EXTENDED CFP DEADLINE: MARCH 1, 2018

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

A Workshop Jointly Sponsored and Organized by the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies and the Society of Early Americanists.

October 4-6, 2018

Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany

The discipline of early American studies seems full of gaps: from Eric Slauter’s perceived trade gap between historians and literary scholars (Early American Literature, 2008) to the theory gap between early American literature and later disciplines identified by Ed White and Michael Drexler (American Literary History, 2010). Given the boon of transatlantic scholarship in the past few decades, however, the relationship between European and North American scholars working on early Americanist topics appears to grow closer than ever before. A small but stalwart group of European—especially French, German, Austrian, Swiss, and British—early Americanists regularly attends North American conferences, such as the SEA biennials and the annual ASA convention. In turn, however, too few North American scholars are reading scholarship published and attending scholarly gatherings in Europe.

This joint Obama Institute-SEA workshop will bring together early Americanist scholars from North America and Europe in a 2 ½-day intensive conversation and collaboration about transatlantic perspectives on new developments in the field of early American studies. The workshop seeks to engage several critical fields around which specific collaborations during the conference will center:

• Digital humanities and archival studies
• Intersections between book history, print, and material culture
• Transpacific and archipelagic studies
• Indigenous studies
• African American studies
• Periodical studies
• Ethnic, multilingual, and comparative literary studies
• Environmental and medical humanities; history of science
• Religious networks
• Post-critique
• Aesthetics and new formalism
  Seminal critical interventions—such as Elizabeth Anker and Rita Felski’s Critique and Post-Critique (Duke, 2017) or Ed Cahill and Ed Larkin’s focus on aesthetics in their jointly edited issue of Early American Literature (2016)—frequently catalyze new work in early American studies on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet scholars in Europe and North America often apply theoretical questions in different ways and proceed from different assumptions about the aims, methods, and rhetorical articulations of scholarly and critical innovation. Even more basically, varying practices of reading and teaching, or uses of text, context, and critique often make conversations at standard conferences non-starters or inconclusive. This workshop provides early American literature scholars the opportunity to
• Discuss their work with scholars across the Atlantic.
• Debate applications of key critical texts in their field to early American studies.
• Plan collaborative publications, grants, or workshops.
  The Workshop will be limited to 30 participants grouped together in small, critically and thematically focused teams. Each team works together over 2 days and shares results in poster presentations at the end of the workshop. Preceding the Workshop, each pre-arranged team agrees upon, circulates, and reads a) one article-length work in progress written by each participant, and b) a limited number of critical/theoretical works informing each sub-field to anchor the conversation and collaboration.

SUBMISSIONS

Please email the following materials to the Workshop Chair, Prof. Oliver Scheiding (scheiding@uni-mainz.de) as PDF attachments by February 15, 2018 March 1, 2018 (extended deadline):

A 2-page CV.
A circa 400-500 word proposal, including the applicant’s critical and theoretical focus, current work(s)-in-progress, past and future work in primary text archives, and a statement detailing specific objectives and ideas for scholarly collaboration. The proposal should address how and why the applicant’s work would profit from collaboration with colleagues across the Atlantic. Although the main Workshop language will be English, all applicants should detail their level of competency in languages other than English (such skill will not be required but may help in grouping applicants in specific teams).

Thursday 27 and Friday 28 September 2018
International conference
Université Jean Monnet, Saint-Etienne (CELEC)

