"SUSPECTED SHAKESPEARES": PAPERS AND PERFORMANCES IN EARLY MODERN ATTRIBUTION STUDIES

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies is pleased to issue a call for papers for "Suspected Shakespeares", a one-day conference on attribution studies in early modern dramatic literature, to be held Saturday, March 8. Submissions are welcome from all members of the academic community.

"Suspected Shakespeares" will combine paper presentations with staged readings of key scenes from early modern plays in order to explore the critical and innovative scholarly work being conducted in the field of early modern dramatic attribution studies. In particular, the conference will provide a space for the exchange of ideas centering on the study of canon formation, on the question of how and why plays are added to or removed from the body of work attributed to a particular writer, and on the issue of the rhetoric and methodologies employed by attribution scholars in their studies.

Papers that address the above topics, as well as papers that engage with the attribution of a specific early modern dramatic text, part of a text, or group of texts are welcome. Of particular interest are papers that employ, or debate the effectiveness of, critical approaches to attribution study including (but not limited to) computational stylistics, textual analysis and bibliography, affective stylistics, performance and adaptation study, and collaboration study. Presentations are limited to twenty minutes. Papers proposed should represent new work in the field: the ideas and arguments presented should not have been previously professionally presented or published.

To propose a paper, please email an abstract of less than 500 words, accompanied by a summary of the submitter's academic background and work, to the Conference conveners, Matteo Pangallo (mpangall@english.umass.edu) and John Yargo (jyargo@english.umass.edu). Abstracts must be received no later than Saturday, December 1st. Presenters will be notified by Friday, January 4th and will be invited to choose an illustrative scene from the text of their choice for the staged reading portion of the conference.

For more information on the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, based at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, visit www.umass.edu/renaissance or contact the director of the Center, Arthur F. Kinney (afkinney@english.umass.edu).