"From Border Building to Border Hopping: The Shifting Nature of the Text"

Artistic production carries an inherent quality that crosses borders, given that the artist himself crosses from a public face to his insular, creative self at each moment of creation. This conference is dedicated to the various aspects of Border Hopping as seen in artistic creation - authors and characters crossing geographic borders; sexual and gender boundaries; transgressing the norms allowed by a given political regime; bending or breaking traditional boundaries of genre and medium; rejecting the high culture/low culture dichotomy; the dispersion of texts themselves across geographic, political or temporal boundaries, and more.

At the same time, presenters may consider the parallel and opposing phenomenon of Border Building, including the role of artistic production in nation-building and the social construction borders of identity. In addition, presenters can analyze the (re)definition of academic disciplines and how such construction is carried out by artists and academics.

Keynote speakers for the 2010 Carolina Conference are Réda Bensmaïa (Professor of French Studies and Comparative Literature), Teresa Fiore (Professor of Italian Studies) and José Manuel Prieto (Novelist, Professor of Spanish-American Literature). There will also be an Invited Reading by author Manuel Muñoz.

Abstracts must be submitted by December 18, 2009. Abstracts are limited to 250 words and must be submitted online at: ccrl.unc.edu

Papers or panels on all aspects of literature and film in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Comparative Literature will be considered. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. Individual presentations should be limited to 20 minutes.

Exceptional papers by both graduate students and professors will be considered for publication in Romance Notes.