Reading Risk in Contemporary U.S. Fiction and Culture

A Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Colloquium

University of Birmingham, 02/10/2015.

Five days after 9/11, Republican Party activist James Pinkerton proclaimed that ‘the World Trade Center has been destroyed, but this has also been a crushing defeat for irony, cynicism and hipness. Here in New York, the city that gave the world Seinfeld, Sex and the City and Studio 54, the victors now are sincerity, patriotism and earnestness’ (Newsday, September 16th, 2001). Has Pinkerton’s claim come true? If traditional values like sincerity, patriotism and earnestness are ascendant, what space is left for texts that risk to contest or query the status-quo? Should we abhor risk as the cause of the financial crash, or pine for risky artistic practices that might instigate change? Do we need the texts we study to be risky?

We are pleased to announce that on 02/10/2015 the University of Birmingham will invite postgraduates and early career researchers to discuss these and other issues regarding risk, in whatever permutation, in contemporary U.S. fiction and culture. Speakers are invited to give 15 minute papers on topics including, but by no means limited to, the following –

•       Experimentation in contemporary fiction and culture
•       The role of risk in publishing and media development
•       Financial/economic risk in contemporary literature and culture
•       Risk taking, risk management, and neoliberalism
•       Eco-criticism and environmental risk
•       The body, epidemics, health and medicine
•       Humanities research and risky/risk-averse methodologies
•       Being ‘post-’ (theory, postmodernism, ideology, etc.)
•       Precarity and ‘at risk’ populations
•       Technology, surveillance, and pre-emption.

This event will bring together postgraduates and early career researchers working on contemporary U.S. fiction and culture to discuss their work in a welcoming and informal setting. There are no registration fees. Please send a 200 word abstract, along with a 50 word biographical note, to riskinUSfiction@gmail.com by August 20th. For more general queries or clarification, please contact Alexander Moran and Edward Jackson at the same email address.

The Dynamic City: Futures for the Past

25 & 26 March 2016

Boston University

Are preservation, diversity, and affordability mutually exclusive in urban America? How can neighborhood identity and community be preserved while engaging with the opportunities of globalization? What should be saved in attempts to build and maintain a fair and equitable city?  This conference will explore such questions through conversations that bridge the divide between study and praxis in design, sustainability and preservation.  The American and New England Studies Program at Boston University is committed to collaborative scholarship and encourages graduate students in all fields to submit proposals for twenty-minute presentations.  We seek papers that follow an interdisciplinary framework through history, preservation studies, environmental studies, economics, sociology, art and architectural history, visual culture, material culture, ethnic studies, gender studies, literature, film, and other disciplines. Select papers will be published in an edited anthology.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

• Urban architectural and design history
• Preservation and environmental sustainability
• Gentrification and social sustainability
• Affordable Housing and housing affordability
• Neighborhoods and place making
• Urban planning and political authority
• Cities as biological systems –  foodways, transportation, waste, energy
• Stasis versus development in the preserved landscape
• Public and private interest groups
• Activism and revolt – “NIMBYism”
• The opportunities and challenges of abandonment of people and places
• The rise of post-industrial urban economies
• Gateway cities – doomed to failure or the bright future?
• The politics and legislation of preservation and urban renewal
• Race and gender politics in the urban space
• Urban museums performing the role of historians
• Public space and public memory
• Heritage Tourism
• The immigrant and ethnic landscape

Panels will include presentations from both graduate students and practitioners (architects developers, planners, and public officials) to situate historical narratives within the project of planning and development.

Submission Guidelines

A successful proposal will identify its sources and methodology and will be analytic rather than descriptive.

Deadlines:

• October 15th, 2015 – Abstracts of no more than 300 words and a CV to: P. J. Carlino
• January 1st, 2016 – A full paper draft.
• Successful applicants will be notified by November 15th, 2015.

This event is sponsored by the Graduate Student Association of the American and New England Studies Program,  the Preservation Studies Program at Boston University, the American and New England Studies Program at Boston University, the Boston University Center for the Humanities, Historic New England and the Boston University Initiative on Cities.

