The 2021 English Symposium is dedicated to Dr. Patricia Angley (1946–2020),
beloved colleague, teacher, and mentor.
https://patangleymemorial.wordpress.com/
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
beloved colleague, teacher, and mentor.
https://patangleymemorial.wordpress.com/
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
The theme for the tenth annual UCF English Symposium is Isolation & Connection. The past year has been filled with an almost incomprehensible amount of upheaval, so much so that efforts to make sense of current events inevitably fall back on the vague descriptor “unprecedented.” From large-scale protests against police brutality and racial inequality, to massive wildfires and other climate disasters, to ongoing political unrest in the U.S. and worldwide, we have experienced huge numbers of cataclysmic events. And, all of these have occurred against the backdrop of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The social distancing and shutdown measures implemented to slow the spread of the virus—as well as the division along political lines of attitudes toward these measures and to recent events—reveal a society afflicted by isolation and anomie. Yet, if the pandemic has separated us from one another, on both a global and local scale, it has also been the impetus to forge connections. Gatherings and events—academic classes, political debates, conferences, concerts, museum exhibits, plays, weddings, birthday parties, and casual get-togethers—are all being reimagined within virtual spaces. Moreover, despite the limitations of social distancing, there has been a dramatic uptick in volunteerism, social activism, mutual aid, and civic engagement.
The theme of Isolation & Connection serves both to acknowledge the global unrest and large-scale suffering that have characterized recent months and to honor the resilience, optimism, and creativity with which people face adversity and continue to build community and care for one another. While inspired by the pandemic and other events of 2020, this symposium encourages work that explores moments and effects of isolation and/or connection throughout history, across diverse platforms and literary and artistic genres, and in both local and transnational contexts. How might current events reframe our reading, or writing, of literature? What can the texts and events of bygone eras teach us about our current moment? How might we reimagine our commitments to teaching and intellectual community-building in a socially distant world? What possibilities does art, broadly construed, hold to shape our future? We welcome submissions that treat the theme of Isolation & Connection from a variety of critical, creative, and pedagogical approaches. Possible topics might include, but are by no means limited to:
The theme of Isolation & Connection serves both to acknowledge the global unrest and large-scale suffering that have characterized recent months and to honor the resilience, optimism, and creativity with which people face adversity and continue to build community and care for one another. While inspired by the pandemic and other events of 2020, this symposium encourages work that explores moments and effects of isolation and/or connection throughout history, across diverse platforms and literary and artistic genres, and in both local and transnational contexts. How might current events reframe our reading, or writing, of literature? What can the texts and events of bygone eras teach us about our current moment? How might we reimagine our commitments to teaching and intellectual community-building in a socially distant world? What possibilities does art, broadly construed, hold to shape our future? We welcome submissions that treat the theme of Isolation & Connection from a variety of critical, creative, and pedagogical approaches. Possible topics might include, but are by no means limited to:
- Activism/Resistance
- Transformations
- Public vs. Private
- Community
- Solitude
- Ecosystems
- (Dis)information
- Work
- Risk
- Cultural Norms
- Virtual Spaces
- Nostalgia
- Institutions
- Boredom
- Anxiety
- Contagion
- Dystopias/Utopias
- Caregiving
- Subjectivity
- Safe/Dangerous Spaces
- Mourning/Memorial
- Innovation
- Trauma/Healing