Where:

The students of the Department of Comparative Literature and of the Italian Specialization at the CUNY Graduate Center present the annual interdisciplinary conference entitled  IN TRANS: Reading Between and Beyond, to be held on November 8 and 9, 2012.

The prefix _trans-_ implies the fundamental patterns that lie at the heart of artistic and other modes of creation and reception. It entails the act of moving simultaneously beyond, between and through the limits of a concept or an idea. From Translation to Transcendence, from Transnationalism to Transsexualism, from Transcription to Transgression, the study of phenomena that occur in between or beyond traditional definitions and principles has captured the attention of the academic
world over the past twenty years.

Words that begin with the prefix _trans-_ describe cultural and artistic creations that attempt to defy standard notions of identity, authorship, completeness, meaning or interpretation. This conference will explore the study of what lies between and beyond the customary through the use of words that contain the very idea of being “in trans”.

We invite papers from all disciplines focusing on works from any period that explore the multiplicity of the prefix _trans-_ in literature, philosophy, theory, visual arts, film, or social sciences.