CFP: Pulp and Paper: Public Ephemeral Texts
Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English
(ACCUTE) Annual Conference
May 31-June 3, 2008
University of British Columbia
Deadline: November 15, 2007
How can we think about the relationship between pulp and paper as a
material resource and the production of literature and culture itself?
One way is to focus on the pulp materiality of mass-produced ephemeral
texts, those low-grade print objects meant to have a limited life but
which have in various ways survived into the present. From *yellow
journalism* to pulp magazines to comic books and greeting cards,
commercial print ephemera has long been perceived as a cultural
contaminant produced by one of the world*s most polluting
industries.
As much as the ephemeral is often understood to be driven by the
market and crass commercialism, it has also long provided subordinated and
marginalized groups with a medium for the organization of counterpublics
and the means to disseminate radical, subversive, and experimental
ideas and images. As such, another approach is to consider paper itself as
an expressive medium in the small-scale production of chapbooks,
manifestoes, handmade books, etc. This artisanal ephemera often shares
with mass-produced ephemera the format of cheap paper and the function
of immediate address.
As such, ephemera is a complex and wide-ranging critical category that
scholars across disciplines are working to redefine and understand.
Setting aside private ephemera (postcards, scrapbooks, etc.) and
electronic ephemera (emails, blogs), this panel focuses on public
print ephemera by large and small scale producers. The variety of ephemeral
texts this panel may address include but is not limited to:
newspapers, magazines, newsletters, pamphlets, manifestoes, chapbooks, posters,
songsheets, theater programs, greeting cards, advertising, catalogues,
almanacs, training manuals, menus, cartoons, comics, and joke books.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
* theorizing ephemera
* ephemera, authorship, and audience
* gendered ephemera
* working class ephemera
* religious ephemera
* popular literacy and ephemera
* typography and the visual culture of ephemera
* ephemera and nostalgia
* cultural waste and printed detritus
* the politics of salvage and the use of ephemera in research
* libraries, archives, and ephemera
* the internet and print ephemera
* pedagogy and ephemera
Those submitting should be ACCUTE members in good standing. Please
send an electronic copy of your proposal (approx. 700 words), which clearly
states the line of argument and which has a *Works Cited* section,
or a conference-length paper (no longer than 10 double-spaced pages
with a *Works Cited* section), a 100-word abstract and a 50-word
bio-bibliographical note, and the completed ACCUTE Proposal
Submissions
Information Sheet by November 15th, 2007 to:
Dr. Candida Rifkind
Department of English
University of Winnipeg
515 Portage Ave.
Winnipeg MB R3B 2E9
email: c.rifkind@uwinnipeg.ca
