[NIS_GS:] CFP: Realism's Others (11/30/05; ACLA, 3/23/06-3/26/06)
"Realism’s Others"
ACLA 2006, Princeton University
Seminar Organizer(s): Geoffrey Baker, Rutgers University

George Levine, in "The Realistic Imagination" describes Anthony Trollope's realism as "rigorous only in its exclusion of extremes, or in its assimilation
of them. . . . All kinds of extremes enter on the periphery of the Trollopian vision, but all are contained within the possibilities of sheer plod, which will assert the primacy of conventional and arbitrary order against the rebellious energies that provoke admiration at times but must be absorbed" (203). What Levine says here of Trollope is often broadened to literary realism writ large, as a narrative mode primarily organized around the evocation and subsequent disciplining of supposed extremes.
This panel will discuss realism’s practice of othering and the sorts of others either summoned or created in the construction of realist narrative. Levine’s
vocabulary here--"assimilation," "rebellion"--inspires some preliminary questions one might consider:

–Who, what, when, why, and how are realism’s others?
–How do approaches to gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, nation or species contribute to otherness in a realist text?
–Do various national realisms offer significantly different strategies of othering?
–In what ways do realism’'s others differ from those of other narrative modes?
–What role do imperialism and globalization play?
–Does magical realism address these concerns differently?
–What does science contribute to the notion of otherness in a realist text?
–Do different avatars of literary realism (say, novels, poems, plays) portray their others differently?
–Are realism’s others constructed spatially?

Comparative presentations and presentations on any and all national literatures are welcome, as are proposals that consider realism not as a strictly periodized
movement or that engage developments of/against realism (e.g., magical realism).

Sumbit proposals online before 30 November, 2005, at the following link:
http://aslamp01.princeton.edu/%7Eoitdas/acla06/

The ACLA 2006 general website:
http://webscript.princeton.edu/~acla06/site/
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