Jan 16-17 – Student Conference: Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture 🗓

Jan 16-17 – Student Conference: Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture 🗓

Student Conference

Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture

Jan 16-17, 2025

Fakultätssaal (room 01-185), Philosophicum (Jakob-Welder-Weg 18)

Organized by Jill Reuter, Ayishat Aluko, and Samira Schwarz at the Obama Institute

We are delighted to welcome you to Mainz in January for the “Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture” student conference, organized by M.A. students Jill Reuter, Ayishat Aluko, and Samira Schwarz. Eight students in all phases of their studies will discuss various papers regarding disabilities and ableism. Please find the program below and here. We look forward to expanding the discussion on disabilities and ableism and invite students and researchers from all fields to join.

This conference is organized by Ayishat Aluko, Jill Reuter, and Samira Schwarz, who are all M.A. students of American Studies at JGU’s Obama Institute. The conference is funded by the Gutenberg Lehrkolleg and the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies.

For further details, please take a closer look at the conference program.

For further information or questions, please contact Ayishat Aluko (she/her).

Call for Papers – Metamorphoses in Contemporary Literature 🗓

Call for Papers – Metamorphoses in Contemporary Literature 🗓

Call for Papers

Metamorphoses in Contemporary Literature

May 22-25, 2025, JGU Mainz


The conference’s focus is on contemporary tales of metamorphosis. We are especially interested in human to non-human transformations from (queer)feminist, ecocritical, posthuman, and new materialist perspectives to explore the functions that metamorphoses fulfill in literary texts as well as the literary techniques applied in telling stories of transformation.
This conference seeks to open up discussions about literary metamorphoses and to highlight academic work that is dedicated to contemporary literary studies, comparative literature, rewritings of classical myths, and topics of human/non-human transformation. We aim to provide a platform for early career researchers in particular.
In addition to our panels, we are also delighted to welcome Anelise Chen, author of the upcoming hybrid memoir Clam Down (June 2025, Penguin House) and assistant professor of fiction and director of undergraduate studies in creative writing at the Columbia University School of the Arts, for both a reading from her forthcoming novel and as host of our PhD networking event in form of a creative writing workshop on May 22nd.

For further details, please take a closer look at the Call for Papers.

Proposals of no more than 300 words should be submitted along with a short biography to the conference organizers Berenike Jakob, Carolin Jesussek, and Franziska Rauh (metamorphoses@uni-mainz.de) by January 31st. If you are a PhD student interested in joining us for the writing workshop with Anelise Chen (May 22nd), please indicate so when submitting your abstract.

Call for Papers – Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture 🗓

Call for Papers – Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture 🗓

Call for Papers

Being (In)Visible: Representations of Disability and Ableism in Popular Culture

Student Conference (Jan 16-17, 2025)

This conference will be organized by Ayishat Aluko, Jill Reuter, and Samira Schwarz, who are all M.A. students of American Studies at JGU’s Obama Institute. The conference is funded by the Gutenberg Lehrkolleg and the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies. The organizers invite contributions from Master’s students, early stage PhD students and advanced Bachelor’s students of all fields related to disability studies.

For further details, please take a closer look at the Call for Papers.

Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted along with a 100-word biography to disabilities.studentconference@gmail.com by 15 September 2024. Selected participants can expect to be notified by the end of September 2024.

For further information or questions please contact Ayishat Aluko (she/her).

June 19-22 – Conference: The Indian Citizenship Act at 100: Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Futures 🗓

June 19-22 – Conference: The Indian Citizenship Act at 100: Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Futures 🗓

The Indian Citizenship Act at 100:
Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Futures

Conference

June 19-22, 2024
University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, France

Together with the University of Bordeaux-Montaigne, the Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the Obama Institute is hosting an international conference on the centenary of the Indian Citizenship Act in Bordeaux, France.

Current and former members of the Obama Institute will chair panels and present papers amongst a large group of internationally renowned Indigenous Studies scholars. Check out and download the complete program here or visit the conference web page here.

If you would like to find out more about the event or specific conference content, please contact Prof. Dr. Oliver Scheiding or Frank Newton.

Research Summer 2024

Research Summer 2024

The Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies welcomes several internationally renowned scholars in the summer term of 2024.

Please join us for their contributions to our course and research program!

The following list will be updated regularly.

May 2
6–8pm, P109a, Philosophicum
click here for details

DecoloniZine: Building Community through Arts-based Projects
Samantha Nepton, Emilee Bews, Margaret MacKenzie
– McGill University, Canada


May 3
click here for details

Symposium
Selfing and Shelving: Zines, Zine Media, and Zintivism


May 7
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

Beyond liberation or assimilation: LGBTQ rights, health care, and the  limits of bodily autonomy in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s
Jonathan Bell – University College London


May 13
10-12noon, P5, Philosophicum
click here for details

Moses Biofictions as Critiques of Nazism: Zora Neale Hurston and Thomas Mann 
Michael Lackey – University of Minnesota 


May 14
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

The Historic Roots of Trump Fascism
Thomas Fuchs – Independent Scholar


May 21
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

Assessing our Relationship with Nature through the Environmental Humanities: A Bioethics Approach to Sarah Orne Jewett’s A White Heron (1886)
Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College


