The Kate Chopin International Society invites submissions focusing on “New Directions in Chopin Scholarship” for two panels at the ALA Conference in San Francisco in May. Approaches may include but are not limited to:

• Chopin and New Southern Studies, such as reconsiderations of subjectivity, objectivity, nationality, regionalism, identification and selfhood.
• Chopin and transnational Southern studies, especially connections to Caribbean literature
• Chopin and the grotesque
• Chopin and disability studies
• Chopin and connections to non-discursive works (film, photography, performance, visual art, spoken word, music)
• new perspectives on race and gender (Chopin and black masculinity, Chopin as anti-feminist, for example)
• Chopin and gay/lesbian or queer studies
• Innovative intertextualites: Chopin and other writers
• Chopin’s place in post-Katrina New Orleans
• Innovations in teaching Chopin

Please send 250-400 word abstracts and a short biographical statement to both Christina Bucher at cbucher@berry.edu and Thomas Morgan at morgantz@notes.udayton.edu by 11 January 2007. Full panel proposals are also welcome; include the title of the panel, abstracts for each paper, and biographical statements for each participant.