Call for Papers – Cultural Performance in Transnational American Studies 🗓

Call for Papers – Cultural Performance in Transnational American Studies 🗓

Call for Papers

Cultural Performance in Transnational American Studies

Closing Conference of the DFG-funded research network “Cultural Performance in Transnational American Studies” (DFG # BA 3567/4-1)
June 21-23, 2018, Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
Conference organizers: Dr. Pia Wiegmink (Obama Institute) and Dr. Birgit M. Bauridl (U Regensburg)

The closing conference of this research network aims at scrutinizing the benefits and limitations of a deeper and more reflective integration of a Performance Studies approach into (transnational) American Studies. It intends to investigate how, which, and with what outcome issues that, in the wake of the transnational turn, have become central to the American Studies agenda can be addressed more adequately by the study of ‘cultural performances.’ We invite papers that zoom in on the idea of culture as a corporeal, communal, and dynamic event rather than a stable textual product and that position the local particularities of cultural performance vis-à-vis the dynamics of global mobility.

Potential paper topics could address, but are not limited to the following questions:

  • What is the role and impact of ‘cultural performances’ such as daily rituals, festive occasions, or theatrical events in transnational contact zones, i.e., sites in which cultures meet, grapple with each other?
  • How can cultural performances in contact zones become expressions and negotiations of processes of transnational cultural entanglement?
  • How can cultural performance act as a platform in which diverse and possibly competing (national) identities and cultural belongings are negotiated and experienced by a community?
  • How can ‘cultural performance’ serve as a methodological perspective and thus help understand questions posed by transnational American Studies? I.e. how can ‘cultural performance’ be possibly used as a tool for the analysis of both contemporary transnational processes and historical forms of global mobility and what are its methodological challenges, solutions, and limitations?
  • (How) Does the corporeality, physicality, presence, interaction, and communal character of cultural performance enhance, complicate, or change our perspective on transnational contact zones ranging from immediate local encounters to supposedly immaterial and anonymous global processes and digital environments?
  • How does the study of cultural performance complement and possibly expand prevalent (transnational) American Studies discourses on, for example, affect, corporeality, memory, public (vs. private) space, dissent and cultural resistance, cosmopolitanism, urbanity (vs. rurality), environment and ecology, cultural imperialism, neoliberalism, diasporic identities, social media, tourism, sonic cultures, food cultures, etc.?

Confirmed keynote speakers are Denise Uyehara (performance artist) and Prof. Dr. Werner Sollors (Harvard). Active members of the research network will present on and discuss the topic together with further confirmed speakers Prof. Dr. Ben Chappell (University of Kansas), Prof. Dr. Celeste-Marie Bernier (University of Edinburgh). 
Please send your short abstract (<300 words) and a short CV (300 words) including your email, address, and affiliation to Birgit M. Bauridl and Pia Wiegmink at culturalperformancenetwork@gmail.com by March 1, 2018.

 

The American Short Story: New Horizons

The American Short Story: New Horizons

Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany

October 5-7, 2017

Throughout its history, the American short story has been praised either as a highly polished gem or condemned as literary fast food. Despite such rise-and-fall predictions, the short story has always been a demanding form. Its narrative economy in terms of time and space records decisive, intimate moments of life that give the American Short Story a broad social resonance. As such, the short story offers a vibrant field of research. There is a renaissance in progress not only in terms of the short story’s productivity but also in terms of innovative theoretical questions. The current state of research is, however, probably best described as “ripening.”

The conference “The American Short Story: New Horizons” invites both panels and papers that address fresh and original questions relevant to studying the American short story. The conference thus seeks to explore the American short story as a coming together of the enduring narrative practice of compression and concision in American literature, presently culminating in a digital culture in which brevity rules.

