Neoliberalism and American Literature

Posted on by Catherine Gander

20-21 February 2015

 

Clinton Institute for American Studies

University College Dublin

 

Speakers include:

Elizabeth Maddock Dillon (Northeastern University)

Liam Kennedy (University College Dublin)

Walter Benn Michaels (University of Illinois at Chicago)

Donald Pease (Dartmouth College)

Stephen Shapiro (Warwick University)

 

How has American literature responded to the political, economic and cultural dominance of neoliberalism? What does neoliberalism mean for practices of writing, reading, and selling books? This conference will focus on the production, form and consumption of literature under conditions of neoliberalism.

We invite proposals for conference presentations – individual papers and panels. Conference themes will include, but will not be limited to:

  • The historical roots and routes of neoliberalism’s influence on American literature
  • The relationship between neoliberalism and literary form
  • How ideologies of choice, precarity, rationalization and privatization shape literary representation
  • The techniques authors have used to critique neoliberal values
  • Activist literary practices and poetics
  • New technologies of literary production and consumption
  • The compatibility of literary aesthetics with free market capitalism
  • Visions of social transformation in American literature
  • The presence of class in literary and critical analyses of the neoliberal present
  • The role of economics in literary theory and criticism

 

Brief abstracts (200 words) plus a short biographical statement should be sent to Catherine Carey at Catherine.Carey@ucd.ie by 17th November 2014.

The conference will take place at the UCD Clinton Institute for American Studies. Our website will feature further details about the conference, see www.ucdclinton.ie

G(u)ilt and Glitter: Burlesque and Economic Crisis in Ireland

Posted on by Jennifer Daly

Registration now open at http://dppskillnet.ie/index.php/event-registration/?ee=78, or see the event’s Facebook page

A one-day symposium in Boston College Dublin on 5 September 2014, with contributions from both interested academics and practitioners of the art form (including performers, designers, musicians and producers). The purpose of this symposium is to explore the growth, current strength and history of this art in Ireland from the perspectives of
— culture and influence,
— history,
— gender, identity and society
— aesthetics (including staging, design, costuming and performance styles)
— music
We are particularly interested in encouraging exploration of these themes from the perspective of the recession in Ireland, arguably mirroring the development and innovation of the art form in the US of the 1930s. Throughout and in the wake of the Celtic Tiger, Irish society has undergone a period of rapid change, both positive and negative. Questions of gender and sexuality have become particularly entangled with themes of economic struggle and renewal. Burlesque offers a creative space within which to explore renegotiations of cultural, economic and sexual power bases. The relationship between opulence and austerity, the transgressive performances of class and gender and the exploration of notions of morality, sin and pleasure on the burlesque stage situate the art in a relationship of exchange with concepts of economic guilt and illusions of plenty, hence the title of the symposium.
The symposium will be composed of three to four panels, each a combination of academic and practitioner perspectives, culminating in a roundtable to include Dr Claire Nally, from Northumbria University, Phil T Gorgeous, a performer from Dublin, and Sarah Cleary of Trinity College Dublin. Topics for discussion might include the response of burlesque to changing social norms, particularly the relatively rapid pace of change in social perspectives on gender and same-sex issues; the history of burlesque in Ireland; the culture of experimentation in performative gender modes, including various forms of transvestism; the major artistic influences on the Dublin scene; the conjunction of self-declared “feminist”/”postfeminist”/“non-feminist” identities on the scene and the challenges for gender and identity in a changing Irish culture, among others.
This symposium will function at a nexus of interdisciplinary interests, including literary representation, gender and cultural studies, media studies, sociology and history, music and theatre/performance studies, combining academic discourse, practice-oriented discussion and performance. As a form of community engagement, collaboration with the practitioner community offers benefits to both interested academics and those practitioners seeking to raise awareness of the history and culture surrounding burlesque and neo-burlesque, as well as fostering a longer-term process of engagement with this art form and its growing contribution to the cultural identity of Ireland.

With thanks to Boston College, the Humanities Institute and the Irish Association for American Studies for their generous support.
Further information here

Questions should be sent to clare.hayes-brady@ucd.ie

CFP: American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association Annual Conference 2015

Posted on by Catherine Gander

American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association Annual Conference 2015

Call for Papers

The forty-first annual conference of the American Politics Group of the Political Studies Association will be held at Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester (UK) from 4-6 January 2015.

Papers or panel proposals examining contemporary US political institutions or processes, foreign policy issues or political history are invited. The conference organizers would also welcome papers addressing comparative themes or relevant theoretical or methodological issues. Proposals (no more than 150 words for single papers, 300 words for panels) should be sent to Dr Steve Hurst (s.hurst@mmu.ac.uk) by no later than 30 October 2014.

The APG is the leading scholarly association for the study of US politics in the UK and also has members in continental Europe and the USA. Further details about the group and its activities can be found on the APG website.

Full details of the conference will also be posted on the website. In the meantime any enquiries should be directed to the Chair of the APG, Dr Steve Hurst.

 

CFP: The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society 2015 Conference

Posted on by Catherine Gander

The 13th International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Conference, July 4-11th, 2015, “Gaelicly yours, Scott Fitzgerald”

Gaelicly yours, Scott Fitzgerald The 13th International F. Scott Fitzgerald Society Conference: July 4-11th, 2015 in Dublin and Waterford, Ireland

From Hemingway’s description of his friend’s “very fair wavy hair, a high forehead, excited and friendly eyes and a delicate long-lipped Irish mouth” in A Moveable Feast to his signature in The Crack-Up, “Gaelicly yours, Scott Fitzgerald” [sic], the literary world of F. Scott Fitzgerald is suffused with a Nostalgic Ireland. From the Irish Melodies to Dick’s “Irish face” in Tender is the Night; the Irish girls, Tammany politics, and the Irish problem, and Anthony and Geraldine’s conversation over Chevalier in The Beautiful and Damned; Pat Brady or Katherine Moore in The Last Tycoon; to Monsignor Darcy and Beatrice Blaine in This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s novels, short stories, and essays are populated with the remnants of an elusive Ireland. With that in mind, we invite you to visit one of the places that marks a clear yet underexplored legacy on Fitzgerald’s creativity and personality.

While we will happily entertain proposals on all aspects of Fitzgerald’s life and work, due to the location, we particularly encourage papers that focus on the Irish influences on or aspects of his writing and career. Those wide-ranging topics might focus on the named Irish elements or characters from stories like “Benediction” to “Babylon Revisited”, or interrogate his treatment of traditional Irish and Irish-American tropes (i.e., Religious Ritual and Moral Authority, Catholicism, Alcoholism, Social Mobility and Discrimination, Cultural Heritage, Irish Politics) in short and full-length fiction. Other possible topics might focus on the legacy, influence, and interaction between Fitzgerald and Irish authors such as James Joyce (who both occupy an interesting connection as Modernist expatriates in Paris), Shane Leslie, or Lennox Robinson (who he worked with while drafting The Romantic Egotist and The Beautiful and Damned, respectively); or Fitzgerald’s influence on Irish and Irish-American authors (such as Ross MacDonald, John O’Hara, or Raymond Chandler). We are also hoping to receive proposals that might explore connections between Zelda and Lucia Joyce (both were patients at the Zürich Burghölzli hospital at virtually the same time).

Conference events will begin with two days in Dublin before moving to our host university, Waterford Institute of Technology. Waterford, located in Munster province, is Ireland’s oldest and 5th most populous locale at nearly 47,000 residents, and is the main city of the South-Eastern Region. Although not a huge city, Waterford has a number of intellectual and cultural venues, such as the three Museums of the Viking Triangle, including Reginald’s Tower (the oldest urban civic building in Ireland); Christchurch Cathedral; Greyfriars Municipal Art Gallery; the historic Catholic seminary, St. John’s College, the Theatre Royal and Garter Lane Arts Centre; and, most famously, Waterford Crystal. Conference participants will also have the opportunity to visit the nearby John F. Kennedy Trust at the Irish America Hall of Fame, and the Irish Emigration Experience at the Dunbrody Famine Ship museum.

The conference director will be Prof. Dustin Anderson of Georgia Southern University (danderson@georgiasouthern.edu), with co-program chairs Prof. William Blazek (blazekw@hope.ac.uk) and Philip McGowan (philip.mcgowan@qub.ac.uk).