“Unsettling”

Hosted by Penn State University, March 17-20, 2016

C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists seeks paper and panel submissions for its fourth biennial conference, which will take place March 17-20, 2016 at the Nittany Lion Inn at Penn State University in State College. We invite individual paper or group proposals on U.S. literary culture—broadly conceived—during the long nineteenth century.

Our conference theme is “Unsettling,” which takes its inspiration from recent revisionist approaches to the methodologies, geographies, languages, and texts that disturb, divert, and reconstitute American literary, historical, and cultural studies. Leaving open ended what is being unsettled, the theme challenges the notion of a defined field focusing on a specific set of texts. In contrast to the assumption of a shared practice or single canon, “unsettling” recognizes the fragmented and contradictory condition of US and American literary studies. The Program Committee is particularly interested in challenging the belief that questions of race and racism are settled. If anything, recent events from Ferguson to the immigration debates point to the unfinished business of race, ethnicity, and nationalism and the ongoing relevance of the nineteenth century and its antecedents. “Unsettling” also points to the effects of a historical period when the United States sought new settlements and sometimes took territory by force. How did the effects of political organization, economic conditions, and social hierarchies in the nineteenth century leave unsettled today’s socio-political challenges? How has the field responded to a transformation in what is studied as part of literary culture? How have new approaches, methodologies, and archives opened the field of study?

Topics and approaches might include but are not limited to transnational, hemispheric, and oceanic studies; the impact of new media and digital technologies on research and teaching practices in the field; critical race, ethnicity, indigeneity, border and diaspora studies; historicism, surface reading and theory; history of the book and print culture; critical geography and global approaches; gender, sexuality, and queer studies; religion, belief, and secularization; democracy and citizenship; the body, age, affect, and disability studies; science and technology studies; spectatorship, collecting, and museum studies; migration, multilingualism, and translation; theories of the archive and the canon.

Format

C19 welcomes proposals for roundtables, workshops, dialogues, and novel presentation formats, as well as traditional panels and individual paper submissions. We are especially interested in proposals that reflect a diversity of institutional affiliation, academic rank, and disciplinary background. Please include at least four presenters on a panel. All group proposals must leave time for discussion (each session is 90 minutes long). Individuals seeking potential collaborators may wish to use the discussion board on C19’s Facebook page.

C19: 2016 will once again feature a series of seminars, which were introduced at the 2014 conference in Chapel Hill. Seminars will provide participants the opportunity for a collaborative conversation around a particular topic. Each seminar will be capped at 15 participants and will be run by leaders with expertise in the topic. Each participant will submit a five-page position paper before the conference to be read in advance by the other participants; time in the seminar itself will be reserved for discussion. Seminar participants will be listed in the program.

Further details on submissions and C19 can be found here.

Transnational and Transracial Adoption in North American Culture

University of Turku, Finland, 27-28 August 2015

Submissions are invited for papers for a special 2-day conference on Transnational and Transracial Adoption in North American Culture to be held at the University of Turku, Finland, August 27-28, 2015. The theme of the conference reflects the increasing attention that has been paid to this field in recent years. To what extent does the process of international adoption reflect imperious inequalities around the world, or can international adoption and the personal experiences of international adoptees today be seen more positively as what has been called the richness of “adoptive being”? Contributions are welcomed from a range of fields, such as literature, postcolonial studies, international relations, political science, aboriginal affairs, historical and cultural studies, film, and so on.

Possible areas of investigation

• “Stolen Generations”: Assimilationist policies past and present
• Border Crossings: Transcendence or constraint?
• Autobiography and Life Writings vs. Writing “on behalf of” the adoptee
• Legal issues: Changing trends
• Multiple (conflicting?) perspectives: adoptee, adoptive parents, birth mother, father
• Differences around the world: legal, ethical, social, literary, etc.
• New Reproductive Technologies

Confirmed Plenary Speakers: Claudia Castañeda (Emerson College), John McLeod (University of Leeds)

Presentations will be allowed 20 minutes + 10 minutes for discussion.

