Print Culture for Undergraduates

Trysh Travis is circulating a CFP for a SHARP Affiliate Panel at the MLA Conference (Los Angeles, California, 6–9 January 2011)

This panel that will examine the place of print culture in the undergraduate literature curriculum (in English and/or language departments) in an era in which students may be more accustomed to reading on screens than on paper and administrators are clamoring for a "back to basics" approach to literary study.

Faced with these conditions, how do scholars of print culture justify-and implement-its study across the various levels of a major?

How can we do book history as undergraduate class sizes expand indefinitely?

How can we leverage undergraduates' infatuation with new media (text-messaging, Facebook, Twitter) on behalf of the study of print culture?

These and other questions relating to the uses of print culture within undergraduate pedagogy may be addressed through case studies, theoretical musings, programmatic overviews, and the like.

[A fascinating topic. Unfortunately the panel is only open to members of MLA (by 7 April) and of SHARP (by 1 July). If you are one of the happy few who fit this criteria …]

Proposals and short CV by 15 March to:

Trysh Travis
Center for Women's Studies & Gender Research
Box 117352
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611-7352