CFPs for MLA 2017

Here is a list of Calls For Papers for relevant sessions being proposed for the 2017 MLA Convention in Philadelphia, PA.  Note that some sessions may not be guaranteed inclusion in the final program. This post will be updated as additional CFPs are posted.  Please consider submitting an abstract!

Sessions sponsored by the Slavic / East European / Eurasian groups at MLA:

Globalization and the Second World
From the age of empires to rise of the Internet, globalization overwrites existing borders; how have Eastern Europeans perceived this process, from their “second world” perspective? 300-word abstract, 3-page CV by 15 March 2016 to Edyta Bojanowska (bojanows@rutgers.edu).

100 Years of October: Reconsidering the Russian Revolution
This panel welcomes papers that examine the cultural impact and/or image of the 1917 Revolution from new perspectives, including (but not limited to) the vantage points of non-Russian literatures and cultures, such as those of Central Asia, the Caucasus, or the Far East. 200-word abstract and CV by March 15, 2016 to Rebecca Stanton (rjs19@columbia.edu).

Propaganda Reconsidered
How do emerging theoretical models contribute to the study of propaganda? This panel examines literature’s role in shaping ideologies and reconsiders the entanglement of art and politics. 200-word abstract, CV by 15 March 2016 to Jon Stone (jstone2@fandm.edu).

Soviet-era Dissidence Revived?
In light of authoritarianism in Russia today, how does the current generation of artists adopt or adapt elements of Soviet-era dissident tradition? 200-word abstract and CV by 15 March 2016 to Julia Vaingurt (vaingurt@uic.edu).

Travel Narratives and Communication Technology
From reliable postal systems to the telegraph to cellphones, how does changing communication technology affect experience and description of travel across long distances? CV and 200-word abstract by 15 March 2016 to Gabriella Safran (gsafran@stanford.edu).

Svetlana Alexievich and Sverkhliteratura
This panel analyzes the “super-literature” of Alexievich, Belorussian writer and 2015 Nobel Prize recipient, in light of her critique of fiction and against the broader cultural politics of post-socialist memory. CV, 200-word abstract by March 15 to Jeff Gatrall (gatrallj@mail.montclair.edu).

Flight, Migration, Diaspora
Beyond its humanitarian, logistical, and political challenges, Europe’s current refugee crisis underscores (and, paradoxically, masks) the fact that European civilizations have continuously been shaped and reshaped by the movement of populations. This panel will address how emigration, resettlement, and contact among diasporas are represented in modern and contemporary European literature. While we will draw on a broad variety of texts, our discussion will be anchored by a core question: How does textual representation challenge or reify national, ethnic, or state boundaries? CV, 200-word abstract by March 15 to Benjamin Paloff (paloff@umich.edu).

Special session CFPs
The following sessions are being proposed by individual members of the MLA, and may be of interest to members of the various Slavic / East European / Eurasian Forums:

Russian Formalism Reimagined
Long treated as a prelude, could anything about the school be interesting in its own right, to literary studies after post-structuralism? Papers on methods, themes, figures, or relations. Abstracts by 4 March 2016 to David J. Gorman (dgorman@niu.edu).

Russian Shakespeares
Papers investigating significant Russian adaptations or translations of Shakespeare's works that received little attention in the West. Abstract of 300-words – CV by 5 March 2016 to Sabina Amanbayeva (amanbayeva.sabina@gmail.com).

