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Call For Papers: Interdisciplinary Humanities Symposium

Working-With: Interdisciplinary English Symposium

Rice University           

Friday, March 27 and Saturday, 28, 2020

 

 

In an increasingly isolated academic world, it can be difficult to think of one’s private research outside the confines of one’s field—nonetheless, a spirit of collegiality and a commitment to interdisciplinarity is crucial for our work as scholars in the Humanities. Our best ideas come not from isolation, but from community. This symposium seeks papers and projects on any topic and including works-in-progress from Rice graduate students from across the School of Humanities as well as undergraduates from the Department of English. Working-With: Interdisciplinary English Symposium challenges Rice students to see their work in the larger context of scholarship at this university and beyond. We hope this focus on collaboration will not only foster stronger bonds between students across Rice, but also provide a fruitful opportunity to present and develop ongoing work.

Our symposium will bring students together to reflect on the possibilities of working-with, working-alongside, working-in-parallel, and working-together. It will provide an opportunity to foster collaboration through placing students from different disciplines and at different points in their academic lives in conversation with one another. We are excited to see your work on any topic that drives your research, but especially insofar as it can illuminate the contours of a research question someone else in our community may also be considering. 

We are soliciting papers for presentation in two different formats: traditional panels of 15-minute presentations with a Q&A period and roundtables with presentations of 5-10 minutes and time for wider discussion. We also welcome creative projects, which will include a 2-3 minute reading and a 2-3 minute description/discussion of the larger project.

 

We welcome creative and critical work on any topic. Some potential ideas to consider:

  • Interdisciplinarity as a scholarly or pedagogical practice
  • Working-with, working-alongside, working-in-parallel, working-together
  • Collaboration: its limits, potentialities, dangers, possibilities
  • Academic communities as sites of risk, vulnerability, power, solidarity

 

Please send 250-word abstracts, along with your name and department, to workingwithsymposium@gmail.com by October 31 for graduate students and November 15th for undergraduates. For creative projects, please include a description of (1) the piece you will read and (2) the scope of your project. We will let you know by the end of November which format will best suit your project.

 

Keynote: Ron Broglio

Professor of English, Arizona State University