40th Anniversary Convention,
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
February 26 - March 1, 2009
Boston, Massachusetts

This panel seeks critical comparative perspectives on Günter Grass and Salman Rushdie.
Prominent figures on the international stage of public intellectuals and storytellers of history, both authors deal with major events in twentieth century history that continue to shape political and social policies and the cultural and religious national landscapes of their country of origin.

How does their work--repeatedly marked by a historical caesura--represent world history and the universal vis-à-vis individual experience and the particular? What narrative techniques do they employ to construct the anti/-hero's subjectivity, identity and consciousness? How are such techniques linked to narratives of national identity and history? How are time and space constructed and consequently what functions do movement and travel have? What literary traditions and innovations inform their work on cultural, territorial and linguistic displacement, as well as on genocide, forced migration, partition and war?

Themes might include but are not limited to:
Migration - Exile - Nation and Nationalism - Narrative and Historiography - Memory - Narrative Modes of Consciousness - Metaphor - Fictionality - Time and Space - Heimat and Homelands

Send 1-page abstracts to Maria Grewe, Columbia University, msg52@columbia.edu
Submission Deadline: September 15, 2008

Please include with your abstract on a separate page:
Name and affiliation, email address, postal address, telephone number, A/V requirements (if any).
The complete Call for Papers for the 2009 Convention will be posted in June: www.nemla.org.
Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA panel; however panelists can only present one paper. Convention participants may present a paper at a panel or seminar and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.