Slavic, East European, and Eurasian panels at MLA 2016

• Here is the complete list of Slavic-, East European-, and Eurasian-themed panels programmed for the 2016 MLA Convention in Austin, TX!  Put them on your calendar and come one, come all!
• • 31. Fort-Da: Contested Legacies of Psychoanalysis in Russia

    Thursday, 7 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 402, JW Marriott

  • 48. Russia and the Middle East from the Seventeenth to the Nineteenth Century

    Thursday, 7 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 202, JW Marriott 

    
    84. Contemporary Art Activism in Russia

    Thursday, 7 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 209, JW Marriott

  • 262. Slavic Mystifications and Forgeries

    Friday, 8 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 310, JW Marriott

  • 324. Myth, Fairy Tales, and Their Adaptations

    Friday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 306, JW Marriott

    
    336. Borders, Words, and People in Motion: Culture and Geopolitics

    Friday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 202, JW Marriott

  • 418. Russian Poetry and New Media

    Friday, 8 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 406, JW Marriott

  • 525. American Poetry and Eastern European Traditions

    Saturday, 9 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 406, JW Marriott

  • 538. Perceptions of the United States in Stalinist Culture

    Saturday, 9 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 407, JW Marriott

  • 582. Reading Dostoevsky, Dostoevsky Reading

    Saturday, 9 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 202, JW Marriott

  • 639. Watersheds and Futures: Navigating a Twenty-First-Century Danube

    Saturday, 9 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 209, JW Marriott

  • 814. Inventing Literary Languages in Eurasia

    Sunday, 10 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 307, JW Marriott

Following is a list of the calls for papers for the 2016 MLA Convention (Austin, TX, January 7-10) for panels sponsored by the Russian and Eurasian Forum, the Slavic and East European Forum, and the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL).  The deadline for submitting a proposal is March 15 for all panels.   Membership in MLA is not required to submit; however, confirmed participants must be MLA members by April 7, or request a waiver.

We look forward to hearing from you!

CFPs:

American Poetry and Eastern European Traditions

What of Eastern Europe remains in Anglo-American poetry by poets born in the former Soviet Bloc? Submissions welcome from poetry scholars, Slavists. CV and 200-word abstract by 15 March 2015; Benjamin Paloff (paloff@umich.edu).

Inventing Literary Language(s) in Eurasia

Explores literary languages and traditions generated within the Russian/
(post-)Soviet empire; their strategies of self-invention, their interactions with neighboring traditions and/or the state. 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2015; Rebecca Stanton (rjs19@columbia.edu) and Gabriella Safran (gsafran@stanford.edu).

Contemporary Art Activism

Explores Russia's recent explosion of politically engaged art; the intersection between art and activism. How (much) can art serve as political protest, social action? Comparative approaches welcome. 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2015; Julia Vaingurt (vaingurt@uic.edu).

Borders, Words, and People in Motion: Culture and Geopolitics

Investigations of cultural discourse in relation to the geopolitics of disputed borders and migration across Eurasia, past and present. 200-word abstracts by 15 March 2015; Jefferson J. A. Gatrall (gatrallj@mail.montclair.edu).

Crimea and Punishment

Crimea inspired expansionist ambitions in the Russians and the Turks. What unites the literary and the political effects of this place, in their various languages and genres? 300-word abstracts by 15 March 2015; Gabriella Safran (gsafran@stanford.edu) and Jonathan Stone (jon.stone@fandm.edu).

Slavic Forgeries and Mystifications

Is forgery an essential part of literature? Where would we be without mystifications? This panel offers interpretations and reflections on mystifications and forgeries in Slavic literatures. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2015; David Cooper (dlcoop@illinois.edu).

Socialist Childhoods

Growing up under socialism was both a personal and political experience. Recent memoirs convey the humanity and absurdity of a socialist childhood. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2015; Jonathan Stone (jon.stone@fandm.edu).

Watersheds and Futures: Navigating a 21st Century Danube

Danubian Studies as a productive response to the EU’s contemporary transnational project, the region’s cultural and political pasts, and Danubia’s possible futures. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2015; Jonathan Stone (jon.stone@fandm.edu) and Matthew Miller (mdmiller1@colgate.edu.).

Here is a complete list of the panels tagged "Slavic and East European Literatures" that are scheduled for the 2015 MLA conference in Vancouver, BC.  Complete panel information is available at the links.  (The panel titles themselves link to the relevant session listing on the MLA website; the "Abstracts" links will open in a new tab/window as Google docs.)

