Call for
Papers for Afterlives of A Connecticut
Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
51st Annual
Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association
Boston
Marriott Copley Place, in Boston, Massachusetts, from 5-8 March 2020
DEADLINE
EXTENDED: Paper abstracts are due by 7 October 2019
Session
organizer: Michael A. Torregrossa, The Alliance for the Promotion of Research
on the Matter of Britain
Writer Mark
Twain and illustrator Daniel Carter Beard’s A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur’s Court (1889) has had a long history of adaptation in
popular culture, but the full scope of its reception remains untold. There are,
of course, the obvious texts, both in print and on film, that merely retell the
story. Of these, more work is needed on the illustrative tradition. Along with
retellings, there are also a small number of works that continue Connecticut
Yankee. These appear entirely unknown to Twainians but offer a unique
approach to the author’s legacy. More importantly, Connecticut Yankee itself
or its story as mediated through one of its many retellings has also stimulated
new narratives detached from Twain and Beard’s telling that recast characters
and restage events. Also relatively unknown by scholars of the novel, these
materials can be found throughout modern popular culture, and, although
Elizabeth S. Sklar somewhat derisibly labels these as “spinoffs and ripoffs” of
the novel, they are of value (as she suggests) and perhaps more so than the
retellings because such items serve as the base for an extensive corpus of
transformations of the novel that send various protagonists, all characters
more familiar to contemporary readers and viewers than Twain’s Hank Morgan,
into the medieval past and set a common pattern for time travel stories.
In the end,
this session will offer a broad view of adaptations of the Connecticut
Yankee story to situate both retellings and the lesser known and/or
hitherto unknown continuations and recastings into a new continuum to offer a
more complete picture of the novel’s effect on popular culture and provide
fresh insight into the various ways that the producers responsible for these
re-imaginings have appropriated the story and its time-travel motif for their
own purposes.
This session
is a paper panel in traditional format, which will include 3-4 participants,
reading a formal paper of 15-20 minutes (2500-3000 words) as set by the chair,
followed by Q&A.
The direct
link for this session is https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/18029.
Please contact the organizers at KingArthurForever2000@gmail.com
with any questions or concerns.
Abstract
submissions must be made through NeMLA’s official site. Applicants will need to
login or create an account at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/Home/login.
Submissions must begin with a paper title of not more than 100 characters
(including spaces) and adhering to the following: capitalize titles by MLA
formatting rules unless the title is in a language other than English; do not
use quotation marks in the session title or abstract title itself but please use
only single quotation marks around titles of short stories, poems, and similar
short works; italicize the titles of long works mentioned in the paper title;
and do not place a period at the end of the title. Submissions should also
include an academic biography (usually transferred from your NeMLA profile) and
a paper abstract of not more than 300 words; be sure to italicize or use
quotation marks around titles according to MLA guidelines.
Please be
aware that NeMLA membership is not required to submit abstracts, but it is
required to present at the convention. In addition, note that it is permissible
to present on (1) a panel (or seminar) and (2) a roundtable or a creative
session, but it is not permissible to present on a panel and a seminar (because
both are paper-based), on two panels or two roundtables (because both would be
the same type). Further information on these and other policies can be accessed
at http://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/callforpapers/submit.html.
Chairs will
confirm the acceptance of abstracts before 15 October 2019. At that time,
applicants must confirm the panel on which they wish to participate. Convention
registration/membership for 2019-2020 must be paid by 1 December 2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment