DECODINGS
Newsletter of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
Spring 2015, Vol. 24, No.2
*SLSA 2015, Houston and Other Upcoming Conferences
*Election Results & New Publication Committee Member
*Letter objecting to Georgia SB 529
*SLSA 2016 Dues Increase
*Travel Awards, Essay Prizes, Book Prize
*Lifetime Achievement Award
*Updating SLSA Website—Content Welcome
*European Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts
*SLSA 2015 Election Notice & Candidate Statements
*SLSA Bibliography—Contributors Needed
UPCOMING SLSA MEETINGS
SLSA 2015 “After Biopolitics” will be held in Houston, November 12-15, 2015, and sponsored by Rice University. Cary Wolfe, Director of 3CT: Center for Critical and Cultural Theory at Rice, Thien Le, Center and Events Coordinator, 3CT, and Maria Whiteman, Independent Scholar and Artist, will organize the program and the site arrangements. A Call for Papers with more details and a deadline for proposals was mailed with the printed newsletter and is also posted on the SLSA listserv and website. The SLSA 2015 conference website URL is http://litsciarts.org/slsa15/
The deadline for panel and paper submissions has been extended to April 15, 2015. Submit at
http://litsciarts.org/slsa15/paper-submission/
Also, to answer any questions concerning on how to submit panel streams: If participants want to submit a stream, they need to submit a separate panel submission for each in the series, i.e. “Series Title I: Panel Title.” Enter 1, 2, 3 and panel submissions with the same title – example:
Eco-Criticism and Art I: (Panel Title)
Eco-Criticism and Art II: (Panel Title)
Eco-Criticsim and Art III: (Panel Title)
Direct questions to Cary Wolfe cewolfe@rice.du OR to Thien D Le at tdl2@rice.edu
Remember: You must be a current (2015) member of SLSA to present at the Houston SLSA conference. Membership information is available on the conference website. If you are renewing and don’t know your SLSA Membership number, you can find it on the mailing labels for Decodings and Configurations, or by going to: http://slsa.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/member_number_lookup.cgi
SLSA Europe will hold its next meeting in Malta, June 15-18, 2015. Ivan Callus is the coordinator, and the theme of the conference is SCALE. See the website of the 2015 European SLSA conference at
www.scale2015.com. The submission deadline was 27 February 2015.
SLSA Inaugural Rest of the World Conference will take place in Perth, October 1-3, 2015. Its theme is “Non-Western Approaches to Life.” Oron Catts, SymbioticA, will coordinate the meeting, the first SLSA to be staged outside of Europe or the United States. 2015 represents the 20th anniversary of the public outing of regenerative biology. The call for paper opens November 1, 2014, and the deadline for proposals to be submitted via the SLSA website at www.litsciarts.org or www.symbiotica.uwa.edu.au was March 21, 2015.
SLSA 2016, to be held in Atlanta, November 3-6, 2016, will be a joint meeting with the History of Science Society and other science societies, and will be coordinated by Carol Colatrella (Georgia Tech) and Laura Otis (Emory).
SLSA ELECTION RESULTS
There was a tie in the election for member-at-large to serve as a member of the executive from the conference in 2015 through the conference 2017; therefore, Andrew Pilsch and Rebekah Sheldon will both serve on the Executive Committee, replacing James Housefield and Jenell Johnson. Sara DiCaglio received the most votes in the election for graduate student liaison and will replace Nicole Keller Day. Andrew, Rebekah, James, Jenell, Sara, and Nicole are all invited to participate in the 2015 Executive Committee meeting on Friday, November 13, 2015, 7-9am. Thanks to all candidates, including Lorenzo Servitje and Stephanie Peebles Tavera who ran for graduate liaison.
NEW PUBLICATION COMMITTEE MEMBER
Appointed by SLSA officers, Pamela Gossin of University of Texas at Dallas has joined the Publication Committee to serve a three-year term. Other members of the committee are Susan Squier (Penn State) and Ronald Schleifer (University of Oklahoma). The Publications Committee recently approved a contract between Penn State University Press and SLSA to sponsor the series “Anthroposcene,” for which Lucinda Cole will serve as series editor.
SLSA JOINS OTHER SOCIETIES
Along with several other associations, SLSA signed a letter objecting to a bill under consideration in the Georgia Legislature: the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” [SB 129]. The text of the letter is posted at http://litsciarts.org/Georgia_Letter_2015.pdf
SLSA DUES INCREASE
At SLSA 2014 in Dallas, a proposal to increase dues by a modest amount passed with only one nay vote and no abstentions, with approximately 170 members present voting aye: beginning in 2016, SLSA will charge regular faculty members $55 per year, students will be charged $29, and those with an income and/or pension under $20,000 will be charged $33. The dues increase will accrue to the society and will generate approximately $5,000 more annually to support conference expenses and travel subsidies for students, artists, and others with limited incomes.
