Purdue University Calumet’s Department of English and Philosophy is playing a lead role in hosting an international conference for scholars.
Through collaborative efforts of Purdue Calumet, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, the International Society for the Study of Narrative is holding its annual conference in Chicago at the Swissôtel, March 5-8.
Academics worldwide to attend
The conference brings together academics worldwide to discuss narrative in various forms—from literary and political perspectives to the role of storytelling in a courtroom and how physicians communicate with patients. More than 100 sessions are scheduled.
“This conference will attract professors from across the world and some 350 scholarly papers covering literature, film, politics and other pedagogy involving narrative,” said Purdue Calumet English and Philosophy Department Head and Professor Daniel Punday, who also is the conference coordinator. “Purdue Calumet’s collaborative role in hosting this conference enhances the intellectual profile of our university.”
Purdue Calumet faculty, students involved
Joining Punday on the conference’s Hosting Committee are Purdue Calumet colleagues Karen Bishop Morris, associate professor of English and Writing Center director, and Renee Conroy, assistant professor of philosophy.
Additionally, Punday said Purdue Calumet English graduate students “have been heavily involved in planning the conference for more than a year, and we have a number who will attend as moderators. We also hope to get some of our undergraduate students to attend.”
Keynote speakers
John Brenkman - Distinguished Professor of comparative literature and English at the CUNY Graduate Center and Baruch College, and senior fellow of the School of Criticism and Theory;
Caitlin Fisher - Associate Professor in the Department of Film and Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture at York University. Her hypermedia novella, “These Waves of Girls,” an exploration of memory, girlhood, cruelty, childhood play and sexuality, received the Electronic Literature Organization’s Award for Fiction; and
Thomas Pavel – a scholar and author, he is the Gordon J. Laing Distinguished Service Professor in Romance Languages and Literature, Comparative Literature, the Committee on Social Thought, Fundamentals, and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.
Session for local teachers
New to this year’s conference is a session for local classroom teachers called Pedagogy Day, scheduled Thursday, March 5. The session is designed to provide ideas about how to use narrative in the classroom, as well as bring area educators into contact with cutting edge narrative scholarship. Other information is available at http://narrative2015.org/pedagogy.html.