Thing[s] Matter

University of Virginia Graduate English Conference

Please be advised that The New Literary History Conference will follow "Thing[s] Matter":

LITERARY HISTORY IN THE GLOBAL AGE

A Conference sponsored by New Literary History
R. Cohen, editor; Rita Felski and Herbert F. Tucker, associate editors

-- featuring speakers Hayden White and Fredric Jameson --

March 14-15, 2008
The Harrison Institute
University of Virginia

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"THING[S] MATTER"

iPhones and Ikea, megastores and Manolo Blahniks, falling buildings and rising temperatures – with the quickening pace of globalization, neo-imperialism, and digitalization, and the rise of neo-liberal approaches to politics, economics, and social-engineering, scholars throughout the academy have become increasingly concerned with the decline of the natural and the human, and the concomitant rise of commodities and material culture, the ascension of things.  Yet things have always been with us, and in order to understand their unique role in contemporary global society and unique significance to contemporary literary and cultural studies, we must also understand their past, as sacred objects, crude commodities, and cherished bearers of cultural memory.  What role do things play in our daily lives? What roles have they played in our past?  Is there any room for humanity in a world of things?