On Rhyme
I welcome papers on rhyme’s possibilities, problems, and pleasures: rhyme as jingle, bondage, or boundary, as childish mnemonic, syntactical connection, or philosophical relation, as Gothic remnant, orientalist import, or cutting-edge embodied art. How has rhyme been attacked or defended? What changes when it’s “feminine” or “royal,” slant or internal, or rhyme only to the eye, and so on? What can we learn from long histories of theorizing and using rhyme, and what might these histories have to offer us today? I am particularly keen to feature papers that engage with rhyming practices before 1800. Submit short abstracts to Courtney Weiss Smith (csmith03@wesleyan.edu) by April 25.
Poetry and Data
Does access to data change the way we read poetry? Should it change the way we read poetry? How do scholarly tools and digital resources that make data in historical documents, primary, and secondary texts more accessible affect our relationship to data? We are interested in ways of thinking about the intersection of data and poetics, whether historic or contemporary, theoretical or practical. Topics may include data mining, AI, X, Instagram poets, erasure poetry, surface reading, and poetics, but are not limited to these. Alternatively, papers might consider how poets manipulate data as a creative practice. Please submit a 250 word abstract by April 30, 2025 to Rosanne Brooks (rosanneb@smu.edu) and indicate “Poetry and Data” in the subject heading.