In this, my first year as director of the CNYCLL conference, I am striving to make the conference better reflect the breadth of English Studies, and perhaps some of its closest interdisciplinary partners. To this end I am establishing six new panels on postdisciplinary rhetoric, cyberpunk literature, digital cinema, new media pedagogy, rhetoric of new media, and video games and interactive fiction. There are also a growing number of panels on writing (professional, technical, creative, rhet/comp., etc.).

If you are interested in participating in one of these panels, chairing a panel or proposing a related panel, the deadline for proposals is July 15th.

BUILDING NEW COMMUNITIES: Postdisciplinary Rhetoric and Literary Studies
As the conference theme suggests, for language and literary studies to move forward it must address its own notions of futurity, which are, in large part, conditioned by their disciplinary histories. That is, to use Thomas Kuhn’s language, our own disciplinary paradigms structure our notion of our future. And, in our case, this is a double-bind, as our disciplinary paradigms incorporate our concepts of what is possible in language. This panel seeks presentations that consider the possibility of an academic/intellectual discourse on language and literature beyond the structures of disciplinarity which continue to haunt our practice.

See the other five…

CYBERPUNK LITERATURE
Twenty years ago, the publication of William Gibson’s Neuromancer “began” the genre of cyberpunk, which has grown to spawn such popular phenomena as The Matrix trilogy. This panel examines the trajectory of cyberpunk, speculating on the speculative, so to speak. As cyberpunk authors such as Gibson and Sterling turn increasingly to the present (e.g. Pattern Recognition, Zeitgeist), how will cyberpunk continue to develop? Or do we see it instead as a genre coming to a close with its total commodification in Hollywood movies?

DIGITAL CINEMA

Typically when we imagine “digital cinema,” we think of Hollywood blockbusters filled with special effects, but technologically speaking digital technology has become a primarily mode of filmmaking from Hollywood to student films and even home movies. This panel seeks to investigate the artistic implications of digital cinema. How have these technologies informed the production and consumption of cinema? How might the implicit connection in the digital between database and image alter our future experience with animation, video and film? How might such developments alter the ways we study and teach cinema or even narrative more generally?

NEW MEDIA PEDAGOGY
Often, new media pedagogy refers to one of two possibilities: teaching students “how to” use new media applications or using new media to deliver some other content (e.g. the infamous PowerPoint-driven lecture). However, new media pedagogy might also represent the development of unique cognitive skills not required in the linear, textual environment of print-based education. This panel seeks papers that discuss the development of new media pedagogy beyond the requirements of “how-to.” How are teaching and learning transformed by new media? What new demands are placed upon the teacher and students? What ripple effects might such pedagogies have for English and Language studies in general?

RHETORIC OF NEW MEDIA
This panel seeks papers that investigate the development of rhetorical theory for new media environments. This investigation might include the following speculations: To what extent can theories developed for print function for this new technology? How might the increasing cultural importance of electronic communication alter the teaching of rhetoric? What impact might these technologies have upon our understanding of print conventions such as the writing process, argument, narrative, etc?

VIDEO GAMES AND INTERACTIVE FICTION
In the past few years, video games have become an increasingly significant portion of the entertainment industry. Students who might have dreamt of being filmmakers or novelists now dream of becoming game designers. The study of games and interactive fiction is clearly an interdisciplinary activity and perhaps one that is destined for its own disciplinary designation, though currently some who study these objects do so from within English departments. What value do literary studies and cinema studies offer to the analysis of video games and interactive fiction? What might the study of literature or film gain from insights into communication from this new field? More generally, how might the development of this new form of popular culture shape the future of literary and language studies?

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