Saturday, October 26, 2013

PAMLA Forum Sponsored by NCSCL - Stages of Life: Age, Identity, and Culture

The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association Conference (PAMLA) is less than a week away! This week we'll be highlighting some of our own that will be presenting and featured in the conference, but for now I wanted to share a special event sponsored by the National Center for the Study of Children's Literature.

In conjunction with PAMLA and Executive Director Craig Svonkin, the NCSCL is excited to sponsor a forum which should greatly appeal to anyone involved in or fascinated by the study of childhood, children's literature, and cultural studies more broadly. It's a free and open to the public too, so join us for this insightful off-campus event!

PAMLA Forum: Stages of Life: Age, Identity, and Culture 
When: Saturday, November 2, 2013 - 5:00pm - 6:40pm (Mission Bay Ballroom C) 
Chair: Cheryl Edelson, Chaminade University of Honolulu

The Age of Beginners

Kenneth Kidd, University of Florida
The beginner has long been a dominant trope in education, literature, and popular culture, associated with the idiot/dummy, the student, and the child. The beginner may or may not be a child or child-like, thereby bringing to mind Robin Bernstein's proposed term "agequeer," used to refer to temporally non-conforming subjects. Drawing on children's literature, the children's philosophy movement, and select theory, this paper explores the "age of the beginner"—both an era and a developmental conceit.

Aging Badly: The Exemplary Case of Marlon Brando
Katherine Kinney, University of California, Riverside
Marlon Brando presaged the youthful rebellion that came to exemplify the culture of the baby-boomers. As his icon thrived in the 1960s, Brando began to age badly. His successes and failures over the next three decades tell us much about post-WWII narratives of masculine identity, maturity, success, and the richer pathos of failure.

The American Renaissance Enters the Iron Decade: Melville and Company on the Voyage of Life

Martin Kevorkian, University of Texas, Austin
As the major authors of the American Renaissance embarked upon their sixth decades, their writing took a turn away from the prophetic confidence that characterized their greatest hits. Focusing upon Melville, along with Stowe, Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne, this presentation explores these authors's late fascination with both preaching and silence.

Once again, the forum is open to everyone, including SDSU students and faculty, with no expense. In fact, all the conference sessions are free for those interested in visiting and listening. So, come! Drop by! Attend! Keep in mind that presenters and chairs still have to pay the registration fees.


All the conference information is here: http://www.pamla.org/2013/

No comments:

Post a Comment