Call for Papers, Conferences
October 26-28, 2017, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany.
Conference organizers: Nele Sawallisch, Johanna Seibert, Pia Wiegmink, Frank Obenland
This conference hosted by the Transnational American Studies Institute aims at assessing and theorizing past and present forms of black intellectual, political, and cultural resistance from the era of abolitionist campaigns against the transatlantic slave trade to the recent global protest formation of Black Lives Matter.
Protests against racial discrimination, inequality, poverty, and injustice not only pervade (North) American history but span the globe and cross – oftentimes multiple – borders. Building on the recent transnational turn in American Studies and de-centering American Studies’ focus on the nation as the prime focus of analysis, this workshop invites papers that trace the Atlantic routes/roots (Gilroy), the diasporic and global trajectories, as well as the movement, circulation, and dissemination of past and present forms and ideas of black resistance. The conference aims at discussing the transnational dimension of various forms of resistance that are often embedded in larger social movements such as the anti-slavery, the anti-lynching, the Civil Rights, Black Power, Anti-Apartheid, the Global Justice, the Prison Abolition, or the Black Lives Matter movements. Investigating the transatlantic significance of these movements, this conference will also address how collective or individual acts of resistance are articulated and represented in print, performance, visual art, or other media.
How do we conceptualize the connections between past and present forms of transnational black resistance? How does this relationship between the past and the present shape existing notions of resistance? How did national movements for black equality and justice impact as well as intersect with national and international forms of protest? How do forms of black resistance initiate ways to re-think forms of protest and activism outside the United States? How do protest movements intersect with scholarly and intellectual pursuits in academia? What role have different media played in and for black resistance movements throughout the centuries not only in national but also international contexts? How have the digital world and global social media changed previous forms of transnational black resistance? What could be possible trajectories of movements such as Black Lives Matter in the face of the 2016 Presidential election in the United States? How can scholars and activists collaborate in articulating critical interventions in ongoing political discussions?
Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Charmaine Nelson, Professor of Art History, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
We invite contributions from all disciplines, e.g. history, literary and cultural studies, visual culture/art history, political science, sociology. Potential paper topics could include, but are not limited to:
- transnational routes of political/social activism and cultural resistance/protest cultures
- transnational black intellectual histories of racial equality and justice
- methodological and conceptual perspectives that bring together approaches from transnational American Studies with African American and Black Diaspora Studies
- intersectional approaches to the study of black resistance with regard to class, gender, age, nationality, religion, etc.
- the role of women in and for black resistance movements
- Black literatures of protest and resistance
- Black resistance and cultures of performance, transnational aesthetics of protest
- Black resistance and popular culture, Black resistance and global (social) media
- Intersection of popular resistance movements and academic interventions in political discourse
Please send you paper proposal (max. 300 words) and a short bio (150 words) by January 31, 2017 to sawallis@uni-mainz.de
Call for Papers, Conferences, Events, News
CALL FOR PAPERS
The American Short Story: An Expansion of the Genre
A Symposium of the American Literature Association organized by
The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS)
October 20-22, 2016
Hyatt Hotel, Savannah, GA
The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS) requests proposals for papers and presentations at an international symposium on the short story to be held in Savannah, October 20-22, 2016, at the Hyatt Hotel.
Proposals need be only a single page with one paragraph that describes the subject of the paper and another that gives the credentials of the speaker. In addition to traditional panels, the symposium will also hold discussion forums, seminar conversations, and roundtable sessions. Creative writers are also invited to present work in progress. All papers will also be considered for publication in the first volume of the new Society journal scheduled to appear in 2018.
A central focus of the symposium will be the expansion of the genre through the discovery of new writers from all racial and ethnic groups, the development of innovative types of stories (flash fiction, micro-fiction, and other forms), the recovery of fiction published in languages other than English, and the reconsideration of the contributions of other writers to the expansion of the genre. Close readings of stories by any American author are appropriate as are broad discussions of historical periods and movements. Examinations of the contributions of minority authors are especially welcome as are explorations of stories originally written in languages other than English.
The Savannah symposium will be followed a year later by an international conference in Germany, October 26-29, 2017, directed by Professor Oliver Scheiding, University of Mainz. More details about this event will be posted on the society website late in 2016.Please send all proposals and program suggestions for the Savannah symposium to the president of the society, Jim Nagel, at jnagel@uga.edu.
Deadline for proposals: July 1, 2016
Dowload the full CfP here.
Call for Papers, Conferences, News
CALL FOR PAPERS
The Refuge of Objects/Objects of Refuge
An International Symposium organized by
University of Delware—Center for Material Culture Studies and Universität Mainz—Center for Social and Cultural Studies (SOCUM), Transnational American Studies Institute
December 14-18, 2016
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
We invite proposals for papers or workshops to be given at the first collaborative symposium organized by the University of Delaware’s Center for Material Culture Studies (CMCS) and the Center for Social and Cultural Studies (SOCUM) at the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany. The symposium will take place December 14-18, 2016 and will be hosted by the Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, the Center for Social and Cultural Studies, and the Transnational American Studies Institute.
