8th Annual Graduate Humanities Forum Conference
Penn Humanities Forum, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

28-29 February, 2008

Keynote Speaker: Siva Vaidhyanathan, cultural historian and media scholar, New York University

Keynote address: ?Originality? in the Internet Era

To speak of origins in the humanities is to speak in spirals. In the absence of some cause-and-effect model of explanation?long since ceded to certain precincts of science?the humanities often broach the concept of origins as ever-absent historical provocations.

But once again, the question of origins is beginning to capture the attention of scholars in both the humanities and the human sciences. The Graduate Humanities Forum, a graduate student-run division of the Penn Humanities Forum, seeks papers for its interdisciplinary conference, which consider any facet of this year?s theme, ?Origins.?

Contributions from all fields in the humanities and sciences will be considered. Of the many possible engagements with our theme, some include:

- Discovery
- Authenticity & Originality
- Cultural Roots
- Myth & Myth-Making
- Identity Formation
- Postcolonial Origins & The Roots of Race
- Nostalgia
- The Origins of Language & Music
- Ideological Origins
- The Origins of Institutions & States
- Biological Origins
- Communal Foundations
- Origins and Evolution
- Originality & Modernity

This conference is open to all graduate students. Both single and group panel submissions will be considered. The deadline for proposals is 16 November 2007.
Please e-mail abstracts of no more than 200 words to Erik Mathisen, Chair of the Graduate Humanities Forum, ghf-conf@sas.upenn.edu. Notification of acceptances will be e-mailed by 14 December 2007.