The uneasy boundary between madness and love asserts itself throughout recorded history. The shifting relationship between these two phenomena exists across most (if not all) societies and epochs, particularly in literature and art. From lovesickness in the Middle Ages, to nymphomania and hysteria in the Enlightenment, to the stalker in modern-day horror films, the line between love and madness is continually conflated, contested, and blurred.

In keeping with recent critical attention to the history of the passions and the body, we are interested in the aesthetic representation - literary, visual, and oral - of love madness. How are these extreme states represented in literature and art? Where is the line drawn between passionate love and mad love? How has the representation of love and/or/as madness changed over time? What effect have these representations had on real-world treatment of the mentally ill? And how is space left for mad love as a positive force, if at all?

This year’s UCLA Comparative Literature Graduate Conference will explore the many manifestations of mad love in literature and cultural history. We invite graduate students to present papers on related issues. Topics on the intersections between social conceptions and artistic depictions of love and madness might include, but are not restricted to:

Love as a disease
Love, madness, and psychoanalysis
Bodies performing desire
Love, madness, and identity
Gendering desire and/or madness
Love, madness, and violence
Monstrous love
Creative production/inspiration and love/madness
The role of the sensory in love and madness
Mental Health and Human Rights

We are open to papers in all disciplines and treating material from all time periods. In addition to conventional panel presentations, we will offer performances and film screenings; interactive workshops on topics such as the history of psychiatry and an introduction to translation; and discussion sections on pre-circulated materials (primary and/or secondary).

Submission Guidelines:
Please submit your 250-300 word proposal/abstract and a CV to ucla.complit.conf@gmail.com by Monday, September 21st. Kindly mention “Submission: CLGraduate Conference” in the subject of the e-mail. All submissions should include the title of the paper, the abstract, and the name, affiliation, and contact information of the author. Please specify whether you are interested in (a) presenting a paper or (b) presenting/performing a creative work. If you are proposing a creative work, please specify any A/V needs and the length of the presentation.