Editor’s Introduction: Imaginations in Indianapolis at the College English Association Conference, March 26–28, 2015

While the topography of the East Coast has been described as circular (envision in your mind’s eye standing on a promontory overlooking the wave-like Appalachians) and the West Coast as triangular (position yourself now before the jagged Cascades), the Midwest is squarish (shift now to gazing on the great to the Great Plains). Last March, into that third world swept the annual College English Association Conference, and what better place for the event to embrace squarishness than the state capital of Indianapolis, Indiana. Although Indy had yet to emerge from a too-long winter—the wind-chill was on the biting side—attendees to the conference found their way not only to sessions but to the outdoors. By the closing day, the temperature was even warming significantly. Coincidentally, the improvement was just in time for the staging of a rally to protest the newly passed Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by Republican Governor Mike Pence. Holding signs and voicing their opinions, residents gathered at the Indiana State Capitol, which was caddie-corner to the conference headquarters at the Hyatt Regency. CEA conference-goers had seen it coming: the overall political situation, in fact, had already given them just one more issue to discuss, starting when they ate their chicken or beef kebobs at the President’s Reception.

“Imaginations” was the theme of the conference, a call evident in how all sorts of variety could be seen everywhere one turned. For restaurant fare just outside the hotel, in one direction was the Denver-based Rock Bottom Brewery, in another was the Boston-based Au Bon Pain, and in still another was the local-to-Indiana Weber Grill. Places to visit were equally varied, at least in their architecture: the Churrigueresque facade of the Indiana Repertory Theater provided a marvelous sight directly across from the hotel, the starkly utilitarian Indiana Museum was nearby, the towering specter of Lucas Oil Stadium could almost be felt hovering above downtown, and the private home of Indianapolis native Kurt Vonnegut provided a finishing touch for some CEA pilgrims. Regardless of such examples, perhaps the clearest demonstration of imaginative variety could be felt at the conference’s book drawing. On that occasion, Anderson University’s Scott Borders, propelled by his keen wit, read the names scrawled on the usual slips of paper, a process that inspired the impatient among us to imagine the nation’s map. One missing name, though, was longtime CEA member and Florida State Professor Fred Standley, who had passed away on December 22, 2014. At the subsequent All-Conference Luncheon, CEA President Steve Brahlek asked for a moment of silence in Fred’s honor. Steve’s words captured the goal each of us imagines in our role as scholar-teachers: “We would all like to be remembered in the way we remember Fred.” Amen to that sentiment, Steve.

In the generally well-attended conference rooms, presentations reflected how academic inquiry can be imaginative as well as critical. While conference papers have a specific chronological place in our intellectual journeys—they involve a deadline and a plane ticket, after all—their rhetorical space is a bit vaguer. Ranging in style from rough-and-ready expanded notes to finely crafted wordsmithing, in content from incipient “noodling” to ready-for-journal-publication argumentation, and in presentational form from discussion to lecture, the genre of such papers captures the social act of professing that is integral to our lives. It is a genre that dares to be public, but the CEA Conference audience members are sure to ease any possible tension because they sympathize by applauding the very act of participation and celebrate by asking good questions. For this proceedings issue, we, the editors, have selected a limited-to-space representative view of the event by as much as possible leaving the texts “as is,” and we hope you enjoy them in that spirit.

Leading our alphabetically arranged proceedings issue is Stacy Bailey’s exploration of how we may enhance our pedagogy through Allan Wigfield and Jacquelynne Eccles’s Expectancy-Value Model of Achievement...