Call for Papers – SLSA 2012

The 26th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA)
Sept 27-30, 2012 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA)
The Hilton and the Frontier Airlines Conference Center

PAPER PROPOSAL DUE DATE: May 1, 2012.
NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE: June 4, 2012. 

CONFERENCE THEME: NONHUMAN
From its inception, SLSA has distinguished itself from other humanistic scholarly societies through its sustained interest in the nonhuman. Not only does SLSA concern itself with nonhuman actants like tools, bodies, networks, animals, climate, media, or biomes but it is also engaged with such nonhumanistic academic disciplines as mathematics, computing, and the natural and physical sciences. SLSA 2012 takes up the “nonhuman turn” that has been emerging in the arts, humanities, and social sciences over the past few decades and welcomes proposals engaging such ongoing SLSA interests as: actor-network theory; affect theory; animal studies; assemblage theory; bioart; brain sciences; feminist materialisms; neuroscience; new media theory; new materialism; speculative realism; and systems theory.

Such varied analytical and theoretical formations obviously diverge and disagree in many of their aims, objects, and methodologies. But they are all of a piece in taking up aspects of the nonhuman as critical to the future of literature, science, and the arts. Like all SLSA conferences, however, SLSA 2012 welcomes a wide range of work. “Nonhuman” has been chosen to organize parts of the conference and because it is a theme with which we hope members of SLSA can find productive resonance. 

Presentation proposals will be accepted through the SLSA website http://www.litsci.org beginning in February, 2012. Individual proposals consist of a 250-word abstract with title. Pre-organized panels for consideration can contain an additional summary paragraph along with proposed session title. 

SLSA MEMBERSHIP: Participants in the 2012 conference must be 2012 members of the Society for Literature Science and the Arts. For more information about SLSA, please visit the organization website at www.litsci.org.

PROGRAM CHAIRS: Richard Grusin and Nigel Rothfels (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Laura Otis (Emory University), and Suzanne Black (State University of New York at Oneonta). Inquiries can be sent to Richard (grusin@uwm.edu) or Nigel (rothfels@uwm.edu).

SLSA 2012 has received substantial support from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s 
Center for 21st Century Studies (C21), Office of Undergraduate Research, Department of Art and Design; and Dean of the College of Letters and Science.