CFP: Interpreting Sex and Violence in East Asian Literature and Cinema

Rocky Mountain Modern Languages Association Annual Meeting

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

October 4-6, 2007

Many have observed that modern and contemporary works of East Asian literature and film incorporate graphic—or symbolic—images of extreme sex and/or brutality. Fewer have articulated the multifaceted significance of this phenomena. We seek papers that draw upon psychoanalytic, feminist, multicultural, queer, Marxist, postcolonial, social, political and cultural theory to interpret the meaning(s) and intersections of sexual relations and physical and psychological abuse and violence in aesthetic representation. What can such depictions tell us about relationships between rich and poor, young and old, various gender and sexual configurations, races and ethnicities, individuals, groups and nations? With regards to the broader socio-historical context of production, what can these texts teach us about the nature of interpersonal, intergroup and transnational relationships, the origins of conflict, the psychodynamics of aggression, trauma and survival, the legacies of belligerent individual and collective pasts?

Preference is for unpublished papers and papers not currently under consideration for publication. Please send 250-word abstract and title to: dstahl@binghamton.edu by March 1, 2007.