“PLAY” Conference
Texas Tech University
April 13, 2019

The Humanities Center at Texas Tech University (Lubbock, Texas) is happy to announce a call for papers for our second Annual Conference in the Humanities, to be held in Lubbock on April 13, 2019. The conference topic each year aligns with the Center's annual theme, which for 2018-2019 is "PLAY.” We are interested in the interdisciplinary study of play in myriad forms and in any of the following categories: art, culture, literature, music, dance, games, sports, politics, technology, and education. This list is open-ended and, in the spirit of play, we are open to proposals that catch us by intellectual surprise.

The Center’s vision of the humanities is a broad one and we encourage presentations and panels that rethink disciplinary boundaries and traditional academic research. That said, we are also comprehensive in our historical scope. How might a study of Pindar’s victory odes in 5th century B.C. work in conversation with a look at end zone celebrations in professional football? How is improvisation in theater comparable to the work of a jazz saxophonist? Where might games—from Tic-Tac-Toe to Battleship to Red Dead Redemption II—fit into any of these discussions? The conference aims to bring together an international group of scholars in order to consider all the different manners that humans play and what those manners mean.

The TTU Humanities Center welcomes abstracts for individual papers as well as proposals for fully formed panels that address these or other related issues. Potential speakers should send an abstract of 300 words and a brief CV (no more than 2 pages) highlighting work relevant to the topic at hand. Scholars proposing a panel should provide an abstract of no more than 500 words and include a list of contributors (with the titles of their papers) as well as brief CVs (no more than 2 pages) for each. Abstracts and panel proposals should be submitted to humanitiescenter@ttu.edu by December 15, 2018 with all documents contained in a single PDF. In the subject line of your submission, please use the format "PLAY Conference/YOUR NAME/YOUR PROPOSAL or ABSTRACT TITLE" (e.g., PLAY Conference/Smith/Improvisation in Comedy) as the subject line in your email. We will make decisions as soon as possible after that in order to ensure sufficient time for participants to make travel arrangements.