An abstract of the proposal, maximum 150 words, with a brief CV of the author(s), maximum 40 words, should be submitted in MS Word format by 19 June 2015 (extended deadline) to Pirjo Ahokas piraho@utu.fi and Mark Shackleton mark.shackleton@helsinki.fi

We will reply to authors by the end of June.

Registration: 50e (Student 25e).

Details about registration, scheduling of sessions and accommodation will be forthcoming.

Conference Organizers: The Finnish American Studies Association (FASA) and Comparative Literature, University of Turku in collaboration with the John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku

The deadline for submitting proposals for next year’s European Association for American Studies Biennial Conference is June 15th.

To highlight the range and diversity of American Studies in Europe the EAAS is issuing an open call for proposals for the 2016 conference. Proposers may wish to identify and explore long-standing, current and emerging intellectual debates in American Studies; to explore critically the varying practices and methodologies in American Studies; to bring to life current discussions and to posit potential paradigms in American Studies.

The various anniversaries of 2016 provide a variety of potential foundations for proposals:

150 years earlier marked the start of post-Civil War Reconstruction.
The 1860s was the era of the dime novel, and Seeley Regester’s The Dead Letter, credited by some as the first full-length American crime novel, appeared in 1866.
125 years will have passed since Thomas Edison patented the motion camera.
1916 saw the creation of the US National Parks Service;
the opening of the nation’s first birth control clinic;
the election from Montana of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to sit in the US House of Representatives;
the release of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance;
the publication of Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems.
Shirley Jackson, Walker Percy, and Walter Cronkite were born in 1916.
Henry James died in the same year.
The National Organization for Women celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2016.
Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, its narrative echoing the American Revolution, also dates from 1966.
Star Trek first reached TV screens in that same year.

Contemporary American Studies topics could include, for example:

discussion and exploration through various methodologies of the USA’s strong, diverse and expanding literary canon;
the multi-dimensional character and seemingly endless inventiveness of America’s cultural output;
the adaptability of American culture in an age offering radically new social media;
the heritage that might be left after the nation’s first African-American presidency.

The EAAS conference encompasses topics across the disciplinary spectrum in American Studies, as well as interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject. The themes mentioned above are only indicative, and not in any way intended to be a definitive list.

Submissions

The conference content will be defined by the range and breadth of your suggestions and the conference committee looks forward to receiving many different and stimulating proposals.

All proposals must include the name and institutional affiliation of the proposer.

Proposals are invited for individual paper presentations or complete panels, roundtables, workshops, shop-talks, dialogues, interviews, performances, individual lecture presentations, readings or other innovative formats. All proposals are expected to include the opportunity for discussion. Colleagues are also invited to volunteer as session chairs or facilitators using the web form. Submissions should state a title for the panel/presentation/paper/proposal and a small number of keywords providing an indication of the disciplinary reach and content of the proposal.

Proposals for individual papers should consist of an abstract (max. 250 words) including brief mention of any relevant supporting information.

Proposals for panels and other formats should provide a brief explanation of the structure and goals of the proposed session (500 words), accompanied by details of the contributors and 250-word abstracts of each contribution. All proposals must include details of any audiovisual or other equipment required to deliver the session/presentation, using the appropriate field in the web form. Colleagues volunteering as session chairs or facilitators should include keywords indicating their expertise and interests

Small grants may be awarded at a later date by EAAS to help some presenters attend the conference. Such awards will be in an amount no more than €200, and eligibility to compete for support will be restricted to such categories as presenters who are members of the American Studies associations in low GDP countries, and postgraduate students without other financial support. Acceptance on to the EAAS conference programme does not imply the award of any financial support. http://eaas.eu/eaas-grants/eaas-conference-travel-grants
The deadline for proposals will be 15 June 2015.

