THE ASSOCIATION FOR CORE TEXTS AND COURSES (ACTC) FIFTEENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
THEME: MEMORY, INVENTION, DELIVERY: TRANSMITTING AND TRANSFORMING KNOWLEDGE
AND CULTURE IN LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE
Sponsored by
Rhodes College
and Co-sponsored by
Aquinas College, Carthage College, Samford University
Thursday, April 16 - Sunday, April 19, 2009
Holiday Inn Select Memphis East
Memphis TN
Plenary Speakers Thursday through Saturday: Rachel Chung, Committee for Asia and the Middle East,
Columbia University. Wilfred McClay, SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities
and Professor of History at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
Steven Turley, Professor of Physics
(and past Director of First Year Experience), Brigham Young University.
Grant Venerable, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Lincoln University.
Other plenary speakers to be announced soon.
Sunday, April 19: Business meeting.
HOTEL RESERVATIONS: See below.
ATTENDEE PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS:
All proposals -- paper or panel -- should include names, institutional affiliations,
addresses, email and phone contact numbers of presenter(s). All proposals should
include paper title(s) and a one paragraph abstract. In addition, PANEL PROPOSALS
should organize a panel of specific presenters with a title for the panel. No more
than two panel members from the same institution may be present on one panel, but panel
proposals with only two presenters are welcome. ACTC's Institute office will form or
complete panels out of individual submissions.
A volunteer faculty member from one of the sponsoring institutions will be contacting
you around October 30th and December 1-10th
to remind you about the conference and to
offer help in advancing a proposal to us. All potential conferees are welcome to
contact the Executive Director of ACTC, J. Scott Lee, with questions about panels and
proposals: jscottlee@prodigy.net.
To encourage collegial discussion, ACTC papers are short (5 pages, double-spaced), treat one
core text for ¾-1 page, and develop the conference theme. Scholarly papers (10 pages)
may be submitted for publication in our selected proceedings, but only the short papers may be
read at the conference. For publication criteria, see: http://www.coretexts.org/publications.htm.
While the submission of a complete paper is not required for acceptance on a panel,
attendees whose paper proposals are accepted are
expected to come to the conference with the completed paper. All
conferees are invited to submit these papers to ACTC for publication in our selected,
peer-reviewed proceedings. More than 200 openings will be available for panel presentations
and proceedings submissions.
Registration of your paper or panel proposal, or simply your intention to attend the conference,
may be done either by going to the ACTC website,
www.coretexts.org/15th_annual_conference.htm#reg
and filling out the Online Registration form, or by sending in a paper or panel proposal with your name,
position, all contact information, including address, telephone numbers, and email address
to the address below. Early submission before December 1 increases chances of acceptance.
Rosa Grundig, ACTC
1928 Saint Mary's Road,
Saint Mary's College
Moraga, CA 94556
VOLUNTEERS FOR PANELS CHAIRS, who serve only as introducers and discussion initiators,
will be happily accepted. If you wish to volunteer, see the Online Registration Form. Only
organizers of panels may serve as chairs and presenters at the same time; all other chairs may
not present at the same panel.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSAL SUBMISSIONS HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO JANUARY 16TH, 2009. WHILE THE DEADLINE IS PASSED,
ACTC WILL ACCEPT PROPOSALS AFTER THE DEADLINE IF THE PROPOSAL FITS INTO DEVELOPED PANELS ON THE CURRENT
AGENDA. NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE IS SENT WITH THE AGENDA AND REGISTRATION ON OR SHORTLY AFTER
JANUARY 31st, 2009. UPDATES ON THE AGENDA WILL BE POSTED PERIODICALLY ON THIS WEBSITE.
CONFERENCE THEME
Memory, Invention, Delivery: Transmitting and Transforming Knowledge and Culture
in Liberal Arts Education for the Future
This year's ACTC conference evokes classical rhetoric as a means for discussing the intersections between
the study of core texts and their impact upon our knowledge and culture. Core texts themselves are a form
of memory, whose images, arguments, and ideas are discovered and invented anew in each generation and
delivered by unique programs at our institutions. What is the future our programs, teachers, and
texts are offering?
Certainly, Cicero, one of the originators of this tradition, had little doubt about what the past
offered to his civilization:
"To me... it does not seem possible that a mute and voiceless wisdom
could have turned human beings suddenly from their habits and introduced them to different patterns
of life... After cities had been established, how could it have been brought to pass that humans should
learn to keep faith and observe justice, and become accustomed to obey others voluntarily, and believe
not only that they must work for the common good but even sacrifice life itself, unless humans had been
able by eloquence to persuade their fellows of what they had invented by reason?" (De Inventione I.ii.3)
Cicero is speaking about the necessity of discourse to harmonious cultural life, about how institutions
provide the infrastructure for the transmission of values that hold human beings together, about how without
human construction we would never have the means to use our thoughts and our language to build a better
world. But are discourse, cultural life, institutions, values, arts and sciences, thought and language
still important to the world's and each tradition's way of life for the future? Perhaps this question
is wrapped up in another: Are core texts still important for the future?
