Here's the most interesting call for papers I've seen in a long time:

Call for papers: Political Correctness - Mouth Wide Shut?

Ustro=F1 (PL), September 17-20 2004

See evil, hear evil and therefore speak no evil. The spectre of the Dead White Heterosexual Male is hanging over the world: biased, prejudiced, discriminative ways of perceiving and representing reality resulted in widening the gap between the dominant "traditionalists" and a multiplicity of undesirable others. But enough is enough. The underdog has now invented a weapon to secure his/her/its/their rightful place in culture and the long-silenced voices have a chance to be heard. Thus, Political Correctness or PC seems to have the function of safeguarding the principle of equality, which is a cornerstone of democracy. The many tongues of multicultural discourse speak all the more loudly since the potential opponents, having been successfully bound and gagged, dare not express any contradictory opinion. As democracy's policeman, however, PC raises concerns about the possible limitations of radical pluralism. While ensuring (enforcing) compliance with basic human rights, does it not breach some of them, such as the right to free speech? While upholding the legacy of the Enlightenment with its ideals of rationality and progress, does it not undermine the role and position of prejudice, so powerfully vindicated in the 20th century? Is PC a utopian goal, or is it merely a historically necessitated but short-lived inconvenience? The unceasing dispute over PC hardly ever does justice to the theoretical concerns it raises, and not the least of them is its self-reflexive twist: if to interrogate PC is to interrogate the western idea of democracy, let us not flee from our own gaze in a mirror and take up the challenge before the academe becomes declared a reservation for realistically challenged.

Please, send proposals of papers with brief abstracts (up to 200 words) to the organizers by May 31, 2004 to:

Katarzyna Ancuta kancuta@ares.fils.us.edu.pl
Jacek Mydla jacekmydla@idea.net.pl

Or by post (diskette, Word 6.0/7.0 + hard copy) to:

Katarzyna Ancuta / Jacek Mydla
Institute of British and American Culture and Literature
ul. =AFytnia 10
41-205 Sosnowiec, Poland
fax +48 (32)2917417
tel. +48(32)2917322; +48(32)2691892

Indeed, this is an interesting call for papers. Would that it had been made in the U.S. before our institutions began patching together the system of political correctness that has evicerated our Bill of Rights, itself a product of the Englightenment, albeit not the radical Englightenment and its latter-day ilk.

--and take up the challenge before the academe becomes declared a reservation for realistically challenged.-

I thought that already happened in the US????