Use this link to access the submission form:

http://www.enl.auth.gr/abstracts/index.html

Please join the Edith Wharton Society for its upcoming Conference in Washington, DC. The conference directors seek papers focusing on all aspects of Wharton’s work. Papers might offer readings of any of Wharton’s texts, including the short fiction, poetry, plays, essays, travel writing, and other nonfiction, in addition to the novels. While all topics are welcome, the location of the conference in the U. S. capital invites readings related to nationalism, cosmopolitanism, transatlanticism, seats of power, Americana, museum cultures in the 19th C, material cultures, and the work of preservation. Further, given the centennial years of World War I, papers offering new examinations of Wharton’s relationship to the war are particularly invited. Proposals might also explore Wharton’s work in the context of such figures as Teddy Roosevelt and Henry Adams or Wharton’s work in relation to that of her contemporaries, such as Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Nella Larsen, Anita Loos, Henry James, and more. All theoretical approaches are welcome, including feminist, psychoanalytic, historicist, Marxist, queer studies, affective studies, disability studies, and ecocritical perspectives.

We plan to organize paper sessions, roundtables, and panel presentations. In addition, there will be a keynote speaker and opportunities for tours of local exhibits. Further details forthcoming at the conference website https://whartoninwashington2016.wordpress.com/.

Please submit 350-500-word abstracts and brief CV as one Word document to WhartoninWashington2016@gmail.com  by July 15, 2015.  All conference participants must be members of the Edith Wharton Society at the time of registration.

For more information about the conference, contact Conference Directors Melanie Dawson (College of William & Mary) and Jennifer Haytock (The College at Brockport, SUNY) through the conference email account.

Hijas/os de la Malinche?: Disruptions and discussions on gender and mexicanidad

Friday 13^th November 2015

UCL-Institute of the Americas, London, UK

The aim of this one-day workshop is to raise awareness within the UK of the diverse ways in which gender is lived, experienced and understood by Mexicans.  In doing so, the event contributes to the educational and cultural goals of the 2015 Year of Mexico in the UK and the UK in Mexico. The workshop has two key themes.  The first is to go beyond gendered stereotypes of Mexican peoples such as the images of the machisto chauvinist male and the submissive marianista female. Instead we want to highlight the diversity and nuance within both representations of gender and men’s and women’s actual lives.  The second theme is the transnational dimensions of gender.  This includes the experiences of indigenous peoples of Mexico, as well as migrants in Mexico and the Mexican diaspora.  Another aspect to be considered is the impact of Mexico’s colonial past, which differs greatly from the legacy of imperialism in the UK.  Throughout the day, comparisons between the two countries will be encouraged, with attention to contrasts and commonalities.

The workshop allows UK-based and Mexican scholars to share their research and create dialogue between the two countries.   We particularly encourage postgraduate students to contribute, including Mexican students living in the UK.  We also welcome participants from NGOs, charities and other interested organizations.

Each panel session will involve short presentations and a longer period for discussion; we will also require a 750 word summary to circulate beforehand.  We welcome submissions for consideration on any aspect of the theme, broadly defined, and from different academic disciplines.  We will also consider contributions in the form of posters or other mediums, such as poetry.  Contributors will have the option of being considered, where appropriate, for a special issue of the History of Women in the Americas journal (http://journals.sas.ac.uk/hwa) – a freely accessible, Open Access publication.

The event is being co-organized by the Mexican Embassy in London, SHAW (the Society for the History of Women in the Americas), the SALSA Collective (a network for UK scholars interested in latinidades across the Americas) and the UCL Institute for the Americas.  There will be no registration fee for this workshop.  For further information about the workshop or to submit a proposal, please email Dr Sinead McEneaney, sinead.mceneaney@stmarys.ac.uk.  Proposals should include contact details, an abstract of 200 words and questions for discussion (a summary of 750 words will be required four weeks before the event).  The deadline for proposals is 21^st August 2015.  We will confirm acceptance by 21^st September, although earlier consideration for international delegates may be possible.