The Department of English at CSU Los Angeles has announced that the CSU Graduate Student Conference, Significations, will take place on Saturday, May 20, 2006. The conference, which seeks to promote the work of graduate students throughout the California State University system, will be held at the Los Angeles campus from 8:00am to 5:00pm. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Professor James R. Kincaid of the University of Southern California. His talk is titled "Stories of Sex, Kids, and Monsters."

Throughout the day, CSU graduate students will be presenting papers on a wide variety of subjects including medieval literature, feminist studies, romanticism, children’s literature, composition and rhetoric, postcolonialism, Latin American literature, and African-American literature.

The cost of attendance is $25 and includes continental breakfast and buffet lunch. A copy of the proceedings is available for an additional $10. For questions, or to request a registration form, please contact: significations2006@yahoo.com.

About the Speaker

Jim Kincaid currently holds the Aerol Arnold Chair in English and is a Professor of English at USC. Before coming to USC in 1987, Professor Kincaid taught at Ohio State, Berkeley, and Colorado. His earlier work in Victorian literature and culture and in literary theory has yielded to publication in cultural studies, and he currently conducts research in critical theory, American Studies, and Queer Theory. Professor Kincaid’s publications include Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting (1998), Annoying the Victorians (1994), and Child-Loving: The Erotic Child and Victorian Culture (1992). 

His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Senior Faculty Award for Teaching and Scholarship, and the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching Faculty Fellow. Professor Kincaid regularly teaches classes in criminality/lunacy/perversion, in age studies, in censorship, and in other areas of literary, political, and cultural studies at the University of Southern California. 

For more information, call the Cal State L.A. English Department at (323) 343-4140.