The deadline for our conference has been extended once more. The new deadline for submissions will be September 7th.



UNDERGROUND

Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference November 6-7, 2008

Department of Comparative Literature

Graduate Center, City University of New York

365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016



Call for Papers



I am convinced that fellows like me who live in dark cellars must be kept under restraint. They may be able to live in their dark cellars for forty years and never open their mouths, but the moment they get into the light of day and break out they may talk and talk and talkâ?¦

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground



How do we perceive the underground? What lies beneath the surface? Wherein lies the significance of this metaphor? In defining the â??undergroundâ?? we have an immediate understanding of the term in its political, artistic, spatial and temporal dimensions: secret societies, the avant-garde, the unknown, the underworld. But what else constitutes the underground? Since antiquity we have been fascinated by the possibility of a separate realm that does not abide by the conventions of the known world. The underground also represents all that is hidden within the human psyche and that resists our attempts to excavate it. This conference intends to explore manifestations of the underground across all disciplines: literature, art, music, film, political science, sociology, psychology, art history, classics, philosophy, etc.



Papers might focus on the following topics, but are not limited to these:

The underground man in the novelâ??the underworldâ??Hadesâ??the subversiveâ??countercultureâ??resistance movementsâ??outlawsâ??outcastsâ??misfitsâ??the subconsciousâ??the subwayâ??the metroâ??the graveâ??le gouffreâ??the living deadâ??internmentâ??revolutionâ??catacombsâ??bomb sheltersâ??thresholdsâ??sewageâ??treasureâ??secret societiesâ??the moleâ??urban mythâ??ironyâ??the hiddenâ??underground railroadâ??slave narrativeâ??the avant-garde in music, film, art and writing.



Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words to cunyunderground@gmail.com or to the address below. Special consideration will be given to panel proposals. We will acknowledge the receipt of abstracts within 2-3 days. The deadline for submissions has been extended to September 7, 2008.



You will be notified if your proposal has been accepted no later than September 17, 2008 and we would like to have confirmation from those whose submissions have been accepted no later than October 1, 2008. There is no registration fee and the conference is free to attend. Please send all questions to the above listed email address.



Anick Boyd

c/o CUNY Graduate Center

Ph. D. Program in Comparative Literature

365 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10016