I am SO doing this.

Call for Papers: ‘Blowing Up’ the Margins


Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Date: October 7 & 8, 2005
Submission deadline: July 20, 2005



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What gets included in the category of literature? What doesn’t, and why? What is lost and what is gained through the exclusion of certain texts, of certain modes of inquiry? What gets theorized and what gets trivialized? How are the lines drawn and who draws them? How do we talk about marginalized literatures without invoking binaries and boundaries, without inscribing them?
The graduate students of Simon Fraser University’s English Department invite you to submit an abstract for ‘Blowing Up’ the Margins. The term “blowing up” is used here in all of its connotations: as a disquieting site of disruption and deconstruction, an expansion, magnification and explosion. These images echo legacies of violence (epistemological, structural, discursive, and material) and the possibility of renewal and reconstruction. This conference aims to critically explore those texts and ideas which have traditionally been relegated to a space conceived of as outside academia. We ask therefore for papers and creative presentations that address marginalized texts, and/or traditional literatures from marginalized perspectives. Potential topics might include, but are not limited to:


• fantasy and speculative fiction
• children’s literature
• comic books/manga
• pop culture
• queer lit/theory
• erotica/romance lit
• detective fiction
• horror/-gothic
• TV/video games
• interactive media
• minority writing
• mixed-media prose & poetics
• spoken word/music lyrics
• women’s and/or gendered writing
• oral narratives
• collaborative works
• hypertext and blogs
• fanfiction
• legacies of marginalization


While the above list aims to interrogate the marginalized status of certain texts and theories in academia, we also welcome critical papers and conversations about normative categories and spaces, such as masculinity, whiteness, and heterosexuality (to name but a few examples) in an attempt to smudge the lines between what is considered traditional and what is considered marginal in our departments.
Please send 200-250 word proposals by July 20th, 2005 to gradconf@sfu.ca. Presentations will be 15 to 20 minutes in length (8 pages) and proposals must include your title, name, contact information (e-mail, address, home and work number), equipment needs, abstract and a small bio. To access the graduate conference website go to http://www.sfu.ca/~gradconf

Random thoughts

1. Does anyone know the cure for random British radio broadcasts suddenly appearing on one's computer? Because that's what I've got. I've tried restarting and I've tried CTRL-ALT-DELing to see what programs are running. I think this is Bender's way of telling me that it's time for us to part ways. I have decided to take out his extra memory and DVD burner and then donate him to the Goodwill, where he will make some disadvantaged nerd very, very happy.
1(b). New computer arrives in T minus 2 hours. Have to get the hell off the internet and wipe Bender's drive.
1(c). Don't want to.

2. I think I have to get one of those "Vote for Pedro" t-shirts. Except mine will say "Vote for Chavvah".

3. I'm going to Egypt in February!!!!!!!!!!
3(b). I need clothes for Egypt.
3(c). I need shots for Egypt.
3(d). I need cash for Egypt.
3(d2). Fuck.

4. Jamie and I are definitely NOT planning an anti-consumerist bicycle race through the skywalk. You didn't hear it here first.

That is all.

(no subject)

Edna has arrived.