May 22
10–12noon, P1, Philosophicum
click here for details

Environmental Humanities 101: Solving the Problems of Climate Change with the Environmental Humanities
Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College


May 22
4–6pm, P110, Philosophicum
click here for details

Disappearing Landscapes/Disappearing Cultures: What happens to Language and Culture when Keystone Landscapes Disappear?
Scott Pincikowksi – Hood College


June 6
6–8pm, P109a, Philosophicum
click here for details

Reading Resurgence: Contemporary Indigenous Novels as Constellations of Coresistance
Vanessa Evans – Appalachian State University


June 10
6.15pm, 01-511, Georg-Forster-Gebäude
click here for details

Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission of 1907-1911 and the Origins of Modern Immigration Policy
Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University


June 11
2.30–4pm, 01-618, kl. Bibl., Philosophicum

Migrants, Minorities, and Consumption (Colloquium: Transnational Approaches to American Studies)
Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University


June 14 & 15
9am-5pm, 00.212, Philosophicum II

Creative Writing Workshop – OPEN TO EVERYONE
Ian Afflerbach, University of North Georgia


June 18
12–2pm, P103, Philosophicum
click here for details

Imagining Otherwise: Indigenous Futurisms in Andrea L. Rogers’ Man Made Monsters
Vanessa Evans – Appalachian State University


June 18
4–6pm, Fakultätssaal, 01-185, Philosophicum
click here for details

Quiet Money: The Family Fortune that Transformed New York, the American Southwest, and the Modern Middle East
Katherine Benton-Cohen
– Georgetown University


June 19
6pm, N2 (Muschel)
click here for details

Film Screening Bisbee ’17
with Katherine Benton-Cohen – Georgetown University


June 26
10am–3pm, 00-106, Stiftungshaus, STH 02

Guest Talks & Q&A “Magazine Studies”
with Graeme Kirkpatrick – U Manchester / Torsten Roeder – U Würzburg / Zack Kotzer – Chief Editor Broken Pencil


June 27
6–8pm, P109a, Philosophicum
click here for details

Selective Anti-Imperialism, Settler Colonialism and the Lure of Racial Capitalist Progress in Spanish-Language Periodicals in Paris
David Luis-Brown
– Claremont Graduate University


June 27 & 28
click here for details

Workshop
Migration and Consumption


July 1
3.10–4.40pm, N.206, Campus Germersheim
click here for details

Dos Hemisferios: Racial Capitalism and the Problem of Latinidad in Hispano-American Newspapers in Paris and New York City, 1852-1856
David Luis-Brown
– Claremont Graduate University


July 2
9.40–11.10am, N.106, Campus Germersheim
click here for details

World War I, New York Dada, and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven
Irene Gammel
– Toronto Metropolitan University


July 4
4.00–6.00pm, P4, Philosophicum
click here for details

Annual Fourth of July Obama Lecture & Summer Get-together (snacks and drinks)

with Keynote “World-losers elsewhere, conquerors here!”: The Fourth of July in American Poetry
Thomas Austenfeld
– Université de Fribourg
and Red, White, and Blue—and Greenbacks: Money and American Identity since the Civil War
Atiba Pertilla – German Historical Institute Washington
plus Exhibition of Student Posters and Presentations


July 8
3.10–4.40pm, N.206, Campus Germersheim
click here for details

Go-To Lines: The Art of Reading the Political Memoir in America
Irene Gammel
– Toronto Metropolitan University


July 10-12
click here for details

Conference
The Persistence of the Short Story: Traditions and Futures


You can find the poster for the event series here.

Feb 9-11 – Conference: Transcending Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies 🗓

Feb 9-11 – Conference: Transcending Boundaries – Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies 🗓

Transcending Boundaries Interdisciplinary Insights in Transpacific Studies

Transpacific Studies Network Hybrid Conference
February 9-11, 2024

Zoom link in program.

Download the program here.

February 9 & 10 (Fri & Sat)
Aulagebäude/Alte Mensa (1. OG, Linker Saal) Gebäude 1312
Johann-Joachim-Becher-Weg 3-5
55128 Mainz

February 11 (Sun)
Philosophicum II (EG 00.212)
Jakob-Welder-Weg 20
55128 Mainz

 

We explore connections across national and regional borders in and along the Pacific. The event will serve as a space to discuss early stage-research and on-going projects in this field.

Topics include:

  • Film and television that culturally crosses the pacific ocean
  • Literary works (novels, memoirs, poems, etc.) from and about (Trans)pacific regions
  • Representations and/or performances of gender in (Trans)pacific regions
  • (Trans)pacific mobilities and migration, including policy
  • The Pacific and the blue humanities
  • Climate change and the environment in (Trans)pacific regions
  • (Trans-)Pacific issues of collective memory
  • Understandings of geography/space/territory in relation to (Trans)pacific regions
  • Negotiating cultural hybridity
  • Revitalizations of (Trans)pacific traditional ecological epistemologies
  • Reflections on practices and imaginations of borders/bordering in the Pacific

The conference is organized by Sandra Meerwein and the Transpacific Studies Network (TPSN). The TPSN was established in the fall of 2022 with the goal of exploring Pacific cultures, ecologies, histories, literatures, politics, and societies in an interdisciplinary, multi-lingual, and, importantly, transregional manner.

The organizers would like to thank the following organizations for their support: