselfconsciousness; creativity; community. But if the printed, transmitted signature terminates an anonymity that once surged between audience and artist, its “nameless vitality,” Woolf adds, is “not yet dead in ourselves” (398). To what extent is this “nameless vitality” not yet dead? What form does anonymity take, and what function does it serve today?
Taking anonymity as our organizing theme, Endnotes 2013 seeks to generate a cross-disciplinary discussion on these questions among others: How does anonymity function in literature, literary history, and literary futurity? Does anonymity free us, as Woolf suggests, or does it encumber us? Does anonymity open us into or out of creative experience? What is the link between anonymity and authorship and what does it mean to speak and to write as “anonymous”? What are the ethical stakes of being anonymous? How does anonymity dehumanize and foster abuses of power? Conversely, how can an appeal to anonymity serve as the basis of ethics and social justice? What does anonymity mean to us now? What did it mean in the past? How do new forms of communication, technologies, and social media shape anonymity and make it more or less possible? How has the idea of anonymity and the anonymous subject changed over time?
We welcome both traditional and non-traditional (e.g. petcha kucha) presentations of no longer than 20 minutes (8 pages.). In addition to traditional academic panels, the committee will be organizing creative presentations on Friday night. We enthusiastically encourage creative submissions, including literary work, visual art, performance art, music, and multi-media presentations that address our theme, “anonymity,” in some fashion.
Please send proposals to endnotesconference@gmail.com by Friday January 11th, 2013.
For individual papers, please include a 300-word abstract, 50-word bio, and current CV. For panel proposals, please send a 500-word abstract describing the panel topic, as well as paper titles, 50-word bios, and current CVs for each presenter. For creative submissions, please include a 300-word abstract, 50-word bio, current CV, and indicate the estimated duration of your presentation.
We look forward to reading your submissions,
ENDNOTES 2013 Committee
endnotes2013.tumblr.com
endnotesconference@gmail.com
ENDNOTES 2013 is generously sponsored by Green College and the Department of English at the University of British Columbia.
