'Ghosts, Gender, History'

Paper proposals are invited for the following seminar at the 2006
American Comparative Literature Association Annual Conference in
Princeton, NJ:

"Ghosts, Gender, History"

Seminar Organizer: Sladja Blazan, Humboldt University (Berlin)

In most cultures the figure of the ghost stands for a forceful
separation of past and present. Some cultures integrate the ghost
figure into the present in order to provide a sense of continuity. In
literature and film the ghost motif has been directly associated with
particular cultural meanings, but has also been used as a plot element
free of the confines of realism. The meaning of the ghost is deferred
(Derrida). This quality of the ghost, neither dead nor alive, neither
present nor absent, provided a forum for addressing feminist issues.
Some of the first ghost stories were written by women. Charlotte
Perkins Gilman's classic The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) was only the
best-known of an enormous body of fiction of its type. Many examples
address ethnic/race issues. This seminar examines and asseses the
various versions of the ghost motif in literature as an opportunity to
articulate identity questions, cultural fears, and minority issues. We
will focus on ghostly ambitions written by women writers. The figure of
the ghost crosses boundaries of language, nationality, culture, class,
rase/ethnicity, gender and sexuality. At the same time it is the Other
within who speaks for all of them. How has this oppositional quality
been used and by whom? Papers on classic incarnations of ghost
literature as well as more recent sightings in fiction are welcome.

Abstracts should be 250 words, and submitted online at:
http://aslamp01.princeton.edu/~oitdas/acla06/

The American Comparative Literature Association annual conference is
organized primarily into seminars (or "streams"), which consist either
of twelve papers, if they meet on all three days of the conference, or
eight to nine papers, if they meet on two days. Papers should be 15-20
minutes long-no longer-to allow time for discussion. For further
information about the conference, including the format, please see:
http://webscript.princeton.edu/~acla06/site/