Call for proposals for World Literatures panel at the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) convention in Washington, DC, March 21-24, 2019
The Coming-of-age Genre in the Arabic Novel
Chair: Sally Gomaa, PhD, Salve Regina University
The Bildungsroman is a contested genre in the Arabic novel. For example, Frederic Jameson has famously argued that all third-world texts are national allegories because they do not possess the public-private split characteristic of western literatures. However, other critics, including Edward Said, find the Arabic novel’s episodism to be reflective of unstable social and political conditions. Due to these conditions, the Arabic novel often replaces the linear narrative structure of the Bildungsroman with exploring the connection between time and space. Therefore, rather than dismissing the Bildungsroman, the Arabic novel offers new aesthetic considerations for examining the intricate connection between the personal and the social scene. This panel seeks papers that place the Bildungsroman within the history of the Arabic novel in general and shed light on texts that challenge traditional linear, chronological structures.
The submission deadline is September 30, 2018. All abstracts must be submitted through the NeMLA CFP web site at https://www.cfplist.com/nemla/. Search for panel #17262 under World Literatures. General guidelines for abstracts can be found at https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/callforpapers/submit.html. View the conference web site at https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention.html. Send questions regarding the panel to sally.gomaa@salve.edu.
Panelists will be notified of acceptance or rejection by October 15, 2018. NeMLA membership is not required to submit abstracts. However, if your abstract is accepted to a session and you agree to present at the convention, you will be required to pay for membership and convention registration.