The Graduate Student Advisory Committee seeks scholarly and creative submissions for a national interdisciplinary graduate student conference entitled "Open Secrets: Knowing and Unknowing" to be held at Indiana University in Bloomington from March 20-22, 2008.

The paradox of the "open secret" undergirds many forms of textual analysis--the search for "buried" meanings that are nonetheless "open" enough to be noticeable to a community of readers or observers. But, our understanding of "open secrets" also is a key component of our everyday social relations, our performance of identity, and our interpretation of others' identities. This conference seeks to explore the meanings and effects of "open secrets" in terms of interpretation and identity, but also in the areas of technology, theology, genealogy, publicity, obscenity, and anonymity, just to name a few.

Possible topics of proposals for scholarly or creative work may include but are not limited to:
# Masquerade and "passing"
# Memoir and epistolary forms
# Online identities and avatars
# Performativity
# Religious Knowledge and Religious Mystery
# Queerness, "In-ness," and "Out-ness"
# Technologies of surveillance and tracking
# Copyright and knowledge ownership
# Anonymous texts and authors
# Mystery stories and gothic tales
# Conspiracy and Paranoia
# Transplanted Cultures
# Open Source Programming and the politics of information access
# Celebrity culture
# Close reading and metanarratives of interpretation
# The occult and supernatural
# Forced vs. "open" confessions
# Global vs. local knowledges
# Pornography and obscenity
# Family Stories and Inheritances
# Textual Lacunae
# State Violence and Torture
# Texts vs. Subtexts, and the Implicit vs. the Explicit

We encourage proposals for individual projects as well as panel proposals organized by topic. We particularly encourage creative presentations and interdisciplinary projects. Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words and a short description of yourself by January 15, 2008 to iugradconference2008@yahoo.com.

Graduate Student Advisory Committee
Department of English
Indiana University