The sixties and the seventies marked a turning-point in the evolution of family. Major sociocultural changes undermined certain patterns of gender roles around which traditional families, and the American society at large, were organized. When the Food and Drug Administration approved the first oral contraceptive back in 1960 and the Supreme Court ruled in favor of legal abortion in 1973 (Roe v. Wade), women were given the right to break free from the normative gendered imperatives of the traditional family. Because the cult of domesticity gradually declined, and the crisis imposed the necessity to move from single-income to dual-income families, an unprecedented number of women – wives and mothers included – joined the workforce in the seventies. This shift in social values combined with new legal developments in family law (California for instance adopted the no-fault divorce in 1970) caused a major upheaval in North-American family structures. New behaviors within the family (how couples relate to marriage; the rise of divorces and remarriages; the decrease in the birthrate; the delaying of marriage and parenthood) have delineated new family forms. Today, married couples with children are no longer the norm; they coexist with other family structures such as single-parent, blended, and homoparental families, unmarried parents or childless couples. To adapt to these new realities, a lexical evolution necessarily ensued. Concepts like “living apart together” or “three-parent families” started to spread in order to define new family forms and reflect the changes that have occurred over the past forty years.
Contemporary family was also labeled as “deinstitutionalized” (Andrew Cherlin) or “declining” (David Popenoe). Its plural modalities are evidence of its constantly changing nature. Though broken and splitting apart, is family at threat? Is it doomed to fail because of the erosion of traditional forms? Many observers sound alarmist as to the future of family. According to sociologist John F. Conway, the Canadian family is “in crisis”; as for the media, some predict “The Slow Death of ‘Traditional’ Families in America” (The Atlantic) or go as far as comparing it to “An Endangered and Disappearing Species” (CNSNews). However, in 2010, 98.2% of American respondents told the researchers of the World Value Survey that family was “important” or “very important” in their lives. On social networks, family hashtags have been flourishing (more than 250 million #family). One of the goals of this conference will be to examine and question this gap between a deep attachment to the family unit – whether real or fantasized – and the proclaimed death of family.
The family ideal thus seems to have survived the major sociodemographic transformations and continues to thrive in the North-American imaginary, as contemporary fiction shows through the extraordinary amount of fictional autobiographies and family narratives. Indeed, family has often inspired North-American writers for, in many respects, it has concentrated all the anxieties of a fairly recent literature which has continuously questioned notions of origins and filiation. As a locus of suffering, misfortune, and neurosis, family is more than ever an obsession for contemporary writers. The Lamberts (Jonathan Franzen), the Lisbons (Jeffrey Eugenides), the Raitliffes (Rick Moody) or the Schells (Jonathan Safran Foer) have superseded the Angstroms (John Updike) or the Wapshots (John Cheever) but they remain families riddled with frustrations, secrets and trauma. So, how can we account for the fact that family narratives still endure and have even expanded in contemporary fiction? The approaching new millennium and the inaugural catastrophe of 9/11 that ushered in a new era led writers to turn to the family and portray it as either an idealized unit, a mere invention, or an alienating space. In this temptation to turn inward, how do writers negotiate family history and collective history? Isn’t this eagerness to fictionalize family – sometimes one’s own family – a sign of withdrawal, a reluctance to engage with the other? Does this phenomenon finally come along with a renewal of literary forms and practices? All those questions can be approached through the fiction of contemporary writers like Rick Moody, Jeffrey Eugenides, Nicole Krauss, Junot Diaz, Dave Eggers, Donald Antrim or Miriam Toews to draw up here a non-exhaustive list.

We welcome contributions addressing for instance the following topics:

– Family in contemporary novels, poetry and drama (fictional autobiographies, family narratives, autofictions)
– Family and its transformations; representation of identity and roles within the family
– Religion, class, ethnicity, territory: representations and stereotypes
– Staging the family on the public and political scenes
– Families on screen: in the movies, in TV shows (“Modern Family”, “Brothers and Sisters” etc.) or in reality shows (“Keeping up with the Kardashians”, “Hogan knows best” etc.)
– Staging family life in the visual arts
– Digital family identity et glamorization of family life on social networks (Instagram, family vlogs, parental blogs etc.)
– Family and words (family rhetoric, terminological evolutions, lexical creations etc.)

Papers may be presented either in English or French. Abstracts (around 300 words) along with a short biographical notice should be sent to Marie Moreau (marie1.moreau@univ-lyon2.fr) and Sophie Chapuis (sophie.chapuis@univ-st-etienne.fr) by April 23rd, 2018.

Deadline for submissions: May 1, 2018
Full name / name of organization: Hisham Ramadan
Contact email: hisham444@hotmail.com

Call for Papers

Social Phobias and the Politics of Fear: Causes and Resistance

Manufacturing the “Other”: Xenophobia, Fascism, the Alt-Right and More

A Conference and Edited Collection

In 2016, the University of Toronto Press published a timely collection on the rise of social phobias and the political production of fear as a mechanism of social control, regulation, and repression in the period of neoliberal global capitalism. Manufacturing Phobias: The Political Production of Fear in Theory and Practice, edited by Hisham Ramadan and Jeff Shantz, examined fear politics, especially as developed and deployed by neoliberal governments (conservative and liberal) and Right-wing groups, and the targeting of specific communities, particularly racialized and migrant communities, as objects of social fear and public threat. Wide ranging chapters analyzed the social, economic, and political aspects of these phobic practices as developed in several international contexts.

That collection, put together before the rise of Trump and the alt-Right, prefigured and predicted many of the essential features of those reactionary political movements and perspectives. Now, more than a year into the Trump regime, with open mobilization of fascists in diverse liberal democracies, street battles between fascists and antifascists (ANTIFA), and the killing of antifascists (like Heather Heyer in Charlottesville) and antiracists (as in Portland, Oregon) by far Rightists, there is a pressing need to explore the causes of social phobias, understand the practices governments and community groups that promote and pursue phobic politics, and to assess the state of resistance to social phobias.

Many questions related to the treatment of the “Other” need to be answered. If we utilize Trumpism as an example, several questions would be of a great interest. Does the rise of Trumpist ideologies, as examples of the anti “Other,” represent symptoms of unspoken social problems in addition to the obvious ones of racism and sexism? If so, what are the unspoken social problems? What are the means to counter these social problem?

Thus, we call for papers on topics related to causes, resistance to and alternatives to social phobias and fear politics in the current period. Topics might include, but are by no means limited to:

Antifa

Migrant solidarity movements, no borders movements, no one is illegal politics

Anti-racist movements

Black Lives Matter

International solidarity movements

Indigenous resistance and land struggles

Anti-settlerism and anti-colonialism

Community self defense movements

Labor solidarity and rank-and-file workplace organizing

Anti-policing and anti-repression organizing

Abolitionist politics

Alternative social visions—anarchism, socialism, communism, etc.

Papers will be presented publicly for feedback and discussion, hopefully making contributions to community debates and active struggles, at a three day conference during February of 2019 in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish Territories (BC). These papers will then be collected in a special volume on Causes and Resistance to Social Phobias, edited by Hisham Ramadan and Jeff Shantz.

Please submit abstracts of around 300 words to both of the conference organizers: Hisham Ramadan <hisham444@hotmail.com> and Jeff Shantz <drjshantz@gmail.com> by May 1, 2018.

IV International Conference on the American Literary and Cultural West:

The West Travels Beyond Itself: New Spaces, New Voices, New Forms

University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain)

8-10 October 2018

The IV International Conference on the American Literary and Cultural West, The West Travels Beyond Itself: New Spaces, New Voices, New Forms, organized by the REWEST research group (Research in Western American Literature and Culture, www.ehu.eus/rewest), seeks for papers which expose the contemporary revision and revival of the West and as a literary and cultural form of representation, as well as of its global impact. The Conference will privilege transnational and interdisciplinary approaches aiming to understand the artistic production of space and a cultural site whose iconography has moved beyond national limits and literary and artistic borders.
The aim of the Conference is to propose a site of debate about the revision and revival of the West as an ideological and cultural concept. We aim at analyzing the new dimensions of the global, multicultural, multicontextual, multidisciplinary 21st century West. In this light, papers can address a variety of issues ranging from (but not only):

-The West travels beyond itself
-The West looks at Europe
-Europe looks at the West
-The influence of the cultural myths of the Old West in the present century
-The new literary voices of the West
-“Other” western narratives
– Environmental literature of the American West
– Reimagining women in the West
– Western masculinities
– Bordercrossing
– Western mythologies
– The American West in popular culture
– The West and its new forms of expression
– New Western music
– New Western cinema
-The West in the arts
– The West and the new digital forms of communication
-The West in television
– The West in comics and graphic novels

……
Papers should not exceed 2.000-3.000 words (approx. a 20 minute delivery). Although English will be the official language of the Conference, papers in Spanish and Basque will also be accepted.

Please submit your proposal (300 words) plus a brief bio-note (200 words) to the Conference organizers by April 30th, 2018. Proposals should be submitted via e-mail to rewest.fac.letras@ehu.es.

Postgraduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences who are registered for a higher research degree at any European university, and are members of an American Studies association belonging to EAAS may apply. Two kinds of grants are available: the Transatlantic Grant and the Intra-European Grant. The maximum single award granted may amount to €2,000.

The Transatlantic Grant will permit the holder to conduct research which illuminates a particular area of American Studies in a designated university, independent research organization or archive in the United States.

The term of the grant will be between three weeks (minimum) and eight weeks (maximum). Successful applicants will receive a grant intended to cover round trip travel and some of the living expenses. Only students registered for a Ph.D. are eligible to apply for the Transatlantic Grants.

The Intra-European Grant will allow the recipient to conduct research for a period of up to four weeks in an American Studies Center or university library or archive in Europe. Graduate students who are registered either for a Ph. D. or a Master’s degree by research are eligible to apply for Intra-European Grants.

Applications must be made on the official form and should include written confirmation from the host institution that the researcher will have access to the necessary resource materials, and a letter from the student’s academic supervisor. Applicants will be required to supply a detailed estimate of the cost of their visit, including the cost of travel, subsistence, and incidentals. They should also state the minimum amount of money needed to make the trip possible. Applicants are encouraged to seek supporting or matching funding wherever possible.
Grant recipients will be responsible for making their own arrangements for travel and accommodation. Travel must be completed within twelve months of the grantee being notified of the award.

Grantees are required to submit a report to the EAAS within thirty days of returning from their research visit. Obviously the report should include the grantees’ institution and destination. For technical reasons please limit the file to 1024 Ko.

The application deadline (receipt of the application) for the current round is Sunday, 25 March 2018. You may download the Application Form as a Word file (45 KB) or a PDF file (101 KB) (both below).

Please send the completed Travel Grant Application Form including:
an estimated budget,
a recommendation letter from academic supervisor,
a letter of confirmation from the host institution
to Professor Pawel Frelik, Vice-President of the EAAS, by e-mail attachment to vice-president@eaas.eu.

Eaas_travel_grant_form_2018

Eaas_travel_grant_form_2018