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About the Conference:
After two successful conferences in 2023 and 2024, the Southern Plains Arts, Humanities, and Languages Conference 2025 returns for another exciting conference on April 25-26, 2025!
Our conference takes an interdisciplinary approach toward scholarship to open new avenues of inquiry. We believe that knowledge production is a reflective, industrious, and transgressive act that allows us to think the unthought and feel the unfelt. We invite undergraduate, graduate, independent, and university-affiliated scholars to submit papers, panels, and poster presentations.
Disciplines include but are not limited to: Creative Writing, Linguistics, Literature, Rhetoric and Writing Studies, Screen Studies; TESOL/Applied Linguistics; Africana Studies; Cultural Studies; Gender, Women’s, Sexuality Studies; Writing Center Studies, Education, History, Philosophy and Fine Arts.
Theme Description:
Wonder is often oversimplified in our cultural imaginary, reduced to singular definitions of surprise, awe, or admiration.
However, wonder spurs multiple complex and often paradoxical interpretations: on the one hand, intrigue; on the other, unfamiliarity, strangeness, and doubt. In the modern world, wonder acts as a commodity, often reduced to spectacle; but it also responds to the limits of rationalism and offers an alternative methodology for engaging in social and political life.
Southern Plains invites scholars, students, artists, critics, linguists, and storytellers to investigate Wonder Unbound — that is, the complexities, possibilities, and limitations of wonder along interdisciplinary lines.
We consider both conceptual questions and practical applications of wonder, treating wonder as an essential aspect of creation, interpretation, and experience across the humanities, arts, and languages.
Treatment of wonder may be creative: How does wonder inform the creation and experience of literary, artistic, and audiovisual texts? How does wonder materialize across genres (e.g., speculative fiction, magic realism, and experimental film)?
Treatment of wonder may be rhetorical: In what ways does wonder function as a rhetorical strategy in persuasive discourse? Does wonder act as a form of “othering” and create irreconcilable distance between speaker and audience? Conversely, can wonder challenge conventional narratives and give voice to those among the margins?
Treatment may be pedagogical: How can educators foster a sense of wonder in the classroom, particularly in language learning environments? What linguistic features contribute to the expression of wonder in spoken and written discourse? Does wonder transcend linguistic expression, and how can linguistics capture its multidimensionality?
Treatment may be critical: Is wonder an inherently positive affect? How does wonder relate to mysticism, the sublime, and otherwise extraordinary experience? What is the role of wonder in imagining possibilities for utopia, in both historical and contemporary work?
With each treatment, Southern Plains aims to engage critical dialogue about the applications, implications, and limitations of wonder.
Outline of the Conference Proceedings:
The conference begins on Friday afternoon with an official welcome, opening remarks, a special plenary speaker, poster presentations, and refreshments. Saturday will include academic panels and presentations throughout the day with refreshments and lunch provided. We will end Saturday off with awards to paper and panel presenters. We will also recognise the contribution of all donors in the opening and closing ceremony. Specific times for each day will be announced later.
(Most Theme-Relevant Panel Award, 2024)
With Your Donation:
With your contributions, we will invite the keynote speaker, book the location (Wes Watkins Center), offer lunch to all the attendees, provide free registration to graduate students, and buy conference material and supplies. Because of the generosity of donors, over the last two years, our conference has grown tremendously and gained an exceptional reputation. In April 2024, our attendance grew from 98 participants in 2023 to 154 participants from nine universities (Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania; Oklahoma State University; Quaid e Azam University, Pakistan; Rhodes College, Tennessee; Southeastern Oklahoma State University; Texas Christian University; University of Arkansas Fayetteville; University of Central Oklahoma; and University of Oklahoma). We plan to help our community grow stronger this year, and we need your help to do that. Thank you so much for your generosity!
Thank you for supporting the graduate students of OSU's English Department!
Below are more pictures from our very successful 2024 event:
In 1906, Morrill Hall was constructed. Make a donation that symbolizes where our current English Department is located.
Your gift of $50 will make a huge impact on our conference and will go towards registration materials and supporting our graduate students.
Your gift is in celebration of the 105 current MA, MFA, and PhD students from OSU's English Department. Your gift will go towards conference speakers, guests, and supporting our graduate students. *All the donors who give $105 or more will get free registration at the conference.
$500 will go a long way in helping us reach our goal and will help with funding our registration materials, speaker fees, and catering costs.
$1000 will cover a great percentage of our budget and go towards speaker fees, catering costs, and space rental fees in our beautiful Wes Watkins Center.
This gift will not only greatly contribute to our speaker, catering, and rental space costs but will also go towards future Southern Plains Conferences for years to come!
This gift will go towards all costs for our conference: registration materials, speakers and special guests, catering costs, and rental space fees. It will also go towards many more Southern Plains Conferences for years to come!