(Apologies for Cross-Posting)<br><br>In an
email distributed over the listserv last week, it was incorrectly
suggested that the Taylor conference deadline had been extended again
until November 15. This was unfortunately an error and we apologise for
any confusion this may have caused. The deadline remains October 15
(today). In order to allow for submission of any proposals that may have
been adversely affected by this error, we will be continuing to accept
submissions for two additional days. <br>
<br><b>CFP Deadline extended to October 15th</b><br><br>Call for Papers: You Can’t Be <span>Serious</span><br><br><i>An Exploration of the Idea, Importance and Influence of Seriousness<br>
and Nonseriousness in the Contemporary Humanities<br>
</i><br>The 2013 John Douglas Taylor Conference<br>
May 15-17, 2013<br>McMaster University<br>Hamilton, Ontario<br><br>Confirmed Keynotes: Jeremy Gilbert (University of East London), Julie Rak (University of Alberta).<br><br>Scholarship and intellectual work are <span>serious</span> business: <span>serious</span> people thinking <span>seriously</span> about <span>serious</span> things. To be <span>serious</span>
is to stake a claim to legitimacy, importance and moral and social
relevance. In today’s academic environment, it can seem vital to
reiterate the seriousness of one’s work in order to secure promotions,
positions, resources and even the notice of one’s peers. And yet to
declare seriousness is to deem certain topics, attachments, questions
and trends unserious, unworthy of attention, rigorous thought and
sustained debate. In staking our work around the unexamined metric of
seriousness, what is lost? What questions remain unasked?<br>
<br>Despite its centrality to so much of our practice, the notion of
seriousness often goes overlooked and under-thought. Indeed, while much
effort is expended on the broad task of delimiting the borders of what
could, should or ought to be taken <span>seriously</span>, the question of what constitutes seriousness in our current cultural moment does not receive nearly as much attention.<br>
<br>The purpose of the 2013 John Douglas Taylor Conference is to place
seriousness front and centre: to think through seriousness, to consider
what it is, what it means, what it might hide or efface. What is
invested in a marker like seriousness? Is it important that we retain
such a measure and if we were to jettison seriousness, what could
replace it? This conference will also call attention to the unserious,
considering the value and role of unserious topics, debates and modes of
understanding our current cultural moment.<br>
<br>In this approach, we are not interested in establishing a hierarchy of <span>serious</span> and non-<span>serious</span> topics, or advocating a new list of topics to be taken <span>seriously</span>
(though we are open to self-reflexive forms of this process) but,
instead, in investigating how and why the impulse to construct such a
typology works. What is the cultural hold seriousness has over us, how
do we fight it, or do we even want to? If we seek to ask <span>serious</span> questions, how do we go about determining what these might be, and how do we know they’re <span>serious</span>? How might an engagement with unserious methodologies and topics enrich or threaten existing knowledge?<br>
<br>Given that seriousness isn’t the subject of any large body of
existing scholarship, but rather a common and constant concern across
all manner of scholarship, we welcome submissions that engage with
seriousness in any number of theoretical, sociological, anthropological,
textual, historical, political, activist, ethical, artistic or other
methods.<br>
<br><b>You Can’t Be <span>Serious</span> will involve two
different types of panels: the first will involve traditional academic
papers, while the second will be based around roundtable discussions.<br></b><br>Morning
sessions will be composed of traditional paper presentations. Papers
may address topics and questions including, but not limited to, the
following:<br>
<br>§ What does it mean to be <span>serious</span> and how does one determine what is <span>serious</span>?<br>§ Unseriousness: the trivial, the flippant, the glib, the humorous.<br>§ Unserious affects: boredom, irritation, amusement.<br>
§ Living in <span>Serious</span> Times: 9/11, neoliberalism, global warming, terrorism, precarity, recession, the Euro Crisis, debt.<br>
§ Seriousness in culture: canon formation, preservation, inspiration.<br>§ Why so <span>serious</span>? The social imperative to be <span>serious</span>.<br>§ Being taken <span>seriously</span> (1): marginalised identities and social status.<br>
§ Being taken <span>seriously</span> (2): fandom, social media, reality TV, comic books, video games and Bieber Fever.<br>
§ Being taken <span>seriously</span> (3): the Humanities, how we do we defend the value of the work undertaken in our disciplines?<br>§ The role of the <span>serious</span> in taste, value and cultural hierarchies.<br>
§ <span>Serious</span> Scholarship: The rhetoric of rigour and the demands of funding.<br>
§ Moral Seriousness: responsibility, accountability, justice.<br>§ We Need to Talk About… Sandusky, Santorum, Strauss-Kahn<br>§ <span>Serious</span> _______: Business, Crime, Disease, etc.<br>§ The aesthetics of seriousness and/or unseriousness.<br>
§ The relation of work and play.<br>§ The ethics of seriousness and/or unseriousness.<br>§ Seriousness/unseriousness and gender: queer theory, transgender, role play, performance, crossing boundaries. <br>§ Seriousness in political discourse: activism, the Tea Party, political campaigning, the Arab Spring.<br>
§ The role of the academy is determining what is <span>serious</span>.<br><br>Individual
paper submissions should include a 500-word abstract clearly
articulating your thesis and its relation to the conference theme.
Please include your contact information and institutional affiliation. <br>
<br>It is our hope that this conference can as much spark discussion and
debate as offer a venue by which to present research and work in
progress. To that end, afternoon sessions will be devoted to roundtable
discussions on themes that take up the question of seriousness within
particular topics, fields and questions. Roundtable discussions will
include up to five participants who will each deliver a short
provocation (5 minutes) designed to generate further discussion between
presenters and the audience. The purpose of these panels is to provide a
forum to develop, as well as deliver, ideas.<br>
<br>The themes of the afternoon roundtable discussions are as follows:<br><br>1) Is it (always) racist to not take race <span>seriously</span>?<br>2) S(queer)iousness?<br>3) Why don’t we want to take hipsters <span>seriously</span>?<br>
4) Is Nature <span>serious</span>?<br>5) Is there such a thing as an unserious politics?<br>6) The Sokal Hoax, seventeen years on…<br>7) What’s more <span>serious</span>, the centre or the margin?<br>
8) Adorno got picked last in gym class: Sports and Seriousness<br>
<br>To apply to a roundtable discussion, please submit a 300-word
response to one of these topics clearly indicating the question to which
you are responding and your position. As well, please provide your
contact information and institutional affiliation.<br>
<br>Please submit all proposals (paper and roundtable) via e-mail attachment by <b>October 15, 2012</b> to <a href="mailto:tayconf@mcmaster.ca" target="_blank">tayconf@mcmaster.ca</a> with the subject line “Taylor Conference: Seriousness.” Attachments should be in .doc, .docx or .rtf formats.<br>
<br>You Can’t Be <span>Serious</span> will take place 15-17
May 2013 at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The
conference is sponsored by the Department of English and Cultural
Studies and supported by the John Douglas Taylor Fund.<br>
<br>Conference organizing committee: Nicholas Holm, Pamela Ingleton, Susie O’Brien and Carolyn Veldstra.<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Dr. Nicholas Holm<br>Sessional Faculty<br>Department of English and Cultural Studies<br>McMaster University<br>
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