Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 13:04:23 -0400
Subject: SPOON-ANN: CFP: Media and the Futures of Genre


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The graduate students of the Department of German at Princeton
University announce a graduate conference to be held on April 2-3, 2004.
We invite abstracts from graduate students in German studies and
other disciplines in the humanities.

MEDIA AND THE FUTURES OF GENRE:

The increased interest in media such as film, television, radio,
and the World Wide Web has shifted the status of literature in
our culture and compelled us to inscribe literary history within
a more encompassing media-historical framework. To the extent that
it remains a useful category, the notion of genre must now be re-
considered in terms of its standing with regard to a wider range
of media manifestations.

The relationship between genres and media can be approached in many
ways. Theories of tragedy and other literary forms have been privileged
sites for the formulation of aesthetic ideals, or for normative claims
concerning the possibilities for works of art in a social context. Some,
moreover, have theorized genres as set patterns of communication that
structure the expectations of a readership. One can also trace within
genre theory an increasing awareness of the historical nature of genres
and how they merge in an all-encompassing encyclopedic work of art. How
does media theory continue or discontinue these traditions? Conversely,
does the emergence of new media force us to reconsider traditional
strategies of defining genres with respect to form or content, for
instance by exposing how media specificity has been implicit in
conceptions of genre? We invite papers that discuss such issues in
general theoretical terms or by means of close attention to specific
works.

Topics can include:
- A new medium - a new aesthetic ideal?
- The concept of a medium
- Transpositions of genres in media
- Genre - gender - medium
- Genre hybridity - multimediality - intermediality
- Theorizing new media - theorizing in new media
- Manifestos for media
- Gesamtkunstwerk
- Reading media
- Genres/media as institutionalized orders of production and reception

Presentations will be 20 minutes in length. Please send 250-word
abstracts by January 15th to jnorberg-AT-princeton.edu. Please copy
the abstract in your e-mail message text and do not send it as an attachment.
For additional information, please visit the German Department webpage at
http://german.princeton.edu