The theme of the symposium is the material culture of “Refuge.” In view of recent political events and natural catastrophes that have displaced millions and created international humanitarian crises, this term has acquired a new sense urgency for students and teachers working in the fields related to material culture studies. Definitions dating back to the great trans-Atlantic migrations of the seventeenth- and eighteenth centuries have characterized “refuge” in mostly spatio-political terms as insular settings of escape or privilege, as colonial enclaves or postnational territories, or as secular or sacred retreats. Rather than rehearse the spatial premise of these terms, however, the aim of this symposium is to reflect historically, methodologically, and theoretically on the material dimensions of “refuge,” that is, on the way in which objects generate or confound refuge, or accompany or encumber refugees, in short, the materiality conditioning both the refuge and refugees.
The invite papers that consider the materiality of refuge across the disciplines, periods, and geographies in all the diversity of material objects involved. In tandem with the conference theme of “The Refuge of Objects/Objects of Refuge,” the conference committee invites papers that showcase material culture scholarship in three different formats: conference papers, roundtable presentations, and hands- on workshops.
Possible topics include (but are not limited to):
- Fugitive Things
- Things of Im/Migration
- Sanctuary Objects, objects of respite
- Material Witness/Witness Matters
- Objects in Translation
- Objects as Transition
- Safe Things
- Survivor Objects
- In/direct objects
- Object Relations
- Sentimental Objects
- Remembered things, forgotten objects
- Traumatic Objects
A one-page proposal and a brief biography of the author (one that includes full name, professional designation) should be submitted to: scheiding@uni-mainz.de. Proposals will be vetted by an interdisciplinary committee.
Deadline: January 30, 2016
Dowload the CfP here.
Call for Papers, News
A conference co-sponsored by the McNeil Center for Early American Studies, the University Paris Diderot, the University Paris-3 Sorbonne Nouvelle, and the Institute of the Americas (France)
Organizing committee: Claire Bourhis-Mariotti (Paris-8), Pierre Gervais (Paris-3), Marie-Jeanne Rossignol (president, Paris Diderot), Rahma Jerad (Carthage), William Slauter (Paris-Diderot).
Program/Scientific Committee : Emma Hart (St Andrews), Allan Potofsky (president, Paris Diderot), Daniel K. Richter (McNeil Center, UPennsylvania) Oliver Scheiding (Mainz), Irmina Wawrzyczek (Lublin), Bertrand van Ruymbeke (Paris-8).
Principal Venue : University Paris Diderot Paris 7.
Dates : December 8-10 2016
The European Early American Studies association proposes to focus its 2016 meeting on the interrelated themes of Space, Mobility, and Power. In recent years, many scholars have adopted an Atlantic approach to the study of early modern empires. Whereas imperial history viewed power as flowing from metropolitan center to colonial periphery, focused on political institutions, affording little agency to non-white actors, Atlantic history has broadened our understanding of the dynamic process of early modern colonization. Although the limitations of Atlantic history continue to be debated, the approach has undeniably focused attention on the mobility of peoples, commodities, and cultures, and revealed the multiple channels through which power and people flowed both within and among continental spaces. Indeed, its efficacy is demonstrated by recent work that re-evaluates some of the core topics of the old imperial history, including state formation, imperial government, political economy, religious communication networks, sovereignty, and European territorial expansion, to name a few examples.
One consequence of this process of pouring old wine into new bottles has been an enhanced focus on the connected issues of space, mobility, and power. If political power did not flow from center to periphery, how did it function? How did the scale and character of the American landscape affect European claims to power over it? How did provincial and colonial agents in the New World relate to imperial centers of authority when traders, trappers, soldiers, slaves and missionaries, among others, were entangled in a complex and often conflictual relationship with Imperial-Atlantic decision-makers? Did the European colonial experience in North America prompt Atlantic political and economic integration in the period of early globalization? What were the social problems created by the forced circulation of people and goods at the local and transnational levels? How was local production in certain regions linked to new forms of international exchange? We welcome proposals that address these questions or otherwise consider the interactions of space, mobility, and power in the history of early America and its relationship to the larger Atlantic world. Possible panel topics include:
- The flow of wealth around the Atlantic
- Degrees of unfreedom in the Atlantic world’s labour regimes
- Migrations into, out of, and around the Atlantic World
- Individuals and societies on the margins or outside of formal Atlantic empires
- Interactions between agents of empire and others
- Space, mobility, and power within and among indigenous polities
- Mapping and documenting space
- Contested spaces
- The territorial limits of empire
- The role of religion/religious networks in mobilizing space and power
- Textual mobility and the traffic of books, letters, and documents
– Censorship and other means of controlling the flow of ideas and information
- Commerce and political diplomacy between republics and reformed monarchies
- Merchant cultures and practices across the boundaries of empires
- Cultural and linguistic cohesions within new political regimes
Dates:
1 December 2015: Application deadline. The application is to consist of three documents: a 300-400 word abstract of the paper; a 100 word biographical statement; and a 2-page (maximum) cv. Please entitle each document with your last name, followed by eeasa2016. For example: condorceteeasa2016.doc. The conference address for submissions: eeasaparis2016@gmail.com
30 January 2016. Response by the program committee.
15 November 2016. Submission of the conference papers which will be precirculated in limited fashion.
8-10 December 2016: Conference, “Space, mobility, power in Early America and the Atlantic World, 1650-1850”.
