Material and the Immaterial in Modern Spanish Literature and Film CFP (NeMLA 9/30/13)

Two calls for paper to post tonight. Here's the first:

NEMLA 2014: Physical Transcendence: The Relationships between the Material and the Immaterial in Modern Spanish Literature and Film
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Call for Papers Date: 2013-09-30
Date Submitted: 2013-05-22
Announcement ID: 203975

This panel seeks proposals analyzing the interaction of the material and the immaterial in the creation of literary and filmic works in Spain from the 19th century to the present day. The recurrent emphasis on the physical in modern literary and filmic texts does not preclude, and in fact often leads to, an exposition of untouchable realities. The materiality of bodies and objects, on the one hand, and the relationship between movement and space, on the other, has been instrumental in a wide array of works of fiction, poetry and film. In this panel we ask participants to reflect on how these elements of the physical world combine with those of dream, fantasy, imagination, and hallucination. Instead of treating the material and immaterial as separate domains, this panel seeks to explore how their convergence leads to the transcendental, the surreal or the fantastic in the works of modern Spanish writers and directors. It thus aims to surpass aesthetic, cultural and historical limitations by not merely linking physical objects to symbolic meaning, but also exploring how the two are interwoven in literary and filmic texts. The topics of these works frequently deal with the construction of city and state in the wake of the Disaster of 1898, the Spanish Civil War and its haunting presence in fiction, walking as an expression of desire and individuality, fetishism and its revelation of the unconscious, and more. By linking the terrestrial and corporal to the intangible and supernatural, this panel will explore the ways in which Spanish literature and film embed layers of meaning into phenomenological reality. Please send 250-300 word abstracts in English or Spanish to laurie.lomask@yale.edu or tanya.romero-gonzalez@yale.edu.

 Laurie Lomask and Tanya Romero-González
Email: laurie.lomask@yale.edu; tanya.romero-gonzalez@yale.edu