• 46. Transnational Futurism: Italy, Russia, and Beyond

  Thursday, 8 January, 1:45–3:00 p.m., 18, VCC East

        Abstracts 
• 103. New Approaches to Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

  Thursday, 8 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 7, VCC East

• 187. From Siberia to the Planet Mars: Russian Science Fiction

  Friday, 9 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m., 7, VCC East

        Abstracts  
• 245. Eastern and Central European Texts in Other Contexts

  Friday, 9 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 10, VCC East

• 353. Nordau in the East: Degeneration Theory in Russia

  Friday, 9 January, 3:30–4:45 p.m., 5, VCC East

• 383. Transnational Science Fiction behind the Iron Curtain

  Friday, 9 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 9, VCC East

• 469. Translating East-Central Europe: New Directions

  Saturday, 10 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 5, VCC East

• 500. New Approaches to Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov: Criminality, Psychology, and Ethics

  Saturday, 10 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 5, VCC East

• 626. The Cold War and Experimental Fiction

  Saturday, 10 January, 5:15–6:30 p.m., 10, VCC East

        Abstracts 
• 715. Reconsidering Bakhtin's Rabelais Project

  Sunday, 11 January, 10:15–11:30 a.m., 13, VCC East

• 741. Socialist Romanticism: Late USSR and the Poetics of Historical Imagination

  Sunday, 11 January, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., 19, VCC East

Slavic Panels at MLA 2015 in Vancouver!

Here is the list of panels at MLA 2015 that are sponsored by the MLA's Division on Slavic and East European Literatures, the Discussion Group on Slavic Literatures and Cultures, and the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL).  The 2015 MLA Convention will take place in Vancouver, British Columbia, January 8–11, 2015.
NOW UPDATED WITH DATES AND TIMES!

Panels sponsored by the Slavic and East European Literatures Division:

Eastern and Central European Texts in Other Contexts

Friday, January 9, 10:15–11:30 a.m., East 10, VCC East

Presiding: Benjamin Paloff (U. of Michigan)
Papers:

• Brian Goodman (Harvard): "Turista: Philip Roth and the Writers from the Other Europe"
• Alissa Valles (Boston U.): "Fake Infernos: Herbert and Wat on Telegraph Avenue"
• Lilla Balint (Vanderbilt): "German-Hungarian Literary Relations and the Idea of 'Central Europe'"

Responding: Maggie Greaves, Emory University

Socialist Romanticism: Late USSR and the Poetics of Historical Imagination
Sunday, January 11, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., East 19, VCC East

Presiding: Serguei Oushakine (Princeton)
Papers:

• Elena Gapova (Western Michigan University): "Romantic, National(Ist), And Marxist:  Vladimir Korotkevich And The Invention Of Belarusian 'National Self.'"
• Kevin M. F. Platt (Penn): "Latvian "Poetic Documentary": From the Socialist Romanticism to the Romance of Soviet Collapse."
• Jonathan Brooks Platt (Pitt): "Revolutionary Romanticism in Post-Socialist Russian Art."
• Alexei Golubev (University of British Columbia): "Affective Machines or the Inner Self? Drawing the Borders of the Female Body in Late Soviet Culture."

The Cold War and Experimental Fiction
Saturday, January 10, 5:15–6:30 p.m., in East 10, VCC East

Presiding: Julia Vaingurt
Papers:

• Derek C. Maus (SUNY Potsdam): “Travels in Hyperreality: Crimea as a Contested Terrain in Lev Tolstoy’s Sevastopol Stories and Vasily Aksenov’s The Island of Crimea.”  
• Monica Popescu (McGill): “The Temporality of the Experimental: African Writers, the Eastern Bloc, and the Cold War.”  
• Jessie Labov (OSU): "Jazz as an Alternative Modality of Music, Lifestyle, and Literature in Socialist-Era Eastern Europe."