Please send your 250‐500 word proposal (noting any audio/visual requests) along with a brief C.V. and biographical statement to our official conference email, fsfinireland@gmail.com. The deadline for proposals is October 1, 2014. Presenters will be notified of acceptance by November 1, 2014.

cfp categories: 
american
cultural_studies_and_historical_approaches
ethnicity_and_national_identity
general_announcements
international_conferences
modernist studies
popular_culture
twentieth_century_and_beyond

Lecturer in Latin American Cultural Studies

Posted on by Catherine Gander
Lecturer Vacancy at the University of Manchester
Closing date : 13/07/2014
Reference : HUM-04739
Faculty / Organisational unit : Humanities
School / Directorate : School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
Division : Language Based Area Studies
Employment type : Permanent
Location : Oxford Road, Manchester
Salary : £33,562 to £46,400 per annum
Hours per week : Full Time

We welcome applications from candidates working on any aspect of Latin American culture. However, due to existing expertise within the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, preference may be given to applicants who are not Southern Cone specialists.

You must have a PhD in a relevant field, submitted or very near completion, and demonstrable teaching experience in Latin American cultural studies at university level. You must be fluent in Spanish, as some involvement in the language teaching activities of the department will be non-negotiable. Experience of assessing undergraduate work in Spanish as a foreign language, including translation, and experience of developing online teaching materials is highly desirable. You must have excellent interpersonal skills and be able to empathize with students.

Informal enquiries

Informal enquiries can be made to Professor Karl Posso.  Email: karl.posso@manchester.ac.uk

The University of Manchester values a diverse workforce and welcomes applications from all sections of the community.

Americanist vacancy: Assistant Professor

Posted on by Catherine Gander

Position: Assistant Professor at the Department of American and Canadian Studies of the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures

Place: at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

Starting date: 1st October 2014

Formal requirements:

1)    Ph.D. in English obtained in the European Union or in an English-speaking country;

2)    Lack of contra-indications to work as an academic teacher and researcher;

Substantive requirements:

3)    Fluent command of Spanish and English, confirmed by the academic degree, allowing the Candidate to teach Americanist subjects at the B.A. and M.A. level, to direct B.A. and M.A. degree dissertations and to publish texts of superb quality in Americanist periodicals and monographs in Poland and outside of Poland. In the case of Candidates for whom one of the two languages is their native language, only an academic degree confirming the fluent command of the other language is required;

4)    At least a Ph.D. degree in the area of studies in the literatures/cultures of the Spanish-speaking ethnic groups in the United States and/or Canada and/or cultures of the Mexican-US border;

5)    Documented academic achievement especially in the following areas:

•    studies in the literatures/cultures of the Spanish-speaking ethnic groups in the United States and/or Canada;
•    North-American border studies;
•    comparative studies in the area of ethnic literatures in the United States;

6)    Documented participation in Americanist conferences, congresses and other academic events related to the study of the North American cultures;

7)    Experience in the organization of intra- and/or international conferences

Lecturer in Early American History

Posted on by Catherine Gander

CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES

Lecturer in Early American History Full Time 1.0FTE Fixed term for 2 years

Reference: FAH0398

£30,728 to £35,597 per annum

Applications are invited for the post of Lecturer in Early American History.  The successful candidate will have an active research profile in American History before 1865.  They will be a dynamic teacher with a sound understanding of issues relating to learning, teaching and pastoral care in a university environment.  They will contribute to the delivery of modules currently offered in the American Studies programme, which has particular strengths in African American, Native American, and social and cultural history, as well as foreign relations, and contemporary politics and literature.  The post holder will also have the opportunity to develop new modules based on their research interests, and will demonstrate the ability to work within an inter-disciplinary and team-based context.

The successful candidate will have a PhD or be close to completion, and will demonstrate, to a degree appropriate to the stage of their career, the potential to make a significant contribution to the research culture of the School of Humanities.  Applicants with research expertise in the history of race relations are especially encouraged to apply.

For further details and to apply online please visit www.canterbury.ac.uk. 

Informal enquiries to Dr Sam Hitchmough, Programme Director, American Studies, (sam.hitchmough@canterbury.ac.uk).