Undoubtedly, our institutions do a fine job of training specialists and offering a seemingly endless
choice of curricular opportunities. But each leads to an isolation: the former to the isolation of
community where one group, discipline, corporation or association runs its discourse without having to
take into account the presumed, inexpert failings of outsiders; the latter to the isolation of
individuals, where, though individuals have some insights into many corners of the world, they have no
means nor practice to connect islands of isolated learning. How can we bridge the gap between individuals
who have isolated knowledge spread throughout the world and bodies of discourse which seem concentrated on
one aspect of the world? Where core text curricula exist or are in development, there is a third way, for
core text curricula offer to students, professors, and institutions an opportunity to change the future by
thinking with the widest possible coordination of texts, cultures, and ideas. Core texts would seem to
offer us a discourse of connection… but there are problems, here, too.
No one any longer operates in an isolated sphere or tradition. In short, we must
communicate. Whether we come from specific religious, political, linguistic, ethnic, racial, or
cultural traditions, our traditions are meeting other traditions. We cannot take on all traditions;
each of our traditions is worth preserving; yet, the future will certainly be different. How do we
think about these problems of communication that are, now, inevitable? How do we develop what we think
has been precious? How do we move into the future to something of deep worth?
Global communication brings with it other difficulties as well. One of the glaring ironies of the
contemporary world is that while we read more words than any other generation in history, less
substantive content is being communicated than ever before. Liberal arts, core text curricula have
an important role in transforming communications, and in ACTC there are signs of their renewal on
college campuses. Behind these movements is an understanding that the liberal arts and core texts
not only touch all of our lives, but that they may deeply affect what we know and how we think.
But exactly how might the resources of disciplines, traditions, and cultures be connected to the past
and future by our texts, programs, and teaching? What do we do when we do not, at least at first,
share the same memory?
And do we need such wide cultural resources for thought? There can be little doubt. What is in doubt,
because it is so little taught, is by what means we are to evaluate, judge, and decide for the future
about such things as concerned Cicero when we are no longer operating in an isolated sphere or
tradition. How do the secular and religious reach out to each other? How do the traditions
of East and West meet? No longer are the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and fine arts
distinct realms, hermetically sealed from each other. What shall their future interaction be?
For this, it appears, our core text curricular programs are leaders in inventing new approaches,
new selections of traditions, new ways of teaching for the future. Through the traditions of the
past, our students may look to the building of different forms of government, to the founding of
different forms of religion, to the inventive explorations of literature, drama, poetry, and fine
arts, and to the world revolutions wrought by each of these and science as well. Our students and
programs can bring the rich resources of distinctive traditions and texts to the agora of world
traditions that is the 21st Century.
Thus, through Memory, Invention, and Delivery, ACTC seeks to ask the question: What allows for
a liberal arts, core text curriculum's success across eras, cultures, disciplines, texts, and,
most importantly, students? What can we do institutionally and individually that not only
persuades our students of the value of core texts, but does so in a way that encourages them
to build a better world for the future?
CONFERENCE FEES AND MEMBERSHIP
Registration includes price of six meals
(Thursday night reception and dinner, three breakfasts
and two lunches) regardless of days of attendance, plus admission to all activities, & subvention
for published proceedings of the conference.
All individuals attending ACTC are encouraged to become members.
However, all individuals attending ACTC for the second time must become members,
and all individuals presenting papers must become members.
Institutional membership does not cover individual membership.
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Registration fee: |
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$ |
280.00 U.S. |
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CAD price announced after agenda is set |
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Individual membership: |
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$ |
50.00 U.S. |
|
(if fee paid by personal check, discounted to $25.00) |
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Thursday night guests: |
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$ |
45.00 U.S. |
|
|
Payment forms will be sent to you in late January with the agenda.
ACTC does not accept credit cards because the cost of using them would have to be passed on
to conference attendees. ACTC cannot and will not pro-rate fees.
CONFERENCE REGISTRATIONS AND/OR PAYMENTS POSTMARKED AFTER APRIL 1, 2009 WILL
BE SUBJECT TO A LATE REGISTRATION FEE OF $50.00.
Parties interested in book displays or displays for programs or projects should contact
the ACTC office at rgrundig@stmarys-ca.edu.
HOTEL REGISTRATION
Holiday Inn Select Memphis East: Single or Double Rate: $ 95.00/night.
ALL HOTEL REGISTRATIONS WILL TAKE PLACE THROUGH THE HOLIDAY INN, 901-682-7881.
Room blocks at above rate will be held until SUNDAY APRIL 6, 2009.
After April 6, rooms and rates are subject to availability.
To receive the rate, ask for reservations and give the name of the group, ACTC or Association for Core Texts and Courses.
AIRPORT AND GROUND TRANSPORTATION
Flights should go into Memphis Airport. The hotel will provide transportation from the airport to the site.
Again, Conference attendance (not hotel) and paper registration:
www.coretexts.org/15th_annual_conference.htm#reg.
Questions? Write or call:
Rosa Grundig
ACTC Liberal Arts Institute at
Saint Mary's College of California
1928 Saint Mary's Road
Moraga, CA 94556
925 631 8597
email: rgrundig@stmarys-ca.edu
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