Abstracts

Rethinking Eastern European Drama and Theater History (collaboration with the MLA Discussion Group on Hungarian Literature).
Thursday, January 8, 7:00–8:15 p.m., in East 18, VCC East

Presiding: Kevin M. F. Platt (Penn).
Papers:

• Magdolna Jákfalvi (U. of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest): “A Site for Secret Memories: Theater in State-Socialism.” 
• Zsuzsanna Varga (U. of Glasgow, Scotland): “György Spiró's Chickenhead—Then and Now, There and Here: Canonisation and Theatrical Memory.” 
• Marcela Kostihova (Hamline U.): “Shocked Shakespeare: Confronting the (Post)Communist ‘Memory’ of Essential Humanism.” 
• Magda Romanska (Emerson C.) “Postcolonial Approaches to Central and Eastern European Drama.” 

Abstracts

Panels sponsored by the Discussion Group on Slavic Literatures and Cultures:

Nordau in the East: Degeneration Theory in Russia
Friday, January 9, 3:30–4:45 p.m. in East 5, VCC East

Presiding: Devin Fore (Princeton)
Papers:

• Nina Bond (Franklin & Marshall C.) "(D)Evolution in Tolstoy and Zola"
• Kate Holland (U. of Toronto) "Reversion or Recuperation? Atavism and Regression in Saltykov-Shchedrin and Dostoevsky"
• Maya Vinokour (Penn) "Degeneration theory and early Soviet fiction: the masochistic aesthetic"

From Siberia to the Planet Mars: Russian Science Fiction (collaboration with MLA Discussion Group on Science Fiction, Utopian, and Fantastic Literature).
Friday, January 9, 8:30-9:45 a.m. in 7, VCC East 

Presiding: Rebecca Stanton (Columbia), Eric Aronoff (Michigan State U.)
Papers:

• Amanda Lerner (Yale): “To the Sun! Andrei Bely's Argonavty”
• Anindita Banerjee (Cornell): “The Telescope and the Bioscope: Astrocultural Geographies of Early Soviet Cinema”
• April Durham (UC Riverside): “Tarkovsky’s Terrain Vague: The Transforming Power of Inter-species Relations in Stalker”
• Bradley Gorski (Columbia): “Blood, Gore, and Shit: The Role of Disgust in Post-Soviet Science Fiction”

Abstracts 

Panels sponsored by AATSEEL:

Translating East-Central Europe: New Directions.
Saturday, January 10, 10:15–11:30 a.m., in East 5, VCC East

Presiding: Brian James Baer (Kent State U.)
Papers:

• Michelle Woods (SUNY New Paltz): "Ostmodernity: trauma, humor, translation."
• Sean Cotter (U. of Texas at Dallas): “The English Problem: Mircea C­artarescu’s Orbitor in Translation.”
• Ellen Elias-Bursac (Independent scholar and translator): “Stepping onto the Stage: Post-Yugoslav Writing in English”

Responding: Benjamin Paloff (U. of Michigan)

Transnational Futurism: Italy, Russia, and Beyond (roundtable).
Thursday, January 8, 1:45–3:00 p.m., in East 18, VCC East

Presiding/Responding: Christine Poggi (Penn)
Participants: Michael Kunichika (NYU), Harsha Ram (UC Berkeley), Oleh Ilnytzkyj (U. of Alberta), Vaclav Paris  (Penn).
Abstracts

MLA 2014 panels organized by the Slavic and East European Literatures Division, the Discussion Group on Slavic Literatures and Cultures, and the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

Session 78. Russian Periodical Studies

Thursday, 1:45–3:00 p.m., Columbus, Sheraton Chicago
Program arranged by the Division on Slavic and East European Literatures. 
Presiding: Jonathan Stone, Franklin and Marshall Coll.

