|
| Call for Papers |
 14th International Willa Cather Seminar - June 16-22, 2013 The Willa Cather Foundation and the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at Northern Arizona University invite proposals for the 14th International Willa Cather Seminar, to be held June 16-22, 2013, in Flagstaff, Arizona. Set in the locale of Willa Cather's pivotal 1912 visit to the Southwest, the seminar will highlight the places that inspired Cather, like her protagonist Thea Kronborg in The Song of the Lark, to develop a new understanding and expression of her art. Suggested topics may include exploration of the effect of Cather's 1912 Southwestern trip on her life and art; discussions of the significance of canyons, rocks, and mesas in Cather's work; studies of music, art, architecture, ritual, and religion in Cather's work; gender and racial issues, especially as related to Cather's Southwestern works; and approaches to teaching Cather. Please email abstracts of 250-300 words to all three seminar directors by February 15, 2013: Ann Moseley
Texas A&M University-Commerce
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
John J. Murphy
Brigham Young University
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Robert Thacker
St. Lawrence University
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
The seminar will feature excursions to Walnut Canyon (Panther Canyon in The Song of the Lark), The Little Painted Desert (over which Cather rode with her Mexican guide Julio), and Winslow, Arizona (where Cather stayed in 1912 with her brother Douglass and H.L. Tooker (the prototype for The Song of the Lark's Ray Kennedy), with luncheon there at the "Fred Harvey" La Posada Hotel. Other noteworthy events will be a performance of Thea Kronborg's music, a visit to the Museum of Northern Arizona and its excellent Sinagua and Anasazi pottery collection, and keynote address by Christian E. Downum, NAU Professor of Anthropology and specialist on Walnut Canyon. Cather at the ALA: Boston, May 23-26, 2013
The Willa Cather Foundation soliciting the best of ongoing Cather scholarship for presentation (as 20-minute papers) at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association in Boston, Massachusetts, May 23-26, 2013. As we have done for the last few years, we will accept proposals for all approaches to Cather’s work, including but not limited to studies of Cather’s short stories, poetry, or “extra-literary” work (journalism, letters, travel sketches, essays, etc.); reconsiderations of Cather’s various classifications as historical, psychological, or philosophical novelist; as a regional writer; as a modernist; etc.; identification of Cather’s textual relations with other writers; explorations of Cather’s politics, conscious and unconscious; formal and rhetorical analyses of Cather’s work; and new biographical research. We will select presentations that promise to represent the best and most innovative of current Cather scholarship.
Please email inquiries or a proposal of about 300 words (in Microsoft Word) to John Swift at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it (ECLS Department, Occidental College, Los Angeles CA 90041). The deadline for proposals will be Friday, January 4th, but they will be welcomed earlier. Our panel proposal must be submitted by the end of January, as described in the conference’s official announcement: The American Literature Association’s 24th annual conference will meet at the Westin Copley Place in Boston on May 23-26, 2013 (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend). The deadline for proposals is January 30, 2013. For further information, please consult the ALA website at www.americanliterature.org or contact the conference director, Professor Olivia Carr Edenfield via email (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
) with specific questions.
 |
