University of Tulsa June 6-8, 2024
Tulsa, Oklahoma, perhaps more than any other American city, invites us to consider the deep roots and long legacies of cultural conflict. Set in the middle of “Indian Territory” carved out for indigenous tribes forcibly displaced from the southeast, it became a supply depot for new railroads, a ranching capital, an oil boomtown, a Western Art Deco mecca, and the home of “Black Wall Street,” the vibrant African American community leveled by a brutal massacre in 1921. In the city’s current incarnation, the stresses of history are sometimes visible and sometimes glimpsed in transformation: Tulsa flaunts its vintage neon signage and riverfront parks, celebrates counter-culture heroes Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, and hosts several museums within the former paper plant that supplied newsprint to area newspapers.
In this setting, steeped in many varieties of cultural encounter and collision, marked by repression, assertion, protest, and celebration, it is fitting that we explore the textuality of pressure. Pressure flattens, coerces, contains, and restrains–forces that can precipitate paradoxical responses: collapse, transformation, resistance, liberation. Texts manifest many varieties of creative, social, and political pressure in their expressive content and form. But text is also often a matter of technological pressure: printing techniques rely on the pressure of a platen, roller, or squeegee; other recording and playback processes require the pressure of a stylus, a chisel, a nib, or the gentle pulse of a wifi wave. Such pressurized circumstances, symbolic and material, reveal core issues of textual production, circulation, reception, and contestation.
For its 2024 conference in Tulsa, STS invites proposals that explore “text under pressure,” including such topics as:
- Texts of resistance and dissent
- Texts of coercion and/or liberation
- Texts enacting and/or combatting erasure
- Texts produced by and about the Tulsa Race Massacre
- Texts of settler colonialism
- Text on and beyond the reservation
- Protest song history
- Technological pressures w/r/t printing, publishing, producing, and performing
- Creative alliances and alignments in response to pressure
- Archiving fragile forms of expression, researching with fragile media
- Text and resource extraction
- Pressures on/of mythologies of the West
- The pressures of historical preservation and commemoration
- Textual emergencies and other products of temporal pressure
- Teaching texts under pressure
Hosted by the University of Tulsa, the conference will take place at the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities in the downtown arts district—close to hotels and restaurants and about 3 miles from the TU campus. TU’s McFarlin Library Special Collections is renowned for its Modernist archives with collections focused on James Joyce, Jean Rhys, Rebecca West, and the First World War, as well as collections documenting the Tulsa Race Massacre, also on display at the Greenwood Rising museum. The Helmerich Center for American Research has more than 100,000 rare books, documents, and maps. The archives of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan are also located here, for which visitors will need to apply for access in advance. Conferees might wish to bookend their trips with research or architectural tours, or visit the buffalo at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Pawhuska, where Killers of the Flower Moon was filmed.
In addition to proposals related to the conference theme, STS welcomes proposals on all aspects of textual scholarship.
STS is an interdisciplinary organization, and we have a tradition of offering papers from diverse disciplines, including literature, history, musicology, classical and biblical studies, theology, philosophy, art history, legal history, the history of science and technology, computer science, library and information science, lexicography, epigraphy, paleography, codicology, cinema studies, new media studies, game studies, theater and performance studies, linguistics, gender and sexuality studies, race and ethnicity studies, indigenous studies, and textual and literary theory. We share an interest in the recovery and analysis of the material traces of the textual past broadly defined, and the creation of a community of interpreters sharing knowledge and methods to that end.
We are planning a robust in-person conference experience with some options for remote participation; please see session formats for more information.
Session Formats
Panels
Panels may consist of three associated paper presentations of approximately 15 minutes each or four shorter presentations. Note: Individual paper proposals submitted will be organized thematically into groups by the conference program committee. Pre-organized panels are welcome. Individual papers will be organized into in-person sessions only. Pre-organized panels may be presented remotely or in person.
Roundtables
Pre-organized roundtables should include four to six speakers who collectively address topics of broad interest and scope, with the goal of fostering lively debate with audience participation. To facilitate audience participation, roundtables must be presented in person.
Flash Video Essays
The flash video essay is a one- to five-minute video that presents an argument or explores a point of view. In your proposal, please provide a short description of your video essay and several topics germane to your contribution (see list of possible topics above; other topics welcome). Flash video essays may be presented remotely or in person.
Lightning Talks
Lightning talks are five-minute presentations that may or may not rely on a/v media. In your proposal, please provide a description of your presentation along with a list of possible topics (see list of possible topics above; other topics welcome). To facilitate audience participation, lightning talks must be presented in person.
Workshops
Workshops should propose a specific problem, tool, or skill set for which the workshop leader will provide expert guidance and instruction. Workshop proposals that are accepted will be announced on the conference website and attendees will be required to enroll with the workshop leader(s). Workshops may be designed as on-site or remote experiences.
Proposal Guidelines
Proposals should include:
- Name(s) and affiliation(s)
- Email address
- Title of submission
- 250-word proposal abstract
- List of specific topics to which the submission may relate, drawn from the suggested topics listed in this CFP; other topics welcome.
- Technology needs, e.g., a/v projection.
- Format type: panel, roundtable, flash video essay, lightning talk, workshop.
- Please indicate if your pre-organized panel, flash video, or workshop is designed for remote or in-person presentation; all other session formats must be presented in person.
Accepted proposals for individual panel papers, flash video essays, and lightning talks will be assembled into sessions based on topic and in keeping with the Society’s interdisciplinary ethos.
Timeline
- All proposals due: extended to March 18, 2024
- Notification: March 25, 2023
- Registration opens: April, exact date TBD
- Inquiries and proposals should be sent to: societyfortextualscholarship@gmail.com
Images of Tulsa skies from the Francis A. Schmidt Photograph Gallery, Tulsa Race Massacre 1921 exhibit at the University of Tulsa McFarlin Library Special Collections.