CFP: AGLSP Conference - due May 1

Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs (AGLSP)

20ll ANNUAL CONFERENCE
CALL FOR PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS

Source of Life and Strife: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Water
October 13‐15, 2011, Saratoga Springs, New York

Hosted by the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, Skidmore College
As one of the elements necessary to sustain life, water has played and continues to play a
paramount role in human existence. Artists—from painters to writers to dancers—have
drawn on images of water or its lack for inspiration. Native Americans of the Southwest
did rain dances to end droughts. Classical mythology abounds with figures associated with
water.

Waterfalls from Niagara to Iguazú to Yosemite to Victoria Falls inspire awe. Fountains
adorn our major cities, imitating the natural phenomenon of geysers. Wishing wells reveal
our innermost desires and fears, and rainbows are associated with good luck, pots of gold,
and covenants with the Deity.

Cities first arose along the banks of rivers or the shores of seas because of easy
communication and commerce. Canals, like the Suez, the Panama, and the Erie, have
facilitated travel, and dams provide hydroelectric power. Mineral baths and drinking water
from springs have created vacation sites and health spas. Glaciers and icebergs capture our
attention, as do clouds and fog.

Yet water has also served as an issue of conflict or has caused devastating cataclysms, as
Hurricane Katrina or the flooding in Pakistan so pointedly illustrate. In our contemporary
world, global climate change, acid rain, the overuse of fertilizers, seepage from refuse and
animal waste, industrial waste, oil spills, and human negligence all threaten the clean water
supply and thus imperil the existence of all living things.
Wars have been fought to secure access to fresh water or to shipping from seaports. The
British built an empire on their dominance of the sea, defeating other nations and gaining
access to faraway cultures and natural resources.

By bringing together voices from various disciplines, presenters at this conference will
highlight the harmony and dissonance inherent in water. Papers should be 20 minutes long
and presented, rather than read, to conference attendees. Please submit a 1‐2 page abstract
electronically to Sandy Welter at Skidmore College (swelter@skidmore.edu) by May 1. Be
sure to write "AGLSP Submission" in the subject line.

Party Tonight! (Friday, 1/28)

Hi all,

We're back in business today and our party tonight is going ahead as planned. Details are below. We hope to see you there!

Friday, January 28th, 5:00 p.m.

Spring 2011 Welcome Back Party and Graduation Celebration

Please join Draper faculty and staff for our spring 2011 welcome back party and graduation celebration. We will be welcoming back current students, and for fete-ing our recent graduates with food, wine, and good cheer.

Location: Draper Map Room

Thursday, 1/27: NYU Closed Due to Weather

NYU will be closed today due to weather conditions, but should be open again for regular business tomorrow, Friday, January 28th.

Please check NYU's Information Alerts website for updates.

Enjoy the snow day!

CFP: Literatures of Modernity Symposium, Ryerson (Due 2/5)

The Literatures of Modernity program at Ryerson University is extremely pleased to announce a Call for Papers for the Second Annual Literatures of Modernity Symposium, taking place on March 28, 2011.

"It is in its transitoriness that modernity shows itself to be ultimately and most intimately akin to antiquity," Walter Benjamin writes in The Arcades Project. For Adorno, modernity was a quality not a chronology. How is modernity related to temporality? How is modernity related to technology, identity, the city? What are some of the popular icons of modernity? This symposium invites proposals on any aspect of modernity as expressed in literature or culture. In addition to academic proposals, the committee welcomes proposals for creative projects including photography, painting, video, film or performance.

Submission Guidelines: Submit an abstract of 500 words plus works cited, along with a short biographical sketch in Word or as an RTF. For creative submissions, include low-resolution scans or send us links.

For queries and submissions:
modernity@english.ryerson.ca

Deadline for Submissions: February 5, 2011

Best Regards,

Leila Meshgini

Literatures of Modernity Symposium
Ryerson University
http://lomsymposium.blog.ryerson.ca

The NYC Rare Book & Manuscript Workshop

Free Events, Limited Space: RSVP!

Spring 2011 Schedule

The NYC Rare Book and Manuscript Workshop is a multi-institutional, hands-on workshop that provides students with a rare opportunity to learn about the collections at libraries and institutions throughout the New York area, and to meet with nationally recognized curators and librarians. Students can attend individual sessions or the entire series. The workshop is free of charge, but space is extremely limited and reservations will be required. To sign up, email nyrarebook@gmail.com. Further details about signing up for these events can be found below.

