Early Modern Witchcraft on Trial

We are now accepting proposals for the 2007 Rocky Mountain MLA convention at the downtown Westin Hotel in Calgary, Canada (4-6 October 2007). The deadline for proposals is March 15, 2007.

The special topic session "Early Modern Witchcraft on Trial" is looking for submissions dealing with the problems of discerning, disputing, and displaying the supernatural on the commercial stages of early modern Europe. While the focus of this panel lies with dramatic literature, we seek to analyze literary interactions between fictional and allegedly non-fictional literatures and to engage cross-disciplinary approaches that consider literatures in the context of historical, political, legal, anthropological and social analyses.

Some of the literary texts that we hope to explore in the context of early modern drama include:

pamphlets and ephemera
legal treatises and decrees
anthologies and compendia
sermons and homilies

Please send 500-word abstracts by March 15th to the panel organizers, Andrew McCarthy (andrew_mccarthy@mail.wsu.edu) and Verena Theile (vtheile@wsu.edu). Attachments should be in WORD or RTF format and include a presentation title and short biographical sketch.

**Note please that all accepted presenters need to join RMMLA by April 1. Consult the RMMLA website (www.rmmla.org) for membership information, travel advice/assistance, and detailed submission/presentation guidelines. Remember that all travelers, including US citizens (!), need to carry a passport in order to enter Canada.**

Verena Theile, Ph.D.
Charles Blackburn Fellow
Department of English
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-5020
Phone: (509) 335-8752
E-mail: vtheile@aol.com
Homepage: www.wsu.edu/~vtheile