The Emily Dickinson International Society seeks submissions to two panels at the annual American Literature Association Conference (ALA), which will be held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego on May 21-24, 2020 (Thursday through Sunday of Memorial Day weekend).

Panel 1: Dickinson and Disaster

How does Emily Dickinson’s work conceptualize or address disaster? Does reading Dickinson’s poems help us cope with disaster? The first panel seeks papers that explore Dickinson’s writing about disaster, or theorize Dickinson’s approach towards disaster, natural or man-made, hypothetical or real, economically or environmentally, metaphorically or metaphysically, individually or collectively, or otherwise. Essays might consider how recent theories of sociologies, philosophies or ecologies might renew our ways of reading Dickinson and crisis in her time. Essays might also consider how to read Dickinson in relation to 21st-century events or other discourses, or how reading Dickinson’s poems might assist our understanding of destruction and diseases in unexpected ways.

Panel 2: Open Topic
We invite proposals for papers on any topic. We hope to pull together a panel that will provide insight into new directions in Dickinson studies.

Please submit a brief proposal (300 word abstract and 100 word bio) by January 10, 2020 to Renée Bergland (renee.bergland@GMAIL.COM) and Li-hsin Hsu (johsu@mail2.nccu.tw).