Session 7: February 21, 2010, 4-6pm, at NYPL

Isaac Gewirtz, Curator, Berg Collection, NYPL

Modern Literary Manuscripts Workshop

Isaac Gewirtz will lead a session on Modern Literary Manuscripts, drawing on examples fromthe

Berg Collection, to instruct students in understanding the inception and evolution of literary texts from their earliest manifestations in author correspondence, diaries, and notebooks, through rough drafts, typescripts, galleys, and various printed editions. Authors included will be Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot, Jack Kerouac, and Saul Bellow.

Session 8: February 28, 2011, 4-6pm, at the Morgan Library

Declan Kiely, Robert H. Taylor Curator & Clara Drummond, Assistant Curator, Morgan Library

Using Modern Literary Archives

Declan Kiely & Clara Drummond will conduct a session on using manuscripts and letters by modern writers, instructing students on the arrangement and description of archival collections and effective methods of archival research. The focus of this session will be the Morgan Library’s PARIS REVIEW ARCHIVE, which contains correspondence, manuscripts and typescripts (interviews, fiction, and poetry), revised galley and page proofs, photographs, and audio recordings. The Archive also includes records relating to editorial, production, and business matters, and other records of the international literary journal from its founding in 1953 through 2003. The Archive documents author submissions, the collaboration between interviewer and interviewee that lies behind the journal’s renowned Art of Fiction/Art of Poetry interviews, and the decisions made in producing each issue, as well as the careers of its staff and many of the most important twentieth-century writers and artists who contributed to the Paris Review.

Session 9: March 14, 2011, 4:00-6:00pm, Fales Special Collections Library, NYU

Marvin J. Taylor, Director, Fales Library and Special Collection and founding curator of the

Downtown New York Collection at New York University

“Who’s Scene Is It, Anyway?”: Curators, Scholars, and the Fields of Cultural Production.

In 1994, Taylor began to document the artistic movements that exploded all over downtown NYC during the 1970s and 1980s. This scene gave birth to punk rock, performance art, installation art, postmodern dance, experimental literature, video art, No Wave film, New Wave, and a host of other experiments in art and life. The downtown collection at Fales comprises over 12,000 linear feet of archives, 15,000 printed items, 28,000 video recordings, 30,000 audio recordings, and 8,000 film elements. Some collections include the papers of Richard Hell, David Wojnarowicz, Lynne Tillman, Gary Indiana, Richard Foreman, Martha Wilson, and the archives of Group Material, The Judson Memorial Church, A.I.R. Gallery, Creative Time, Artists Space, Paper Tiger Television. Taylor will discuss how to do research into a “scene” using archives and other sources, including interviews and oral histories. He will address questions such as: how do scenes develop? Who “owns” them? Why do they disappear? How and/or can they be archived? What is the relationship curators and scholars to a scene? Useful texts to consult before the workshop are The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984 (Princeton UP, 2006) and Pierre Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production.

Session 10: March 28, 2010, 2:30-4:30pm, The New York Historical Society

Henry Raine, Director of Digital Programs, New-York Historical Society

Ephemera as Primary Sources for Scholarship

This session will provide an overview of the different types of ephemera and discuss their potential research value in the broader context of the New-York Historical Society’s collections of books, pamphlets, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, prints, photographs, and architectural materials relating to the history of New York and the United States. Highlights will be shown from the library’s collections of broadsides, song sheets, hotel and apartment files, menus, almanacs, and business and advertising ephemera, providing an overview of the institution’s vast and varied collections of ephemera. Also covered will be the challenges of managing ephemera collections in libraries, and strategies that researchers can use to identify and access ephemera holdings at other institutions.

Session 11, April 18, 2011, 4-6pm, The Grolier Club

Eric Holzenberg, Director, and J. Fernando Pena, Librarian, the Grolier Club of New York

Book Collecting and the Antiquarian Book Trade in Support of Scholarship

Drawing on the Grolier Club’s holdings of books, manuscripts and archives relating to private collecting and the antiquarian book trade, the session will explore the significant dual roles of the bibliophile and the book dealer over time in the development of institutional libraries and the support of scholarship generally. The session will cover book catalogues of all types, their history and evolving use; the agency of the private collector from the 15th century to the present in defining and shaping fields of research; and the development of the antiquarian book dealer as a partner in that endeavor.

To sign up: Send an e-mail to nyrarebook@gmail.com letting us know which event or events you'd like to attend. Sign up for as many sessions as you like. Because of the limited space, we ask that you only sign up for events that you are actually prepared to attend. A waiting list will be maintained.

Please feel free to contact one of the NYU coordinators with any questions at nyrarebook@gmail.com. We look forward to seeing you at the workshop!