The Graduate Students in English student organization in the Department of English at the University of Arkansas has extended the deadline for proposals to its spring conference to Wednesday, Feb. 12.

The theme of the GSE's 2020 conference will be "An Interdisciplinary Exploration of/in Liminality." The event will take place Friday and Saturday, March 20-21, on the university's campus and in surrounding locations.

In addition to a series of panel presentations, the conference schedule will include keynote talks, activities in the evening, and other opportunities for participants to meet and visit with each other.

Graduate students often find themselves in the in-between spaces — no longer just students but not part of the faculty, working to professionalize but not recognized as professionals yet. Their experiences in this liminal space craft them into the scholars that they are working to become.

The GSE's conference theme is focused on the concept of liminality both in scholarship and within graduate students' professional, classroom, and political spaces. Liminality often interrogates the in-between, spaces that are neither here nor there, identities that are not easily categorized, people that belong in multiple places, or no place at all.

Possible paper topics can include (but are not limited to):

• Gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity
• Liminal spaces — geographical, physical or theoretical
• Concepts of place and what certain places do or mean
• Experiences inside or outside the academy as scholars
• Experiences within the classroom
• Life, death, and the cultural experiences surrounding them

The GSE's conference welcomes the participation of graduate/scholarly papers from all disciplines, as well as exceptional undergraduate papers that deal with the conference theme in interesting and evocative ways.

Proposals should include a 500-600 word abstract, paper title, university affiliation/degree program, and contact email addresses. Additionally, abstracts should be in .doc or .pdf file format.

Paper and panel proposals should be sent to gsearkansas@gmail.com by no later than Feb. 12.

Questions and concerns can be sent to the above e-mail or directly to Jordan A Savage at js046@uark.edu.