2015 SLSA TRAVEL AWARDS AND PRIZES
SLSA Travel Awards: Members of SLSA who present at the annual conference may apply for travel subventions to the 2015 meeting. An applicant should email name, title of SLSA presentation, an indication of how long one has been a member of SLSA, and any information about funding for the conference to the Executive Director at carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu by August 1, 2015. Please provide estimated travel expenses and the amount of support (if any) anticipated from other sources. If you have received travel support from SLSA in the past, please include information about that support (when and how much). SLSA officers will review applications and approve funds for as many as our budget permits; preference will be given to students and those most in need. Each person awarded funds will be presented with a check for $200 at the conference business meeting.
Applications for SLSA NSF Travel Awards will also be due August 1, 2015. Once funding is assured, the URL for the online form along with directions will be posted some months before the 2015 conference. Each applicant will be notified in early September 2015 about decisions.
The Bruns Graduate Essay Prize, in honor of Edward F. Bruns, is awarded annually to the best essay written by a graduate student member of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts. Graduate students wishing to have their essays considered for the $500 prize should submit them by August 1 to N. Katherine Hayles, Department of English, Duke University, via electronic mail to katherine.hayles@duke.edu. Please send a copy of your formatted essay as a PDF or Word file, or send a pointer to a URL where the essay is posted.
The Schachterle Essay Prize: Lance Schachterle, founding president of the society, established an annual prize of $250 in honor of his parents to recognize the best new essay on literature and science written in English by a non-tenured scholar. Eligible authors wishing to submit essays (published or accepted for publication) should send them prior to August 1 to SLSA’s Executive Director, Carol Colatrella, LMC, Georgia Institute of Technology via electronic mail to carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu. Please send a copy of your formatted essay as a PDF or Word file, or send a pointer to a URL where the essay is posted.
The 2015 Michelle Kendrick Memorial Book Prize will be awarded to the best academic book on literature, science, and the arts published by an SLSA member. The prize will be announced at the 2015 SLSA conference. Established in fall 2006 in memory of Michelle Kendrick of Washington State University-Vancouver, an energetic, well-loved scholar of literature and science and long-time member of SLSA, the Kendrick Prize is open to any book of original scholarship on literature, science, and the arts published between January 1 and December 31 of the prior year. The winner will receive $250.00. To be considered for this year’s Kendrick Prize, please send or ask your publisher to send three copies of your book by June 1 to: Professor Robert Markley, Department of English, 608 South Wright Street, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801. Donations for the Kendrick Prize (checks made out to SLSA) can be sent to: Carol Colatrella, SLSA Executive Director, LMC, Georgia Tech, 686 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0165
Note: all of the awards described above are presented during the Business Meeting of the annual fall conference. One may submit only one entry to one of the two essay prize competitions.
SLSA Lifetime Achievement Award: The SLSA Executive Committee each spring appoints a committee to seek and review nominations for the SLSA Lifetime Achievement award. Members of this committee include a former President of SLSA, who will serve as chair, one currently serving member at large, and one other SLSA member. The Lifetime Achievement Award Committee will send out an announcement asking members to nominate candidates whose significant, interdisciplinary scholarship is exemplary of SLSA. The committee members will nominate candidates and should collaborate on reviewing nominations from the membership to select a recipient of the award or to decide not to make an award for that year. The Lifetime Achievement award will be presented at the business meeting of the annual meeting. Send nominations for the Lifetime Achievement to committee chair Susan Squier (sxs62@psu.edu) and members Suzanne Black (suzanne.black@oneonta.edu) and Richard Nash (nash@indiana.edu).
UPDATED SLSA WEBSITE–Electronic Resources Coordinator: Send suggestions for additional content for the website to Wayne Miller at wmiller@law.duke.edu. Wayne is working with Dennis Summers, Jim Housefield, Rebecca Perry, and professional designers updating the website in the coming months. Syllabi and other material are welcome.
EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND THE ARTS
The European Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSAeu) fosters inter- and trans-disciplinary exchange between the arts, sciences, medicine and technology. The Society welcomes practitioners from the arts, including curatorial studies, sciences, humanities, and social sciences. SLSAeu has grown out of the US SLSA and has since 2000 sponsored international conferences (now annual) in major European cities Contact information: Dr. Manuela Rossini, SLSA Europe, c/o Department of English, University of Basel, Nadelberg 6, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland OR email: slsa-eu@unibas.ch
SLSA CONTRIBUTORS TO BIBLIOGRAPHY NEEDED: Bibliographer Jennifer Rhee is recruiting additional contributors to the annual bibliography. Contact Jenni Rhee at jsrhee@vcu.edu
JOIN/RENEW MEMBERSHIP IN SLSA
To receive publications of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), including Configurations and Decodings, and to participate in the society’s next annual conference, SLSA 2015 “After Biopolitics,” which will be held in Houston, November 12-15, 2015, and sponsored by the Center for Critical and Cultural Theory at Rice University, you must be a 2015 member of the society. To join/renew membership, see http://press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/associations/sls_membership.cgi,
or call Johns Hopkins University Press Journals at 800 548 1784 (US & Canada only, all others call 410 516 6987). Mon-Fri 8-am-5pm FAX 410 516 6968.
Email: jrnlcirc@press.jhu.edu.
RENEWING MEMBERSHIP IN SLSA: To join or to renew membership, please see http://press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/associations/sls_membership.cgi, or call Johns Hopkins University Press Journals at 800 548 1784 (US & Canada only, all others call 410 516 6987). Mon-Fri 8-am-5pm FAX 410 516 6968. Email: jrnlcirc@press.jhu.edu.
NEW MEMBERSHIP CATEGORY: LIFETIME MEMBER
Beginning in 2013, the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts established an additional category of membership for individuals. You can become a Lifetime Member for $1,500. The site for membership renewals/subscriptions is https://associations.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/slsa/slsa_membership.cgi
DIRECTIONS FOR SUBSCRIBING TO LIT-SCI LISTSERV
To subscribe, send a plain-text email message to sympa@duke.edu with the following in the body of the message: subscribe LITSCI-L
The list archive and additional subscription information, including how to receive the digest format, are available at: http://litsciarts.org
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Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts Executive Board (2015)
President: Robert Markley, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Executive Director: Carol Colatrella, Georgia Institute of Technology
First Vice-President: Ron Broglio, Arizona State University
Second Vice-President: Marcel O’Gorman, University of Waterloo
Members-at-Large: James Housefield, University of California-Davis & Jenell Johnson, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2013-2015); Rebecca Perry, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History & New School for Architecture and Design (2014-2016); Andrew Pilsch, Arizona State University & Rebekah Sheldon, Indiana University-Bloomington (2015-2017)
Graduate Student Liaisons: Nicole Keller Day, Northeastern University (day.n@husky.neu.edu); Kari Nixon, Southern Methodist University (MNixon@smu.edu); Sara DiCaglio (sdicaglio@psu.edu)
Past Presidents: Laura Otis, Emory University; Richard Nash, Indiana University; Alan Rauch, University of North Carolina-Charlotte; Bruce Clarke, Texas Tech University; Eve Keller, Fordham University; Jay Labinger, California Institute of Technology; T. Hugh Crawford, Georgia Tech; Susan Squier, Penn State; Sidney Perkowitz, Emory University; Stuart Peterfreund, Northeastern University; James J. Bono, SUNY-Buffalo; N. Katherine Hayles, Duke University; Mark Greenberg, Drexel University; Lance Schachterle, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Stephen J. Weininger, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Configurations Editors: Melissa Littlefield, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rajani Sudan, Southern Methodist University
Configurations Email address: configurations@smu.edu
Configurations Book Review Editor: Allison DuShane, University of Arizona,adushane@email.arizona.edu
Publications Committee: Susan Squier, Penn State University; Ronald Schleifer, University of Oklahoma; Pamela Gossin, University of Texas at Dallas
Bibliographers: Sue Hagedorn, Virginia Polytechnic and State University (hagedors@vt.edu); Jennifer Rhee, Virginia Commonwealth University (jsrhee@vcu.edu)
Electronic Resources Coordinator: Wayne Miller, Duke University (wmiller@law.duke.edu)
Arts Liaisons: Dennis Summers (dennis@quantumdanceworks.com); Kiki Benzon (kiki.benzon@uleth.ca)
The Executive Director can be reached by phone at (404) 894-1241 or by e-mail at carol.colatrella@lmc.gatech.edu. Postal address: Carol Colatrella, Executive Director, SLSA, School of Literature, Media, and Communication, Georgia Institute of Technology, 686 Cherry Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0165
SLSA websites: http://www.litsciarts.org and http://slsa.press.jhu.edu
