Date: 2 - 3 November 2006
Keynote: Marianne Hirsch
Deadline: 1 September 2006
6th Annual University of Florida English Graduate Organization (UF EGO) Conference

Contours of Captivity: Resignifying Expressions of Power

In early 2005, the image of an allegedly-captured American solider was posted on a militant website. Dressed in desert camouflage fatigues, the solider appeared to be at the mercy of captors but was quickly exposed as the "Cody" action figure from Dragon Models USA Inc. Removing this image from the weight of its national and political specificity, one sees that toys exist which allow people to play realistically at war while being safe from actual conflict. Even so, this computer-based image also shows how forms of technology work together to produce new arenas of fear and imaginative control. Apart from simply stretching our credulity, this picture reminds us of historical images of war while simultaneously gesturing toward our own entertainment practices. Moreover, the way in which this picture was received reminds us how we are captive to media transmissions even as we perceive of and define others as captives.

In this conference, then, we will explore captivity--one of war's constituent parts--and confinement--one of culture’s chief means of control. Throughout this conference, we seek a range of interdisciplinary approaches to the material and will consider the broadest definitions of these terms. To do so, we invite presentations addressing anything from present-day or historical wars, slavery, imprisonment, and debilitating work practices to narratives of captivity or confinement in literature, film, video games, and other media to the control and dissemination of information via journalism, government agencies, and blogs. During the conference, we hope to consider how captivity and confinement work together to ensure societal control as well as how they work as instruments of physical control while also being promoted as forms of entertainment in either writing, film, or
games. In so doing, we hope to illustrate the ongoing relevance of literary and cultural study to understanding mundane and extraordinary forms of physical and ideological control.

Possible research areas include but are not limited to:

Political, Religious, and Cultural Captive's Stories

Agency, resistance, and freedom in captivity narratives or slave narratives
Calvinism and the economics of redemption
Postcolonial narratives in resistance to empire
Biographical and autobiographical accounts from incarcerated inmates

Memory, Empathy, and Interpretations of Experience

Internment, ethnicity, and national memory
Endurance of political captivities in the public imagination
Forgiveness, fear, or vengeance in response to captivity
Examinations of the Stockholm Syndrome

Real and Fictional Horrors in Multiple Media

Graphic representations, the spectacle, and limits of the gaze
The Truth of the news in newspapers, journals, and blogs
Fantasy and sci-fi stories of war, captivity, or alien abduction
Confining and captive elements of video games
Images of the captive, pain, and punishment in horror movies

Binding Fictional Narratives

Captivity, heroism, and issues of normativity in fairy tales
Confinement, discipline, and agency in the domestic novel
Bodice rippers, bondage, and the body
Imagination of confining or captive worlds in comics

Economic Macro and Micro Crushes

Globalization of the economy and the captivity of debtor nations
Economics in the recurrence of slavery, kidnapping, and piracy
Sweatshops, migrant labor, or the sex trade
Economics, paid labor, and the expansion of the prison system

Social and Cultural Boundaries

Definitional barriers of language
Pedagogical approaches to confinement and agency in the classroom
Passing/In and Out - public perceptions of race and sexual identity
Transgender definitions of confinement and the body

We invite individual paper and panel topic submissions from graduate students and faculty members. Proposals should be 500 words or less, and the deadline for submissions is September 1, 2006. To submit electronically (preferred), please go to the conference submissions page and follow the instructions. To submit in hardcopy format, please mail abstracts to:

Ramona Caponegro
"Contours of Captivity" Submissions Coordinator
Department of English
The University of Florida
P.O. Box 117310
Gainesville, FL 32611-731

Electronic submissions are preferred, but not required. Please send electronic submissions via plain-text email. In other words, copy-and-paste your abstract into your email client and send it that way. Panel proposals are also welcomed and encouraged.

For any further information contact EGO Co-Presidents Melissa L.. Mellon <mmellon@english.ufl.edu> and Leeann D. Hunter <ldhunter@english.ufl.edu>.