CFP: "Changing the Subject: Poeisis, Praxis, and Theoria in the Humanities"

> Call for Panels and Papers: Deadline 3/1/06
>
> The English Graduate Student Organization (EGSO) of the University
> at Albany, SUNY announces its annual graduate student conference
> Saturday April 22 and Sunday 23, 2006:
>
> Changing the Subject: Poeisis, Praxis, and Theoria in the Humanities
>
> Robert Scholes is the Keynote Speaker, presenting a paper titled
> "Changing the Subject: Periodical Studies"
>
> Call for Papers and Panels: Praxis
> The Praxis and Pedagogy division of UAlbany’s Graduate Conference
> invites proposals for papers and panels that consider the
> intersections of theory and practice in our pedagogical approaches and
> in our roles as intellectuals.
>
> Karl Marx defined PRAXIS as "revolutionary, critical-practical
> activity," asserting, "The philosophers have only interpreted the
> world…the point is to change it." A substantial line of
> thought—including Freire, Giroux, hooks—has argued that teaching is an
> act and the classroom a space where social change can take place
> through a politics of resistance and social critique. The word has
> become so affiliated with the teaching profession that the national
> system of standardized tests for individuals becoming school teachers
> is called PRAXIS.
>
> Why is pedagogy almost exclusively linked with the field of rhetoric
> and composition? Why is pedagogy, and therefore the field of rhetoric
> and composition, so commonly affiliated with the concept of PRAXIS?
> What other forms of PRAXIS are alive and well in and around the
> academy? Is the classroom still, or perhaps more than ever, a site for
> "revolutionary, critical-practical activity?" As one of the few
> locales where strangers gather together regularly, is it necessary to
> rethink the classroom in terms of presence and embodiment, as a place
> where the "public" comes "inside" the university? What is the
> reciprocal, then, of the teacher leaving the university? How does she
> find or shape her public there?
>
> We welcome panels as well as individual papers/presentations. Topics
> can include:
> the status and role(s) of the public intellectual
> the division between the teaching of reading literature and writing
> development of an academic discourse quite separate from "everyday"
> writing and speech
> forms of action valued and/or overlooked in the academy
> curriculum and course design as practice
> classroom as a public space
> effects of corporatization on pedagogical practices
> effects of theory on the teaching of literature
> status of speech in the classroom
> online classes and universities
> theory out of practice
> effects of the poststructural turn toward writing/language on
> concepts of public speaking and teaching
> exploration of institutionalized boundaries between
> artist/academic/activist
> Please submit a 250-400 word proposal for papers and/panels by
> March 1, 2006 to Jennifer Marlow and Tara Needham at
> egsoalbany@yahoo.com.
> For more information visit:
> http://www.albany.edu/english/grad_conference_06/
>