CFP:   ACLA [comp lit] conference in puerto rico, 11-14 april 2002



appended below is a call for papers for next spring's ACLA conference  . . 

. for those

unfamiliar with the unusual way that conference is structured, it's very 

much worth

pointing out that the ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) 

runs multiple 

day seminars at the annual conference . . .  those who give a paper in any 

seminar 

are expected to attend the same seminar throughout the conference, thereby 

creating 

a very welcome (and all too rare) opportunity for extended dialogue about 

a single issue

. . .   participants also have the opportunity to sit in on any other 

seminars that do not

meet at the same time . . . full details may be found at the conference 

website

at  <http://www.complit.ucla.edu/>



the following proposal is designed to take advantage of the opportunity 

for extended

rumination about a topic that opens up in multiple directions 



requests for further information should be addressed to  Mike Frank <[log in to unmask]> 



1-2 page proposals by October 1, 2001, also to <[log in to unmask]> , 

copy to Kathleen Komar <[log in to unmask]>.





MCGUFFIN AS METAPHOR/METONYMY



Alfred Hitchcock often talked about his use of a *McGuffin,*  an element 

in a film that sets the plot in motion, but ultimately turns out to be of 

little interest -- for example the "government secrets" that motivate the 

action of North by Northwest but that almost no one in the audience?and hardly any of the characters 

in the film--ever thinks about at all.



Discussions of the McGuffin have generally been limited to its role as a 

simple narrative trick used by Hitchcock.   But it's likely that this 

device is more than a mere trick, and that it may be found in places other 

than Hitchcock films.  That likelihood is the topic that this seminar 

proposes to consider.



The consideration will take two forms, narratological and thematic.



NARRATOLOGICAL:  A device as useful as the McGuffin certainly must appear 

elsewhere than in Hitchcock.  Part of the seminar will explore the use of 

McGuffins in other narratives.  Papers are invited discussing the use of 

the McGuffin -- or similar devices -- in other works, or discussing the 

narratological implications of the device itself.



THEMATIC:  Narrative devices have implications.  Papers are invited 

considering these implications, either abstractly -- as a matter of 

theoretical interest -- or in relationship to the way a McGuffin shapes 

the meaning of particular narratives, both fiction and film.   Sample 

questions might include: 

--What are we to make of a narrative in which the interest of the 

characters and the interest of the audience do not coincide? 

--Does the reliance on a McGuffin suggest a lack of a significant goals 

shared by characters and audience? What might such a lack reveal about the 

discursive community in which it plays a shaping part? 

--How might we want to read the distance between the McGuffin [the 

ostensible interest in the story] and what we take as its 'real' interest? 





This seminar, in short, seeks to explore the ways in which Hitchcock's 

'innocent' term could be used  as a useful tool for analyzing  narrative.

Papers that explore this question from any vantage point are welcome.



----

Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the

University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu