Author: Catherine Gander

Conference Announcement: “Looking Forward, 2014: Current Projects in American Studies”

Posted on by Catherine Gander
“Looking Forward, 2014: Current Projects in American Studies”
November 13-15, 2014
John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

Organized by Frank Kelleter and Alexander Starre (Department of Culture, JFKI)

Conference Website: www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/looking_forward2014

Two important institutions of American Studies in Germany celebrated major anniversaries in 2013: the German Association of American Studies (DGfA) turned sixty and the John F. Kennedy Institute at the Free University of Berlin passed the fifty-year mark. While both events triggered retrospective glances at the history of the field, the conference “Looking Forward, 2014” will survey major research projects of the coming years, mostly (but not exclusively) from Germany’s American Studies community.

In presenting their current projects, scholars will showcase diverse approaches to American culture, literature, and society. The field of American Studies has reached a point where its capacious multi-disciplinarity extends across an unprecedented variety of artifacts, practices, and media. What does it entail, then, to study American culture under such rubrics as cognition, materiality, narrative, or seriality? Which methodologies are fit to explicate the complex media ecologies of the present, as well as the archives of the American past? How do researchers navigate the currents of aesthetics, politics, hermeneutics, and theory? Is the field destined to prolong the rhetoric of “turns” and paradigm shifts or can it replace perennial appeals to do things differently with sustainable ideas for how to do things better?

Presentations will include reports from larger, ongoing or emerging, often interdisciplinary research ventures as well as from forthcoming or recent book publications of younger scholars (especially “Habilitationsschriften”).

Speakers: Klaus Benesch, Laura Bieger, Barbara Buchenau, James Dorson, Rita Felski, Winfried Fluck, Jens Gurr, Udo Hebel, Frank Kelleter, Günter Leypoldt, Martin Lüthe, Ruth Mayer, Mark McGurl, Heike Paul, Robert Reid-Pharr, Christoph Ribbat, Julia Sattler, Peter Schneck, Philipp Schweighauser, Florian Sedlmeier, Sabine Sielke, Daniel Stein, Jan Stievermann, Babette B. Tischleder, Johannes Voelz, Boris Vormann, Simon Wendt

For a detailed schedule, including abstracts of all presentations, see the conference website:

www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/looking_forward2014 

The conference is free and open to the public.

Contact: alexander.starre@fu-berlin.de

 

Lectureship in Modern Literature (1890-1940)

Posted on by Catherine Gander
Queen’s University Belfast

Position: Lecturer in Modern Literature (1890-1940), School of English

School/Department: School of English

Reference: 14/103550

Closing Date: Friday 7 November 2014

Salary: £34,233 – £50,200 per annum (including contribution points)

Anticipated Interview Date: Tuesday 2 December 2014

JOB PURPOSE:

To undertake research in Modern Literature c.1890-1940 in line with the School’s research strategy, to teach American Literature at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and to contribute to School administration/outreach activity.

Informal enquiries may be directed to Dr Andrew Pepper, email: a.pepper@qub.ac.uk.

For more details, click here.

Please visit our website for further information and to apply online – www.qub.ac.uk/jobs or alternatively contact the Personnel Department, Queen’s University Belfast, BT7 1NN.  Telephone (028) 90973044(028) 90973044 FAX: (028) 90971040 or e-mail on personnel@qub.ac.uk.

The University is committed to equality of opportunity and to selection on merit. It therefore welcomes applications from all sections of society and particularly welcomes applications from people with a disability.

Lecturer in Spanish Latin American Studies

Posted on by Catherine Gander
Job opening for Lecturer in Spanish Latin American Studies

www.qub.ac.uk/jobs

Belfast

£34,233 – £40,847 per annum

Full time

Permanent

 

Queen’s University Belfast Lecturer in Spanish Latin American Studies School of Modern Languages Ref: 14/103537

Spanish and Portuguese Studies is a thriving area in the School of Modern Languages with a strong research profile and distinctive teaching provision. We currently offer a broad chronological expertise (1400-the present day), as well as a multi-disciplinary approach that includes, but is not restricted to: History, Politics, Literature, History of Medicine/Science, Visual Cultures and Digital Technologies. Applications are welcome from suitably qualified candidates with expertise in any area of Latin American Studies, but preference may be given to those with research and teaching strengths in Central America, South America and/or the Spanish Caribbean.

It is expected that the successful candidate will make a significant contribution to the research profile of the School of Modern Languages; will be responsible for the teaching and examining of undergraduates and postgraduates in his or her areas of research expertise; will contribute to Spanish language teaching; and will also play a full part in the administrative activities of Spanish and Portuguese Studies and to the School of Modern Languages.

Further information on the subject area of Spanish and the School can be found at: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofModernLanguages/AboutUs/.

Informal enquiries may be directed to Dr Gabriel Sánchez Espinosa telephone: 028 9097 3636028 9097 3636 or email: g.sanchez@qub.ac.uk.

Salary scale: £34,233 – £40,847 per annum (including contribution points)

Closing date: Monday 27 October 2014 Anticipated interview date: Thursday 20 November 2014

Please visit our website for further information and to apply online – www.qub.ac.uk/jobs or alternatively contact the Personnel Department, Queen’s University Belfast, BT7 1NN. Telephone (028) 90973044(028) 90973044 FAX: (028) 90971040 or e-mail on personnel@qub.ac.uk

The University is committed to equality of opportunity and to selection on merit. It therefore welcomes applications from all sections of society and particularly welcomes applications from people with a disability.

Invitation to Richard Ford reading at Trinity College Dublin

Posted on by Catherine Gander

INVITATION: READING BY  RICHARD FORD, OCTOBER 8th 2014, 7 pm
 RICHARD FORD  

The School of English,  Trinity College Dublin, invites you to a reading by award-winning author and  International Professor of Prose Fiction, Richard Ford, to celebrate the  forthcoming publication of Let Me Be Frank WithYou, to be published in  November 2014. The reading will take place on Wednesday the 8th of  October at 7 pm in the Edmund Burke Theatre, the Arts Building, College. Admission is free and  all are welcome, but to reserve a seat at this very special event, RSVP to  Diane Sadler by Friday the 3rd of October 2014: diane.sadler@tcd.ie.

CFP: POETRY AND COLLABORATION IN THE AGE OF MODERNISM

Posted on by Catherine Gander

 POETRY AND COLLABORATION IN THE AGE OF MODERNISM

Trinity College Dublin and the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute

2nd–3rd July 2015

Keynote Speakers:

Alex Davis (University College Cork)

Peter Howarth (Queen Mary)

Poems are the products of collaborative exchange. This is possibly at no point
more apparent than during the period of Anglophone modernism. From the
late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth century, poets and poems interacted with a
complex array of publishing outlets; partnerships were established with
musicians, painters, sculptors, photographers, filmmakers, broadcasters, and
theatre practitioners; and translation was a central creative practice. All the
same, the modes and sites of such collaboration remain critically
under-examined. They can elude current historical, theoretical, and
methodological approaches to poetry in the period, which are sometimes still
overly invested in poetry’s separation from other discourses and art forms, or
in notions of single authorship.

This conference will seek to foster scholarly attention on the collaborative
nature of poetic production, mediation, and reception across Britain, Ireland,
North America and beyond during the age of modernism. It will welcome contributions
on any aspect of the conference theme from researchers in fields such as drama,
music, dance, visual and material cultures, publishing and media history, as
well as from literary scholars. Topics might include, but are not confined to:

 

·      periodical and publishing culture:
poetry in the magazines,  the role of editors.

·      poetry and the visual arts:
ekphrasis, palimpsests, concrete poetry, spatial poetics.

·      adaptation and performance: music,
theatre, cinema, radio, television.

·      translation as collaboration:
transnational exchanges.

·      textual interrelationships:
allusion, intertextuality, co-authorship, anthologisation.

·      poetry and the institution:
patronage, the university, broadcasters.

·      collaborative locations: salons,
clubs, studios, theatres, peripheries, centres.

·      digital perspectives: emerging
material and analytical avenues.

 
Please send proposals of c.300 words and a brief biography to the conference
organisers, Alex Runchman and Tom Walker, at collaboratingmuse@gmail.com by
30 November 2014. Please visit the conference website for more information: http://collaboratingmuse.wordpress.com/                              

BAAS/APG ANNUAL US POLITICS COLLOQUIUM

Posted on by Catherine Gander

REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR THE BAAS/APG US POLITICS COLLOQUIUM

         

   US Embassy, London
    The Obama administration: hope, change and partisan politics
    Friday 14 November 2014, 11.00am – 5.00pm
    (registration and coffee 10.30 – 11.00am)
     
Speakers Include:

William Barnard (author and former Chair of Democrats Abroad) and Republican counterpart, Dissecting the 2014 Election Outcomes

Dr Althea Legal-Miller (University College London), Barack Obama and the African American Struggle for Racial Justice 

Professor Inderjeet Parmar (City University) Foreign Policy Challenges for the Obama Administration

Former Members of Congress Hon Mary Bono (R-CA) and Hon Brian Baird (D-WA) discussing current hot-button US political issues
     
APG would like to extend sincere thanks to the US Embassy, London for hosting the event, which will take place from 11.00am – 5.00pm. Lunch will be taken this year at the Embassy’s in-house restaurant. This must be paid for in advance with your colloquium registration. Lunch is just £15. There are other places to eat around the Embassy for those that want to make independent arrangements. The colloquium fee of £10 without lunch includes refreshments.
     
    Please send booking form not later than 1 November 2014 to:
    Dr Clodagh Harrington                                   or email: cmharrington@dmu.ac.uk
    Department of Politics and Public Policy
    Hugh Aston Building
    De Montfort University
    The Gateway
    Leicester LE1 9BH
    —————————————————————————————————–
    Booking Form—Cheques payable to American Politics Group. Or, please email cmharrington@dmu.ac.uk     if you wish to make a BACS payment.
    £10—Colloquium Fee and morning and afternoon refreshments, but without     lunch 
    £25—Colloquium Fee with morning and afternoon refreshments and lunch
    Name: ……………………………………………………………………………
    E-Mail (Please write VERY clearly):………………………………………………
    Institution:……………………………………………………………………….
    Address (of institution, or private address if an independent scholar):
    …………………………………………………………………………
    ……………………………………………………………………………
    Please indicate if you would like a receipt. 

   

 

THE 24th BIENNIAL NAAS CONFERENCE ON AMERICAN STUDIES

Posted on by Catherine Gander

 

 

 

“American Values: Public Virtues, Private Vices?”
THE 24th BIENNIAL NAAS CONFERENCE ON AMERICAN STUDIES 
University of Oulu, Finland, May 11-13, 2015

 

The conference is organized by the Nordic Association for American Studies (NAAS) and it will offer papers – by approximately 100 speakers from 10 different countries – on how America has defined its central values in politics, history, literature, architecture, film, the media, popular culture, and everyday living. Why does it matter so much to the American public today whether or not Thomas Jefferson had children with Sally Hemings at the end of the eighteenth century? Are there some particular American ways to deal with ethical issues? What has been the impact of such traditional American values as individualism, self-help, and egalitarianism on the rest of the world?

Our guest speakers from the United States will include: ● Annette Gordon-Reed (History Pulitzer for The Hemingses of Monticello, 2009) ● Daniel Walker Howe (History Pulitzer for What Hath God Wrought, 2008) ● Peter Onuf (Author of The Mind of Thomas Jefferson, 2007) ● Andrew O’Shaughnessy (American History Book Prize for Men Who Lost America, 2014) ● Alan Taylor (2 History Pulitzers: for William Cooper’s Town in 1996 and for The Internal Enemy in 2014) ● Gordon Wood (History Pulitzer for The Radicalism of the American Revolution, 1993).

NAAS PLENARY SPEAKERS: ● ASANOR: Hans Skei, author of William Faulkner: The Novelist as a Short Story Writer  ● DAAS: Camelia Elias, author of The Way of The Sign: Cultural Text Theory in Two Steps ● FASA: Bo Pettersson, author of The World According to Kurt Vonnegut: Moral Paradox and Narrative Form ● SAAS: Magnus Ullén, author of The Half-Vanished Structure: Hawthorne’s Allegorical Dialectics.

The conference is open to scholars and students from all over the world, but we offer lower registration fees to members of NAAS (Nordic Association for American Studies), EAAS (European Association for American Studies) and ASA (American Studies Association in the U.S). The regular conference registration fee will be 120,00 euro and for the members 100,00 euro.

For more information, contact the Conference President Ari Helo (ari.helo@oulu.fi)

Note that papers for 2015 Orm Øverland Prize can still be submitted: To honor the work of Professor Orm Øverland, NAAS has created the Orm Øverland Prize (EUR 200), which since 2009 has been awarded to the best graduate student paper presented at the biennial NAAS conference. In addition to the monetary award, the winning paper is considered for publication in American Studies in Scandinavia, a peer-reviewed journal that NAAS publishes. For instructions on sending your paper, seehttps://sites.google.com/site/naasstudies/award

For more information, see https://sites.google.com/site/fasafinnishamericanstudies/naas-2015-conference

CFP: SPECIAL ISSUE OF ‘SYMBIOSIS’ ON THE ‘IRISH TRANSATLANTIC: THE ACT OF UNION (1800) TO THE PRESENT DAY’

Posted on by Catherine Gander

                                

                          

Call for Papers: Special edition of Symbiosis: A Journal of Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Relations on the ‘Irish Transatlantic: Act of Union (1800) to the Present Day’

The Autumn 2015 issue of Symbiosis: A Journal of Transatlantic Literary and Cultural Relations will take as its focus the literary and cultural exchange between Ireland and the Americas from the Act of Union (1800) to the present day. We seek to provide a window onto the expansive and multifarious nature of Irish transatlantic studies, publishing a range of articles which illustrate the depth and breadth of contemporary scholarship in this area. Despite the unquestionable historical, material and political connections between these two geographical locations, the Irish dimension to transatlantic studies is often overlooked. Burgeoning interest in transatlantic studies has led to the publication of innovative book series on the topic; while this is an exciting move in scholarship, the number of texts that display sustained engagement with Irish transatlantic concerns is surprisingly low. Similarly, although the historiography of the Irish diaspora is a rich field, transatlantic Irish literary and cultural studies is an uneven area of inquiry; notably, while the Famine years have received plentiful commentary, there is a dearth of scholarship considering the decades preceding this.

We hope to touch upon emergent areas of enquiry, such as spatial mappings of Atlantic geography attendant to the richly rhizomatic nature of transatlantic exchange; examinations of Irish-American ethnic identity informed by critical race studies; and the impact of digital humanities on the field at large. The editors’ research interests lie in early nineteenth century and contemporary literary culture so they would be particularly receptive to articles investigating transatlantic exchange within these periods.

We are interested in articles exploring:

  • Methodologies and/or mappings for Irish transatlantic study
  • Transatlantic applications of (post)colonial theory
  • Gender across Atlantic space
  • Religion and spiritual practices
  • Transatlantic intersectionality
  • The role and function of literary form
  • Effects of the Act of Union on the publishing trade
  • Transatlantic circulations and critical receptions of texts
  • Exchange of correspondence and letters
  • Areas of consonance and dissonance between cross-currents of diasporic and migrant experience
  • Northern Irish exchange with North America
  • Replication and development of local and/or regional Irish identities after migration
  • The Big House in literary and cultural imagination(s)
  • Transatlantic medical humanities
  • Cultural performance, theatre and performing arts (particularly music and dance)
  • Contemporary constructions of Irish-American identity in popular culture
  • Critical race studies and ‘white innocence’
  • Irish folklore and Celtic mythology within North America

We are seeking articles of between 5,000 and 7,000 words in length (inclusive of notes and bibliographic material), written in accordance with MLA style. Deadline for submissions: 31st December 2014; submissions should be sent to muireann.crowley@ed.ac.uk and a.c.garden@sms.ed.ac.uk.

Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies

Posted on by Catherine Gander
The University of Sydney – School of Languages And Cultures
Location: Sydney
Salary: AU$93,629 to AU$111,182; £52,039 to £61,794.96 converted salary* pa. + 17% superannuation and leave loading                                        
Hours: Full Time
Contract: Permanent

            

Placed on: 16th September 2014
Closes: 12th October 2014
Job Ref: 1814/0914

            

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Reference No. 1814/0914 

  • Be part of a dynamic department in the School of Languages and Cultures
  • Have a significant role in developing language pedagogy within the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies
  • Full-time, continuing, remuneration package: $110K – 131K p.a. (including salary, leave loading and up to 17% superannuation) 

The School of Languages and Cultures (SLC) in The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences  offers the widest range of undergraduate and postgraduate language studies in Australia and is a centre for European, Latin American, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. 

The Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies is seeking to appoint a scholar who will complement and enhance the department’s reputation in teaching and in research. We are particularly looking for an expert in language teaching methodology, particularly in the pedagogy of Spanish as Second Language, Applied Linguistics and/or translation. Also of interest is an ability to teach/coordinate cultural units with a focus on Spain.  

In this role you will: 

  • maintain a research profile compatible with the department’s research programs
  • supervise honours and postgraduate research students in Spanish and/or Latin American Studies
  • contribute to core units in the Spanish and Latin American Studies majors
  • develop one or more elective units for inclusion in the Spanish and Latin American Studies major. Areas of focus should reflect your area of expertise, with specific emphasis on language pedagogy and on the culture of Spain. 

To secure this role you will have: 

  • a PhD in hand in Spanish or Hispanic Studies
  • a high level of fluency in Spanish and English
  • experience in designing and teaching Spanish-language courses with demonstrated success in promoting student retention and achieving high levels of language competency
  • a good record of peer-reviewed publications relative to opportunity 
  • demonstrated ability, relative to opportunity, to develop and maintain an active research program including research grant applications
  • evidence of capacity to work flexibly and collaboratively in a team environment, to teach at different levels and assume roles in administration and planning in the department and school. 

Desirable for appointment is your: 

  • record of successful honours and research student supervision
  • demonstrated administrative skills. 

The position is full-time, continuing, subject to the completion of a satisfactory probation and confirmation period for new appointees. Membership of a university-approved superannuation scheme is a condition of appointment for new appointees. 

Remuneration package Lecturer (Academic Level B): $110,802 – $131,575 p.a. (which includes a base salary of $93,629 – $111,182 p.a., leave loading and up to 17% employer’s contribution to superannuation). 

All applications must be submitted via the University of Sydney careers website.  Visit sydney.edu.au/recruitment and search by the reference number 1814/0914 for more information and to apply.

CLOSING DATE: 12 October 2014 (11.30pm Sydney time) 

The University is an equal opportunity employer committed to equity, diversity and social inclusion. Applications from equity target groups and women are encouraged. The University of Sydney has also established a scheme to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff employed across the institution. Applications from people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent are encouraged. 

© The University of Sydney

 

CFP: Death in the Cityscape

Posted on by Catherine Gander
Call for Papers

Canadian Review of American Studies

Death in the Cityscape

In contemporary literature, the intersection of the space of death and mourning within the confines of the city acts as a method of critiquing our understood modes of living. Since Plato’s Republic, the uneasy interplay of death and memorialization within the polis has been considered. Theorists like Gillian Rose in Mourning Becomes the Law and Sharon Zukin in Naked City have elaborated upon the discourse of space, death, and mourning within an urban setting. This issue of finding a space within the city for the dead remains with us, and recent American economic turmoil places the urban metropolis and its spaces of decay in sharp focus (seen in novels like Teju Cole’s Open City, television shows like The Wire and movies such as Synecdoche, New York). Where in the city is death (dis)allowed? Under what authority does the city, as a social nexus point, memorialize the dead? How does art work in concert with, or against, accepted practices of mourning and memorializing within the city limits? Can one mourn the passing of a city and, if so, how is this enacted? While this abstract focuses primarily on contemporary American work, we welcome papers related to any period of American urban history.

We invite scholarly articles on this topic in any genre of American studies. Submissions should be no more than 8000 words in length. Abstracts of no more than 250 words will be accepted until December 1, 2014. Completed articles must be submitted by April 1, 2015.
Send abstracts and submissions to dcalabre@uwo.ca

Possible topics may include:

–          Death’s relationship to identity in the American city

–          American Cities Characterized

–          Post-9/11 American Cities and Identity

–          Death and Mourning in the City

–          Death and Public Art

–          Memorials and Public Mourning

–          Urban American: Recession and After

Keywords:

–          African-American

–          Children’s Literature

–          Cultural Studies and Historical Approaches

–          Ecocriticism and Environmental Studies

–          Ethnicity and National Identity

–          Film and Television

–          Gender Studies and Sexuality

–          Interdisciplinary

–          Literary Modernism

–          Popular Culture

–          Postcolonialism

–          Postmodernism and Postmodern culture

–          Theatre Studies

–          Twenty-First Century Literature

–          Visual Art and Culture