The keynote lecture “The Short Story and the Census” will be held by Dr. Kasia Boddy (University of Cambridge, UK)

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Doctoral Fellowships in Medicine and the Humanities

Doctoral Fellowships in Medicine and the Humanities

The newly founded research training group “Life Sciences – Life Writing” (GRK 2015/1), starting April 1, 2017, is advertising Doctoral Fellowships in Medicine and the Humanities (m/f), Reference 797/16. As part of the German Research Foundation (DFG) funded research training group “Life Sciences, Life Writing: Experiences at the Boundaries of Human Life between Biomedical Explanation and Lived Experience” (GRK 2015/1), the University of Mainz and the Mainz University Clinic are jointly inviting applications for 3 doctoral fellowships.

At the intersection of biomedicine, individual and society, experiences at the boundaries of human life arise which pertain to the entire human life span, from technologically assisted reproduction to end-of-life decisions accompanied by intensive care. These experience at the boundaries of human life confront both biomedicine and the humanities with the necessity of reassessing their established approaches to problem solving and definitions of agency, and require an interdisciplinary dialogue.

Therefore, we invite doctoral students from a disciplinary background in

  • History of Medicine and Science
  • Theory of Medicine and Science, particularly with a focus on Science and Technology Studies (STS)
  • Ethics of Medicine, Ethics and Theory of Action;
  • American Studies with a focus on literature and culture studies, particularly Early American Studies, North-American history, Transnational American Studies, Medical Humanities, Disability Studies

to apply for one of the doctoral fellowships.

Our interdisciplinary research training group provides you with the opportunity to bring your skills and competencies to a structured doctoral program based on interdisciplinary dialogue.

 

Your tasks:

  • Developing an independent dissertation project within the framework of overarching questions explored by the research training group
  • Active involvement in the development of the research and training program of the group
  • Participation in interdisciplinary publication projects and co-authoring publications with other members of the research training group Presenting your research at interdisciplinary conferences

 

Your profile:

  • An excellent MSc, MA or equivalent in the area of life sciences or the humanities, alternatively an outstanding course performance in medicine
  • Academic curiosity and the willingness to work in an interdisciplinary team with other young researchers
  • A keen interest in working in an international team of doctoral students and in immersing yourself in a disciplinary framework
  • complementary to your own (humanities/cultural studies or natural sciences/medicine)
  • At least one first-authored manuscript in a top-tier journal
  • An excellent knowledge of English

 

We offer:

  • An interdisciplinary platform for exploring experiences at the boundaries of human life between biomedical explanation an the dimension of lived experience
  • Co-supervision of your dissertation project by outstanding faculty from the natural sciences/medicine and the humanities
  • An excellent possibility of transferring the skills and competences gained in the research training group to a great variety of other
  • fields and disciplines
  • The possibility of earning a doctoral degree in medicine, American studies, philosophy, history, cultural anthropology,
  • pharmaceutical biology and molecular biology
  • The opportunity to conduct your dissertation research in cooperation with outstanding international researchers from Europe,
  • The US, Australia and Asia
  • Excellent employment opportunities in academic and non-academic areas based on your research of current and highly relevant
  • topics
  • Financially attractive fellowships as well as additional pension and social security benefits
  • Excellent development and training opportunities
  • Part-time and full-time employment
  • Childcare facilities: depending on availability
  • Work-related tickets for public transport as well as good transport connections

 

Your contact person for academic questions are the speaker of the research training group:

Univ.-Prof. Dr. Norbert W. Paul, Tel.: 0049-(0)6131 179545 and Univ.-Prof. Dr. Mita Banerjee, Tel.: 0049-(0)6131 3922250.

 

Closing date: January 20, 2017

Send your application, including a cover letter, CV, credentials, exposé of the planned project (1-2 pages), motivational letter (1-2 pages), reference letters by two academic instructors, and referring to job opening 797/16 to karriere@unimedizin-mainz.de (only by e-mail, ideally as a single PDF file).

The University Medical Center is an equal opportunity employer.

Call for Papers: From Abolition to Black Lives Matter: Past and Present Forms of Transnational Black Resistance

October 26-28, 2017, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany. 

Conference organizers: Nele Sawallisch, Johanna Seibert, Pia Wiegmink, Frank Obenland

This conference hosted by the Transnational American Studies Institute aims at assessing and theorizing past and present forms of black intellectual, political, and cultural resistance from the era of abolitionist campaigns against the transatlantic slave trade to the recent global protest formation of Black Lives Matter.

