In the context of the upcoming SAMLA (South Atlantic Modern Languages Association) conference, The Society for the Study of Southern Literature (SSSL) invites submissions for “Divining (the) Circum-Caribbean South(s).” The deadline for submissions of abstracts (and bios) is June 1, 2016. [See description below.]

SAMLA 88 Conference will take place on November 4–6, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront in Jacksonville, Florida. The conference’s focus is “Utopia/Dystopia: Whose Paradise Is It?”

As SAMLA heads to Jacksonville, Florida, for its 2016 conference, one recalls Keith Cartwright’s characterization of the state as a “longtime frontier[] of creolizing contact” (8): “Whether in Old South Jacksonville or St. Augustine, or south of that South in Miami’s creolizing space, Florida repeats itself as an ‘un-American’ frontier of the nation, a multi-ethnic borderland, a point of contested migration and immigration, a location of repeating racialized violence, and a divinatory contact space” (188). Engaging Florida’s creolizing history as a multi-ethnic, Caribbean, southern, national, and, indeed, anti-national space, the Society for the Study of Southern Literature invites proposals that engage (the) Circum-Caribbean South(s). We welcome a broad range of proposals that activate any location of the Circum-Caribbean region, investigating any form of cultural media: literature, poetry, live performance, music, film, television, visual art, et cetera. Channeling the “south of South” rubric explored through such works as Jessica Adams, Michael Bibler, and Cécile Accilien’s edited collection Just Below South (U Virginia P, 2007), Keith Cartwright’s Sacral Grooves, Limbo Gateways (UGA Press, 2013), and John Lowe’s Calypso Magnolia (UNC Press, 2016), this panel will explore and extend the “Caribbean turn” in southern studies. By June 1, 2016, please submit a 250-word abstract, brief bio, and a/v requirements to Stephanie Rountree, Georgia State University, at srountree3@gsu.edu.

[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.]

Source: https://samla.memberclicks.net/affiliated-group-sessions

[Image above: Still from Ana Mendieta’s Ochún. Chosen to echo Keith Cartwright’s book cover for Sacral Grooves, Limbo Gateways; Source: http://www.galerierudolfinum.cz/en/exhibition/ana-mendieta-traces-stopy ]