Calls for Papers

Modern Language Association Conference, Washington, D.C., December 2000

Don DeLillo and Gender. What role does gender play in DeLillo's work? How does he construct or investigate masculinity and femininity? How does he critique or reinforce cultural constructions of gender? How are his narrative strategies masculine and/or feminine? Responses to the notion of DeLillo as an exclusively or predominantly "male" writer or to the idea that his works' "themes -- domesticity, environmentalism, the family, the problems of a woman's fulfillment and a man's attunement to her -- ally it to a feminist writing" (Wendy Steiner), welcome. Consideration of the female artist figure among other female constructions throughout his oeuvre, and a variety of approaches also welcome. As this is a Don DeLillo Society-sponsored panel, panel members will have to be members of the Society (as well as of MLA) by the time of the proposal to MLA (April 1, 2000); you do not have to be a member of either the DDS or MLA, however, to submit.

Please send submissions by 15 March 2000. E-mail or fax 2-page abstracts to Marni Gauthier at gauthier@ucsub.colorado.edu or by fax at 720.406.1448. Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society.

Casebook on DeLillo's Underworld

Steve Kellman (University of Texas at San Antonio), Irving Malin (City College of New York), and Joseph Dewey (University of Pittsburgh) submitted a prospectus for a casebook on DeLillo's Underworld to the University of Delaware Press. According to Dewey, "The press was quite excited about the project and gave us the go-ahead to put the casebook together. Thus, we are soliciting submissions: we have in mind 3000 to 5000 word articles. We would need the articles submitted no later than mid-summer, roughly 1 July. We are interested in close readings of the book, studies that place the book within DeLillo's canon (we are looking at this as something of a summary effort), and studies that place the book within larger currents of American literature. We have no abiding critical angle or agenda--we are looking for diversity and daring."

Please send submissions no later than 1 July 2000: To avoid overlapping articles, the editors would like authors of potential submissions to contact them as soon as possible with their topic. Joseph Dewey can be reached at dewey+@pitt.edu or at this address: Joseph Dewey, Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, 710 12th Street, Windber, PA 15963-1510. Completed articles should be sent to this address.

Conference Sessions & Meetings

Modern Language Association, Washington, D.C., December 27-30, 2000:

Don DeLillo Society Meeting. Thursday, December 28, 2000. 7 p.m. Moderator: Mark Osteen. Park Hyatt. Mark Osteen's room. Conference attendees should look for signs announcing a specific room number or call the Park Hyatt and ask for Mark Osteen. Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society.

Midwest Modern Language Association, Kansas City, Missouri, November 2-4, 2000:

Don DeLillo and Trauma. Moderator: Skip Willman. Papers by Derek C. Maus, Jacqui Griffiths, and Skip Willman. Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society.

American Literature Association Conference, Long Beach, California, May 25-28, 2000:

Don DeLillo's America. Sunday, May 28, 2000, 11:30 am-12:50 pm. Moderator: Marni Gauthier. Papers by John H. Lardas, Nicole Merola, and Curt Yehnert. Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society.

Twentieth-Century Conference, Louisville, Kentucky, February 24-26, 2000:

Don DeLillo and Postmodern Media Culture. Saturday, February 26, 2000, 10:45 am-12:15 pm. University of Louisville. Moderator: Joseph Conte. Papers by: Glen Scott Allen, William Robert, Jeffrey Karnicky, and Anthony Miller. Sponsored by the Don DeLillo Society.

New and Forthcoming Publications

New:

DeLillo, Don. "The Mystery at the Middle of Ordinary Life" Zoetrope: All-Story 4.4 (Winter 2000): 70 <http://www.zoetrope-stories.com/mystery.html>. Rpt. Harper's Jan. 2001: 37.

Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Culture: From the Kennedy Assassination to "The X-Files". London: Routledge, 2000. The chapter "Plotting the Kennedy Assassination," addresses Libra, and "Everything is Connected" discusses Underworld.

Melley, Timothy. Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000. The book addresses Libra in Chapter 4, "Secret Agents." 133-159.

Moran, Joe. Star Authors: Literary Celebrity in America. London and Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2000. See Chapter 7, "Silence, Exile, Cunning and So On: Don DeLillo." 116-31.

O'Donnell, Patrick. Latent Destinies: Cultural Paranoia in Contemporary U.S. Narrative. Duke UP, 2000. The book devotes part of Chapter 1 ("Headshots") to Libra, and all of Chapter 5 ("Under History, Underworld") to Underworld.

Osteen, Mark. American Magic and Dread: Don DeLillo's Dialogue with Culture. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.

Pifer, Ellen. Demon or Doll: Images of the Child in Contemporary Writing and Culture. University Press of Virginia, 2000. See chapter 11, "The Child as Mysterious Agent: DeLillo's White Noise." 212-32.

Ruppersburg, Hugh, and Tim Engles, editors. Critical Essays on Don DeLillo. G. K. Hall, 2000.

Saltzman, Arthur. This Mad "Instead": Governing Metaphors in Contemporary American Fiction. Columbia: South Carolina UP, 2000. See Chapter 2, "The Figure in the Static: Don DeLillo's White Noise." 33-48.

Tanner, Tony. The American Mystery: American Literature from Emerson to DeLillo. Cambridge UP, 2000. See Chapter 11, "Don DeLillo and 'the American mystery': Underworld." 201-21.

Forthcoming:

DeLillo, Don. The Body Artist. Scribner, February 2001. Note: This is a tentative publication date. For more information, Don DeLillo's America's "What's Next" page quotes from and provides a link to Keith J. Kelly's "DeLillo Proves He's a Real Arti$t" (New York Post, Business Section, 6 Feb. 2000).