CFP: Open the Book, Open the Mind, SHARP (Society for the History of
Authorship, Reading, and Publishing)
Minneapolis, July 11-15, 2007
Location: Minnesota, United States
SHARP 2007 Conference: Open the Book, Open the Mind
The fifteenth annual conference of the Society for the History of
Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) will be held in Minneapolis at
the University of Minnesota on July 11-15, 2007.
The conference theme, "Open the Book, Open the Mind," will highlight how
books develop and extend minds and cultures, and also how they are opened to
new media and new purposes. However, individual papers or sessions may
address any aspect of book history and print or manuscript culture.
The conference organizers invite proposals for individual presentations, and
also for complete panels of three presentations on a unifying topic. As is
the SHARP custom, each session of 90 minutes will feature three papers of up
to 20 minutes, providing time for substantive discussion with members of the
audience. Proposals should be submitted via the online conference website by
November 30, 2006: please go to http://purl.oclc.org/NET/SHARP2007proposals
and follow the directions provided there.
Each individual proposal should contain a title, an abstract of no more than
300 words, and brief biographical information about the author or
co-authors. Session proposals should explain the theme and goals, as well as
include the three individual abstracts.
Each year SHARP provides funding support for a few partial travel grants for
advanced graduate students and for independent scholars. If you would like
to apply for such support please do so online, as you submit your proposal.
In keeping with the theme of the conference, a "pre-conference" of practical
workshops and a plenary session devoted to book arts and artists' books will
be held at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts at Open Book, near the
University of Minnesota campus, on Tuesday, July 10, 2007. Details about
that pre-conference and about the main conference program, registration, and
housing arrangements will be made available early in 2007 at the general
conference web site, http://www.cce.umn.edu/conferences/sharp . Much
information about SHARP 2007 and its location, including hotel-reservation
information, is already available there.
This CFP, along with much else about SHARP and the history of the book, will be found at http://www.sharpweb.org
Michael Hancher
Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota
207 Lind Hall, 207 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455
612–625–3363; fax 612–624–8228
Email: mh@umn.edu
Visit the website at http://www.sharpweb.org
