Dear Graduate Program Directors, Administrators, and Grad Students:
Following is an announcement for the Eighth Annual Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies Graduate Conference. Please distribute this and the following CFP to any students who may be interested in submitting an abstract.
The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst will host its annual graduate student conference on Saturday, October 2, 2010. Graduate students are invited to submit abstracts for a ten to fifteen minute paper on any range of topics or approaches to literature and history, including textual studies, performance history, philosophy, print culture, religious studies, gender studies, post-colonial interpretations, and other new theoretical perspectives. The purpose of the conference is to provide graduate students with an opportunity to share their work and place it in a greater context of interests and concerns. The conference is designed to foster conversation among students who share similar challenges and construct a space where participants may expect serious feedback on their work.
Please send an abstract of 250-300 words by email or email attachment to Gregory Sargent (gsargent@english.umass.edu) by Saturday, September 12, 2010. For more information on the conference, you can visit the website http://people.umass.edu/ppalmer/Site/MCRSGC.html.
We are pleased to announce that Prof. Jeff Dolven of Princeton University will be giving the keynote address. In addition to winning a Mellon/ACLS Fellowship for Junior Faculty, Prof. Dolven was honored with the Donald A. Stauffer Preceptorship at Princeton University. He has published on Spencer and Renaissance poetry and his book is called Scenes of Instruction in Renaissance Romance from the University of Chicago Press.
We are organizing the conference to bring graduate students with similar interests together to share their work. Last year’s conference had an intimate feel with all participants able to view the other presentations. As before, we intend to divide the conference into several small panels, with ample time for discussion among peers, and we welcome the attendance of faculty from your department as well.
Thank you for your assistance and please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.
Best,
Katey Roden
Gregory Sargent
Conference Organizers
