The Oral, the Written, and Other Verbal Media (OWOVM)
Conference on Poetics and Discourse: 12-14 December, 2011
Hosted by Victoria University (Melbourne, Australia) at its City Campus
First call for proposals: due 30 July 2010
Testimony, Witness, Authority:
The politics and poetics of experience
From ethnic cosmologies and narratives of survival to the lyricism of love and loss – cultures are built on verbal reproductions of experience, on their dissemination through arrays of oral, written, and other verbal media, and on the complex relations between participants in these discourses.
The leading theme for this conference is a focus on constructions of knowing and the known – the objective known and the imaginary known – and on the media by which these knowledges are transmitted: media of language, paralanguage, and non-language. That entails a particular interest in topics of change, persistence, marginalisation, and contestation.
Building on the previous OWOVM (cf https://ocs.usask.ca/ocs/index.php/theoral/) at the University of Saskatchewan in 2008, this conference is for both practitioners and researchers in discourse and the language arts and in related fields. It expressly provides a forum for explorations of Indigeneity and autochthony, orality and literacy, and ideologies around cultural reproduction. It brings together composers and performers across creative fields including language, voice, and text, as well as scholars from a range of fields in the creative arts, humanities, and social sciences.[i]
How do performances or texts bear witness, either to the events they narrate or to the subjective consciousnesses that produce them? How do the dynamics of transmission circumscribe and transform them? How do they become embedded in the knowledge systems of the cultures they work through? And what of the limits to verbalisation – when voice, text, and/or more visceral media are tasked with creating and communicating meaning in the absence of language grammars?
This is a first call for proposals of language art performances and installations and of scholarly papers and sessions that address these questions. Regular sessions will be 90 minutes, normally containing three individual presentations. As much as possible, the organisers aim to generate a mix of scholarly and creative presentations in each session, grouped around common thematic concerns. Keynote presentations will be announced in the second call for proposals.
Details for proposals
The Programming Committee welcomes your proposals and any preliminary queries. Please email these to: owovm@vu.edu.au. The Committee will begin reviewing first-round proposals on 2 August 2010.
Proposal for an individual presentation
Please submit an abstract or synopsis of up to 200 words, plus a biography of up to 50 words for each presenter and up to 5 keywords for the presentation. Individual presentations will normally be for 15-20 minutes (the chairing will be tight on timelines), plus time for audience questions and comment. Please be clear about whether your proposal is principally scholarly or creative in its purposes.
Proposal for a 90-minute session
If you have arranged three presentations that will occur within your session, please submit proposals for them (as above), plus a session title, an abstract or synopsis of up to 300 words for your session, and a biography of up to 50 words for your proposed session chair. Your session abstract should be clear about the proposed order of presenters. If you wish to depart from the usual conference timings (eg if you wanted to group questions and comments in a single block at the end of the session), then please set out such information clearly in your proposal — otherwise the Programming Committee will assume normal parameters apply. Note that sessions combining scholarly and creative presentations are especially encouraged.
Supporting equipment
Victoria University classrooms have a standard lectern setup with computer, projector, and internet access. If you have particular preferences (eg large projector screen, enhanced speakers for playing music, etc), please make them clear in your proposal. The Programming Committee will genuinely strive to accommodate all timely requests for which we can access the equipment you need.
[i] The fields covered at OWOVM will include, but not be limited to:
· Acoustics.
· Communications and media.
· Cultural anthropology.
· Folklore.
· Gender studies.
· History.
· Indigenous studies.
· Linguistics.
· Literary studies.
· Music.
· Narrative approaches to social research.
· Oral-traditional poetics and narrative.
· Performance studies.
· Philosophy.
· Qualitative approaches to law and criminology.
· Rhetoric.
· Visual arts.
Dr Tom Clark
Senior Lecturer
School of Communication and the Arts
Victoria University (Melbourne)
Tel. AU +61 399192196 Call
Fax. +61 (0)3 9919 2658
Mob. AU +61 432754238 Call
Email: owovm@vu.edu.au
