The College English Association, a gathering of scholar-teachers in English studies, welcomes proposals for presentations on trauma and literature for our 40th annual conference, celebrating the organization’s 70th anniversary. While the psychological study of literature recognizes the humanity carried by texts and the characters contained within them, scholars must also stop to recognize the complexity of a representation of trauma within these texts. Questions as to the nature of the representation become central to our understanding of the text in question. Is the text an entirely constructed representation of trauma, crafted to mimic the behavior of a victim, or is the text the evidence of a real (rather than imagined) trauma suffered by its creator? In either case, design bears a significant role; both the artist who borrows the language and structure of the traumatized person and the artist who creates because of his or her own trauma reveal much through the design of plot, narrative structure, character development, etc. Papers that address this relationship between the conference theme of design and trauma are particularly encouraged, although other avenues of analysis of the literary representation of trauma are invited.

General Conference Theme: Design
In addition, CEA welcomes proposals for presentations on the general conference theme, Design. We live in a world atomized into text messages and jump cuts, socially constructed snippets on networking sites, fragmented blogs and news bites, ones and zeroes. In such a context, is there still a role for conscious design - of literature, of art, of rhetoric, of learning? After the death of the author, who designs the texts we love to see, read, and study? Or do we make our own designations, sketching out the plot, shading in the design, creating meaning as we find it?

General Call for Papers
CEA also welcomes proposals for presentations in any of the areas English departments typically encompass, including literature, creative writing, composition, technical communication, linguistics, and film. We also welcome papers on areas that influence our work as academics, including student demographics, student/instructor accountability and assessment, student advising, academic leadership in departments and programs, and the place of the English department in the university.

Submission: August 31-November 1, 2008
For more information on how to submit, please see the full CFP at http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2009.htm

Membership
All presenters at the 2009 CEA conference must become members of CEA by January 1, 2009. To join CEA, please go to http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/membership.htm

More information
• Find out more about the College English Association: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea
• Find out more about lodging and registration: http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conferencetravel2009.htm
• Contact CEA officers:
http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/officers.htm

Other questions? Please email cea.english@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Brooke McLaughlin Mitchell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Wingate University
bmclaugh@wingate.edu