Many thanks to all those who participated in a highly successful Endnotes 2012. The organizers were very impressed with the high caliber of papers presented, creative works read, and goods baked. Keep in touch for Endnotes 2013!
Endnotes Keynote Speakers
Our 2012 Endnotes keynote speakers, Dr. Stephen Guy-Bray and Dr. Dina Al-Kassim, will present in the Coach House, Green College on May 4 at 1:00 pm following a conference welcome by your organizers. Please make sure to attend the event - two blocks of panels and an evening of creative works will immediately follow!
Dr. Stephen Guy-Bray is the current Head of the English Department at the University of British Columbia. An accomplished scholar specializing in Renaissance poetry and intertextuality, he is also engaged in aspects of queer theory and historiography. His most recent book, Against Reproduction: Where Renaissance Texts Come From (2009) examines the reproductive metaphor for textual production and its appearance in the works of authors such as Milton and Shakespeare. His keynote presentation, titled “Poemidtude,” unpacks the fraught boundaries between a text and its inspiration, social context, history and biography as sites of conflict wherein poems offer the opportunity to become “objects with an autonomous existence worthy of our respect.” 
Dr. Dina Al-Kassim recently joined the Department at UBC as an Assistant Professor. A former Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University, her scholarship engages in a broad range of interests from modernism, Francophone North Africa, and South Africa, to literary and political appropriations of psychoanalysis, issues surrounding colonial law, and feminist, gender and queer theory. Her keynote speech tackles the subject of human security. Arguing that the idea of security has replaced that of rights in recent political discourse, her talk will investigate the possibilities and problematics of a “return to radical thinking” through the lens of Jacques Rancière’s essay “Who is the Subject of Human Rights?”
Roots and Radicalisms: Conference Schedule
As conference time draws ever nearer, please do take a moment to peruse our schedule of panelists and events. Here you will find our splendid selection of panels covering a range of topics, but all in the realm of the radical.
Download a pdf version of the schedule below, or read the entire thing after the break:
Endnotes 2012 Fundraiser!
For those of you in the Vancouver area, please do attend our fabulous upcoming Endnotes fundraiser at the Regal Beagle (2281 West Broadway) on Sunday, April 29 from 5:00 pm to whenever they kick us out.
Times will be raucous and those who arrive early will be rewarded handsomely with beverages.
Admission is $5 (or a greater donation from the generous) and ensures goodtimes for all!
See the facebook event for similar details: https://www.facebook.com/events/409341729084173/
Dylan Thomas says: “I support Endnotes, as should you”
EXTENDED DEADLINE
The deadline for abstracts for Endnotes 2012 has been extended to
Thursday, February 29th
Make sure to get your abstract, bio and CV in now to endnotes.2012@gmail.com
Endnotes 2012 currently seeks artists, authors and other creative individuals to submit proposals or complete works for an artist’s panel to be held on the Friday evening of the conference (May 4, 2012). Various forms of creativity, including poetry, short prose, experimental/conceptual writing, music, film, multimedia, and performance are highly encouraged, especially those considering the formal and conceptual aspects of radicalism as described in the conference Call for Papers (see below).
The performance length of the piece must have a duration of no more than 15 minutes.
Please submit either:
The completed piece to be presented OR a proposal outlining the concept and content of the work with a creative sample of prior work completed to endnotes2012@gmail.com
Note that those considering academic and creative submissions should send each submission separately.
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Endnotes 2012 CFP
Download the CFP as a PDF here:
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Roots and Radicalisms: Literature, Theory and Praxis
Jean Baudrillard’s claim from The Illusion of the End (1992) that history “has become a dustbin. It has become its own dustbin, just as the planet itself is becoming its own dustbin” signals a millennialist angst that proclaims the exhaustion of ideas and the end of historical “progress.” And yet, as the significant worldwide political upheavals of the past year attest, global citizens are not yet entirely resigned to living in and among dustbins. Is it possible that we are experiencing a widespread reemergence of radical thinking and action? Roots and Radicalisms: Literature, Theory and Praxis seeks to draw out ideas and generate discussion around the topic of a return to radical thinking and action by excavating the roots of revolutionary thought throughout literary history, and by engaging with the new radicalisms shaping our discipline and global society today. What forms have approaches to revolution and newness taken in the diverse historical and geographical milieus engaged by the study of literature? What new boundaries are being explored and challenged within the discipline of literary and cultural studies which may contribute to social and political change? And how might we embrace the challenges of speed and scale closing in on fronts as diverse and as connected as the technological, the ecological, the geopolitical, and the minutiae of everyday living?
Possible papers might discuss (but are not limited to):
- Transgressive subjects and subjectivities (bodies, identity, gender)
- Space & Place (borders, border crossing, spatiality)
- Citizenship & the Nation (post- and transnationalism, social justice, biopolitics)
- Globalization (cosmopolitics, encounters, migration flows)
- Empire (power politics, capitalism, neocolonialism)
- Beyond the human? (animal studies, ecology, science studies)
- Sexuality (health, orientation, erotics)
- Materiality & objects (Marxism, materialism, conceptualizing matter)
- Newness (novelty, origins, revolutions)
- Technology (new media, techno-bodies, game theory)
- The Avant-garde (experimentation, aesthetics, risk)
- Old books/new approaches (book history, print culture, digital humanities)
- Winners & losers (persecution, vilification, re/writing history)
- Weirdness (drug culture, fringe activity, speculative thought & challenges to realism)
Presentations will be about 20 minutes each (8 pages double-spaced) and will be followed by a moderated discussion. Those wishing to make presentations should send a 300-word abstract, a 50-word bio, and their CV to endnotes.2012@gmail.com by Friday February 17th. The conference will take place at the UBC Vancouver campus from Friday May 4th to Saturday May 5th, 2012.
This year’s Endnotes conference also welcomes creative submissions (poetry,
creative/experimental writing, music, art, multimedia, etc.) for an artist’s panel to be held the Friday evening of the conference. Submissions exploring formal or conceptual aspects of radical and revolutionary thinking are encouraged.