Protests against racial discrimination, inequality, poverty, and injustice not only pervade (North) American history but span the globe and cross – oftentimes multiple – borders. Building on the recent transnational turn in American Studies and de-centering American Studies’ focus on the nation as the prime focus of analysis, this workshop invites papers that trace the Atlantic routes/roots (Gilroy), the diasporic and global trajectories, as well as the movement, circulation, and dissemination of past and present forms and ideas of black resistance. The conference aims at discussing the transnational dimension of various forms of resistance that are often embedded in larger social movements such as the anti-slavery, the anti-lynching, the Civil Rights, Black Power, Anti-Apartheid, the Global Justice, the Prison Abolition, or the Black Lives Matter movements. Investigating the transatlantic significance of these movements, this conference will also address how collective or individual acts of resistance are articulated and represented in print, performance, visual art, or other media.

How do we conceptualize the connections between past and present forms of transnational black resistance? How does this relationship between the past and the present shape existing notions of resistance? How did national movements for black equality and justice impact as well as intersect with national and international forms of protest? How do forms of black resistance initiate ways to re-think forms of protest and activism outside the United States? How do protest movements intersect with scholarly and intellectual pursuits in academia? What role have different media played in and for black resistance movements throughout the centuries not only in national but also international contexts? How have the digital world and global social media changed previous forms of transnational black resistance? What could be possible trajectories of movements such as Black Lives Matter in the face of the 2016 Presidential election in the United States? How can scholars and activists collaborate in articulating critical interventions in ongoing political discussions?

Confirmed keynote speaker: Prof. Charmaine Nelson, Professor of Art History, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

We invite contributions from all disciplines, e.g. history, literary and cultural studies, visual culture/art history, political science, sociology. Potential paper topics could include, but are not limited to:

  • transnational routes of political/social activism and cultural resistance/protest cultures
  • transnational black intellectual histories of racial equality and justice
  • methodological and conceptual perspectives that bring together approaches from transnational American Studies with African American and Black Diaspora Studies
  • intersectional approaches to the study of black resistance with regard to class, gender, age, nationality, religion, etc.
  • the role of women in and for black resistance movements
  • Black literatures of protest and resistance
  • Black resistance and cultures of performance, transnational aesthetics of protest
  • Black resistance and popular culture, Black resistance and global (social) media
  • Intersection of popular resistance movements and academic interventions in political discourse

Please send you paper proposal (max. 300 words) and a short bio (150 words) by January 31, 2017 to sawallis@uni-mainz.de

Call for Papers: The American Short Story – New Horizons

Call for Papers

In cooperation with

the Society for the Study of the American Short Story,

the American Literature Association, and the Obama Institute

The American Short Story: New Horizons

Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany

October 5-7, 2017

Program coordinator: Oliver Scheiding

Organizing Committee:

James Nagel, Olivia Edenfield, Elke D’hoker,

Jochen Achilles, Dustin Anderson, Damien Schlarb

Throughout its history, the American short story has been praised either as a highly polished gem or condemned as literary fast food. Despite such rise-and-fall predictions, the short story has always been a demanding form. Its narrative economy in terms of time and space records decisive, intimate moments of life that give the American Short Story a broad social resonance. As such, the short story offers a vibrant field of research. There is a renaissance in progress not only in terms of the short story’s productivity but also in terms of innovative theoretical questions. The current state of research is, however, probably best described as “ripening.”

The conference “The American Short Story: New Horizons” invites both panels and papers that address fresh and original questions relevant to studying the American short story: how the genre works as performance in itself; how it conveys a theory of culture in which aesthetic structures and the presentation of cultural problematics interrelate; how the short story and the practices of text-making are related to the cultures of print in which textual circulation and economic exchange are homologues; how we can read the short story as an expressive form alongside its material dimensions, its vitality of forms (i.e., short-short fiction, flash fiction), and the multiple meanings of such concepts as authorship and genre; how we can reassess the short story as a field to map out exchanges not just among authors, but also among editors, publishers, reviewers, readers, and the physical text, with its advertisements, illustrations, and editorial changes. The conference thus seeks to explore the American short story as a coming together of the enduring narrative practice of compression and concision in American literature, presently culminating in a digital culture in which brevity rules.

