Here's my proposal for the Midwest MLA conference. We've got our own little ASLE sub-section, and I'll be doing this little presentation. Which still lacks a title, alas.
Several panels at the most recent AWP took up questions of regional identity, particularly of the South and Appalachia (the conference took place in Atlanta). Questions of writing voice and sustainability come together when writers consider place as a necessary constituent in their work. For a culture and profession that’s increasingly (and notoriously) peripatetic, what does it mean to write from place? Is a writer who has moved from bioregion to bioregion—as the academic profession demands—required to take on the concerns of his/her current locale? Should they continue to address the concerns of the regions of their past? This multi-genre paper will consider what recent criticism suggests about these questions before moving on to personal investments in the issue, including original poems that take engage the discussion.
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