CFP - "Missing Persons" (U of Western Sydney, Bankstown; 10-11 July 2008) Deadline: 31 March 2008

The Writing and Society Research Group
at the University of Western Sydney
presents

Missing Persons

An inter-disciplinary conference for postgraduates
to be held on the Bankstown campus of
the University of Western Sydney
on Thursday 10 and Friday 11 July 2008

Call for papers:

Missing Persons seeks to examine and explore issues arising from loss and displacement, memory and forgetting, disappearance, erasures and caesuras, death and dying in artistic and creative production.

In particular the conference will assess the artistic, cinematic, literary, moral, social, familial, (geo)political, philosophical, psychological and religious significance of these issues, both individually and together.

Submissions are invited on any of the following themes:

* writing memory – memory and desire, memory and affect;
* memory loss, dementia and the return to childhood;
* disappearances, erasure, secrets and control;
* ghosts, haunted writing and vampiric production;
* literary representations of space and “the space between”;
* the narrative underground - marginalised narratives and volcanic texts;
* myths and legends of actual missing persons;
* narratives of death and dying;
* true crime.

Submissions can include papers, performance, art works, installations, works-in-progress and workshops. The conference steering committee also welcomes the submission of pre-formed panel proposals.

250-word abstracts should be submitted by 31 March 2008. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by 31 May 2008.

Abstracts (including bios) should be submitted to Tessa Needham at <writing@uws.edu.au>

A small number of bursaries will be made available to assist post grad students travelling to the conference from interstate.