CFP: Chinese Poetry: Work and Poetry
Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 77th Annual Convention
Conference Date: October 10–12, 2024
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, China’s status as the world’s factory has given prominence to work and/or labor in Chinese language cultural production broadly, and to Chinese poetry and poetics specifically. This has given the Chinese working class a means both of distancing themselves from labor and of making social intervention. Written and read in moments of leisure, poetry distances from labor, but when intervening in society poetry can underline, for instance, possible directions for transformation in healthcare or developments in legal actions for workers’ rights. This panel invites papers that will discuss modern and contemporary Chinese language poetry along the line of this double-paradigm of work and poetry. Paper topics can include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Poetry and work/labor
- Poetry and interaction with society
- Poetry and the words of labor
- Poetry and “lying flat” (tangping) or “letting it rot” (bailan)
- Poetry and humor/wordplay
- Conceptualization around poetry and work
- International resonances
Prospective participants should submit an abstract of approximately 250 words along with a short (2-3 sentence) biography through this google form by March 30, 2024. The language of the session is English.
Please direct any inquiries to:
Giusi Tamburello (giuseppa.tamburello@unipa.it) (co-chair)
Wei Zeng (wzeng4@ualberta.ca) (co-chair)
Lucas Klein (Lucas.Klein@asu.edu)
Sofiia Zaichenko (szaichen@ualberta.ca)
Fay Zhen (fzhen2@asu.edu)
Posted by: Giusi Tamburello giuseppa.tamburello@unipa.it