1. "Tolstoy's Decadent Memorials: Silver Age Writers on Tolstoy's Legacy," Martha Kelly, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia

2. "The Image of Poetry in Soviet Literary Journals after the Second World War," Ekaterina Zamataeva, Univ. of Missouri, Columbia

3. "Sintaksis: Creating a Literary Environment of Samizdat beyond Samizdat," Philip Gleissner, Princeton Univ.

Session 319. Is the Post- in Posthumanism the Same as the Post- in Postsocialism?

Friday, 1:45–3:00 p.m., Parlor E, Sheraton Chicago
Program arranged by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages.
Presiding: Justin Weir, Harvard Univ.

1. "Allobiographies: Transcribing Humanity in Wolfe and Sorokin," Jacob Emery, Indiana Univ., Bloomington

2. "Posthuman Loneliness and the Will to Play in the Work of the Strugatsky Brothers," Julia Vaingurt, Univ. of Illinois, Chicago

3. "Postsocialist Platonov between Man and Beast," Jonathan Brooks Platt, Univ. of Pittsburgh

Session 379. Culture and Activism in the 2011–13 Russian Protest Movements

Friday, 3:30–4:45 p.m., Parlor C, Sheraton Chicago
Program arranged by the Division on Slavic and East European Literatures. 
Presiding: Katharine Holt, Columbia Univ.

1. "Protest and Digital Aesthetics," Marijeta Bozovic, Colgate Univ.

2. "When the Digerati Take to the Street (and Airwaves): Alexei Navalny, Sergei Minaev, and the Offline Transposition of the New Media Intelligentsia," Michael Gorham, Univ. of Florida

3. "'Address Your Questions to Dostoevsky': On Samosud and the Privatization of Punishment in Russia," Serguei Alex Oushakine, Princeton Univ.

Session 441. Socialist Senses

Saturday, 8:30–9:45 a.m., Ohio, Sheraton Chicago
Program arranged by the Discussion Group on Slavic Literatures and Cultures. 
Presiding: Nancy Condee, Univ. of Pittsburgh

1. "The Materiality of Sound: Esfir Shub's Haptic Cinema," Lilya Kaganovsky, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana

2. "From the Cinema of Attractions to the Cinema of Affect in Early Socialist Realism," R. J. D. Bird, Univ. of Chicago

3. "Ineluctable Modality of the Visible: Gorky's Return and the Onset of Clarity," Petre M. Petrov, Princeton Univ.

Session 569. Socialist Culture in the Age of Disco: Russian (Tele)Visual Media

Saturday, 1:45–3:00 p.m., Huron, Sheraton Chicago
Program arranged by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages and the Discussion Group on Slavic Literatures and Cultures. 
Presiding: Rebecca Jane Stanton, Barnard Coll.

1. "Transmedial Utopianism in the Age of Disco: Science Fiction and Youth Culture in the Soviet ’70s," Anindita Banerjee, Cornell Univ.

2. "Central Television Game Shows and the Problem of Authority, 1965–75," Christine Evans, Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

3. "The Fog of Stagnation: Explorations of Time and Affect in Late-Soviet Animation," Anna Fishzon, Williams Coll.

Session 742. Socialist Culture in the Age of Disco: East European Popular Pleasures

Sunday, 12:00 noon–1:15 p.m., Parlor F, Sheraton Chicago
Program arranged by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. 
Presiding: Jessie M. Labov, Ohio State Univ., Columbus

1. "Imperial Disco: Czeslaw Milosz and Science Fiction," Mikolaj Golubiewski, Free Univ.

2. "The 'Movement of Writing Workers' and State Stability in the 1970s German Democratic Republic," William Waltz, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison

3. "Flaming Socialist Creatures: Hippies as Auteurs in Soviet Latvia," Mark Svede, Ohio State Univ., Columbus

You can check out the panels and abstracts from MLA 2013 by clicking here; or those from MLA 2012 by clicking here.