Suggested Topics:

  • History of the American Short Story
  • American Short Story and Ethnicity
  • Gender/Sexuality Studies and the American Short Story
  • American Short Story and Literary/Cultural Theory
  • American Short Story and Linguistics
  • American Short Story and Psychology
  • American Short Story and Religion
  • Early Short Narratives prior to 1800
  • American Short Story and Periodicals
  • American Short Story and Graphic Narratives
  • American Short Story and Print Culture/Material Culture
  • American Short Story and Translation/Translators
  • American Short Story and Storytelling
  • New and old Forms: Short and Short-Short Stories
  • American Short Story Cycles
  • The American Short Story and Life Writing
  • American Short Stories and Authors
  • Flash Fiction and Microfiction
  • American Short Story and Visual Arts/Film
  • American Short Story and Digital Research
  • American Short Story and the Digital Age
  • American Short Stories and Globalization
  • American Short Stories and Transnationalism
  • American Short Stories and Medical Humanities
  • American Short Story and Literary Periodization/Movements
  • American Short Story and MFA Programs
  • American Short Story and Music/Theater
  • Editing and Anthologizing the American Short Story
  • Publishing and Reception of the American Short Story
  • American Short Story and Pedagogy
  • American Short Story and Genres (Novel, Novella, Essay etc.)
  • New Literary Histories on American Short Stories (1980s to the Present)

Proposals:

Panels and roundtables have three presenters, although some may have more. Proposals for pre-arranged panels should include a 250-300-word description of the topic and full contact information for all members of the group. The person submitting the proposal is the chair of the session. He or she may also be a presenter, but need not be.

All persons wishing to give a paper at the conference, including all members of pre-arranged panels, should give a one-paragraph abstract of the paper to be presented along with a biographical paragraph giving the credentials of the presenter to address this topic. Individual papers should be scheduled for 20 minutes.

The organizing committee screens all proposals and abstracts, issues acceptances, and arranges the presentations on the program.  It will form panels to accommodate papers not included in pre-arranged groups.

Please submit all proposals and abstracts to Oliver Scheiding (scheiding@uni-mainz.de) by June 30, 2017.

CfP: “The American Short Story: An Expansion of the Genre” Symposium, Oct. 20-22, 2016

CALL FOR PAPERS

The American Short Story: An Expansion of the Genre

A Symposium of the American Literature Association organized by

The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS)

October 20-22, 2016

Hyatt Hotel, Savannah, GA

The Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS) requests proposals for papers and presentations at an international symposium on the short story to be held in Savannah, October 20-22, 2016, at the Hyatt Hotel.

Proposals need be only a single page with one paragraph that describes the subject of the paper and another that gives the credentials of the speaker. In addition to traditional panels, the symposium will also hold discussion forums, seminar conversations, and roundtable sessions. Creative writers are also invited to present work in progress. All papers will also be considered for publication in the first volume of the new Society journal scheduled to appear in 2018.

A central focus of the symposium will be the expansion of the genre through the discovery of new writers from all racial and ethnic groups, the development of innovative types of stories (flash fiction, micro-fiction, and other forms), the recovery of fiction published in languages other than English, and the reconsideration of the contributions of other writers to the expansion of the genre. Close readings of stories by any American author are appropriate as are broad discussions of historical periods and movements. Examinations of the contributions of minority authors are especially welcome as are explorations of stories originally written in languages other than English.

The Savannah symposium will be followed a year later by an international conference in Germany, October 26-29, 2017, directed by Professor Oliver Scheiding, University of Mainz. More details about this event will be posted on the society website late in 2016.Please send all proposals and program suggestions for the Savannah symposium to the president of the society, Jim Nagel, at jnagel@uga.edu.

Deadline for proposals: July 1, 2016

Dowload the full CfP here.