Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 09:13:28 -0400
From: Jay Prosser <100723.2563@compuserve.com>
Subject: Please post:  The Well of Loneliness:  Call for Papers

RE:     Call for Papers:  New Book on The Well of Loneliness

PALATABLE POISON: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE WELL OF LONELINESS PAST AND
PRESENT

Editors: Laura Doan and Jay Prosser

Radclyffe Hall's THE WELL OF LONELINESS was banned exactly seventy years
ago.  The irony of this censorship is that the novel has given rise to a
wealth of critical commentary, has proven one of the literary works most
inspiring of new approaches and new methodologies (lesbian feminist
criticism, queer criticism, reading through sexology, for instance).  If
THE WELL OF LONELINESS was too noxious to be legal in 1928 (in the infamous
comparison that began the censorship campaign, worse than "a phial of
prussic acid "), in 1998 we can say that Hall's novel has turned out to be,
in the wonderfully apt oxymoron of Sir Chartres Biron, a palatable poison.
        PALTABLE POISON: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE WELL OF LONELINESS 
PAST AND PRESENT will bring some of the best of previously published work
together with new critical essays on THE WELL.  We are seeking submissions
of readings of THE WELL, and are especially interested in those that offer
new critical directions on Hall's novel, that work through new
methodologies or that contain new research.  Possible topics include though
are not limited to:  male homosexuality; class; Englishness, race, and
nation; The Well of Loneliness and other novels; The Well in Hall's oeuvre;
Mary's story; The Well and queer theory.

Abstracts of 300-500 words plus a 50-word bio. should be sent by AUGUST 15
1998 to: Jay Prosser, Department of English, University of Leicester,
University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, England.  FAX: 44 116 252 2065.  EMAIL:
jdp14@le.ac.uk.

Laura Doan is Professor of English SUC Geneseo and author of FASHIONING
SAPPHISM: THE ORIGINS OF A MODERN ENGLISH LESBIAN CULTURE (Columbia
University
Press, forthcoming).  She is also editor of THE LESBIAN POSTMODERN
(Columbia University Press, 1994) and, with Lucy Bland, of SEXOLOGY
UNCENSORED: THE DOCUMENTS OF SEXUAL SCIENCE and SEXOLOGY IN CULTURE:
LABELLING BODIES AND DESIRES (University of Chicago Press and Polity Press,
1998).

Jay Prosser is Lecturer in English and American Studies at Leicester
University.  He is author of SECOND SKINS: THE BODY NARRATIVES OF
TRANSSEXUALITY (Columbia University Press, 1998).