Hello everyone.

With Rice having cancelled classes leading up to Spring Break, and with no way to predict what the situation will be like at the end of March, the English Department has unfortunately asked us to cancel our symposium. We wanted to make a decision as soon as possible to avoid potential ambiguity and frustration.

It goes without saying that I’m so crushed not to be able to host this event and see everyone’s work. This year’s Symposium promised to be an invigorating two days of collaboration and interdisciplinarity, and I hope everyone finds new venues for that kind of collaboration moving forward.

Regretfully, but wishing you the best,

Bren

Hello everyone! Please see below for the full schedule for our symposium, happening in just under two months – wow! We are so looking forward to seeing you all and being inspired by your exciting work! See the “Panels” page for full panel breakdowns with project titles.

All presentations and sessions will take place in the Kyle Morrow Room on the third floor of Fondren Library. Lunches and Dinners will take place in the English Lounge on the second floor of Herring Hall.

Friday, March 27th

10:30-11:00 AM
Welcome and Check-In: Kyle Morrow Room

11:00-12:00
Keynote presentation by Ron Broglio, Director of Desert Humanities and Co-Director of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University

12:00-1:00 PM
Lunch in the English Lounge

12:00-1:00
Session 1: Fictions of Citizenship

2:30-4:00
Session 2: Binaries in Fiction/Fictional Binaries

4:00-5:30
Session 3: Radical Collegiality

5:30
Dinner in the English Lounge

Saturday, March 28th

10:00-11:30 AM
Session 4: Reimagining 19th-Century America

11:30-1:00
Session 5: Race and Resistance

1:00-2:00 PM
Lunch in the English Lounge

2:00-3:30
Session 6: Interdisciplinary Methodologies

3:30-5:00
Session 7: The Beastly

We have extended the deadline for Rice graduate students in any department to submit to the symposium until November 15th! Don’t miss out on this awesome opportunity to share any work on any topic, including creative works and works-in-progress!

Please send 250-word abstracts and proposals to workingwithymposium@gmail.com and see the post below for details!

Conference dates: 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