If you experience any issues during the application process, please contact  Tel: 01227 782514 or e-mail: hr@canterbury.ac.uk quoting reference number FAH0398. No agencies.

Closing Date: Thursday 3 July 2014 Interviews to be held week commencing 21 July 2014

Lecturer in Modern American History

Posted on by Catherine Gander
University of Reading – History

Start date: 1 September 2014

Interview date: TBC

Post type: Fixed-term for 12 months until 31 August 2015

The Department of History seeks to appoint a Lecturer in Modern American History to provide teaching on our undergraduate degree programme and contribute, as appropriate, to our postgraduate provision.

The successful candidate will teach at all levels of the undergraduate curriculum (Parts I to III) and undertake associated examination duties. In particular, the successful candidate will deliver a Part II Period (survey) module covering modern American history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,  a Part III Topic module, and a Part III Special Subject on an area of her/his own specialism. The candidate will also supervise undergraduate dissertations; deliver lectures on the Part I Landmarks module, and contribute to the MA (Res) in History as appropriate.

You will have:

  • A PhD in modern American history, or an associated subject
  • Teaching experience at undergraduate level
  • Good organisational and administrative skills
  • An ability to work effectively with colleagues and students

Informal contact details Contact role: Head of Department Contact name: Prof. David Stack Contact phone: +44 (0)118 378 8149 Contact email: d.a.stack@reading.ac.uk

Alternative informal contact details Contact role: Associate Professor in American History Contact name: Dr Emily West Contact phone: +44 (0)118 378 5376 Contact email: e.r.west@reading.ac.uk

To formally apply please visit www.reading.ac.uk/jobs or contact Human Resources, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 217, Reading RG6 6AH. Telephone +44(0)118 378 6771 (voicemail)

Elizabeth Bishop’s Questions of Travel: Fifty Years After

Posted on by Catherine Gander
 CALL FOR PAPERS.

An international conference on Elizabeth Bishop’s writing hosted by the University of Sheffield

Elizabeth Bishop’s Questions of Travel: Fifty Years After

25-27 June 2015, Sheffield, UK

Confirmed plenary speakers: Professor Stephen Burt (Harvard University), Professor Deryn Rees-Jones (University of Liverpool) and Professor Linda Anderson (Newcastle University)

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Elizabeth Bishop’s third collection of poems, Questions of Travel (1965), and the importance of Bishop as a major influence on British and Irish contemporary poets, the University of Sheffield is pleased to host this international conference on her work in June 2015.

The aim of the conference is to look at Bishop as an international writer with allegiances to various countries and national traditions, including but not limited to the countries she lived in and felt at home. How does Bishop move between literal geographies like Brazil and Canada but also more slippery categories like home and elsewhere, human and animal, insider and outsider. While the focus of the conference will naturally fall on Questions of Travel, we welcome papers on all aspects and periods of Bishop’s career, from her early writing in the 1930s to the late poems finished after Geography III in the late 1970s and those works published after her death.

We are also interested in how Bishop’s writing has itself travelled elsewhere and what Bishop sounds like in other cultures, languages and traditions. John Ashbery famously called Bishop “a writer’s writer’s writer.” This conference will consider which writers mattered to Bishop and which contemporary writers have taken Bishop home with them.

Topics may include but are not limited to the following:

  • The place of Questions of Travel within the Bishop canon
  • Bishop’s Brazil/Brasil’s Bishop
  • The meaning of “Elsewhere”
  • Bishop’s dedications
  • Bishop’s questions
  • Bishop’s sense of humour
  • Bishop’s animal poems
  • Bishop as a correspondent
  • Bishop as a translator
  • Bishop as a travel writer
  • Bishop and visual art
  • Bishop and the Cold War
  • Bishop’s influence today

We encourage proposals from anyone with an interest in Bishop’s art and life, including established scholars, graduate students and creative writers.

Proposals for 20-minute papers (maximum 300 word abstracts, plus a short biographical note of no more than 50 words) are due by 15 December 2014, and should be sent to EB50@sheffield.ac.uk. Panel proposals (comprised of 3 paper proposals, plus an additional 250 words explaining how the papers are linked in addressing the theme) are also welcome.

In addition to academic papers, the conference will include at least two poetry readings, a wine tasting and a conference dinner. 

For more details, please visit the official website.