NSU Living Literature Center to Present Fall 2003 Conference

TAHLEQUAH Northeastern State University's Living Literature Center announces its Fall 2003 Conference. Titled "Literature of the Sixties: Love Sex Desire," the conference runs November 21 through 22 on the Tahlequah campus.

The fall seminar will consider literary and other cultural texts that focus on various states of embodiment (i.e. elderly or ailing bodies, bodies in pain, bodies in love, monsters, etc.). The subtitle is "Love Sex Desire;" the premise is Whitmanesque, wanting to celebrate the body and celebrate literary texts that celebrate the body. In the case of Whitman, the celebration amounts to targeting the traditional body/soul dichotomy in Western discourse. From the vantage point of contemporary literary theory, the body has become a concept that refers to the way bodily desires are organized, disciplined, controlled by social conventions and codes. The seminar will involve students in all of these different lines of inquiry.

NSU English faculty John Mercer, Terri Baker, Bridgett Colishaw, Jeff Canaan, and Chris Malone are tentatively planning to give presentations on topics ranging from fan fiction to Samuel Beckett; from Elizabethan to contemporary poetry that celebrates or interrogates the body; to monsters, cyborgs, and the (trans) gendered body. Cast members of the NSU production of "Vagina Monologues" will talk about their experience performing the play and deliver a few encores of those monologues.

Living Literature Center seminars are comprised of scholarly presentations and cultural performances dealing with a literary topic. Seminars allow students to participate in a critical conversation about literature in a non-traditional, performative setting.

Registration will be held in the Net Auditorium on the Tahlequah campus, November 21, 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Presentations will last until 10 p.m. Friday night and resume at 8 a.m. Saturday in the Jazz Lab, Tahlequah campus. Coffee and Danishes Saturday morning, as well as a buffet lunch Saturday afternoon, will be provided. The seminar will end at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Tuition cost (and enrollment in the class) is separate from the seminar registration fee of $45. To register, contact Dr. Christopher Malone, Director, Living Literature Center at 918-456-5511, ext. 4503. Students who participate can earn one hour of college credit (English 4931/5651).