‘Constellating Americas’
Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
Conference Dates: 17-19 August 2015
Call for Papers Extended Deadline: 15 April 2015
This resolution for the national union may seem quaint since the American flag has developed into a 50-star constellation. The scholarly field of American Studies has undergone dramatic transformation in tandem with the historical changes in the status of the US. American Studies predominantly centered on the history of that constellation has recently been “decentralize[d]” to explore the histories of those orbiting the American constellation. Transnationalism has been among the recent theoretical efforts to reconfigure and remap American Studies. Yet American Studies still remains very much within the bounds of a single constellation centering on the US. Boldly hypothesizing that the American constellation and other national constellations are orbiting one another (or is it the American constellation orbiting other national constellations?), the organisers propose to re-center American Studies on separate, parallel and/or intertwined histories of the diverse constellations. To initiate this re-centering, the organisers invite scholars from all over our earthly galaxy to engage in center-less, multi-directional exchanges. The constellations of American Studies thus created will, to borrow Walter Benjamin’s vision, configure “moments of the past into a shape with present meaning” and illuminate changes for the trans-constellational future of American Studies. Papers on any local, global, traditional and/or non-traditional aspects of American Studies are welcome. The organisers especially welcome theorization of multi-directional, trans-constellational approaches to American Studies, promoting interdisciplinary perspectives that encompass various disciplines: history, literary studies, psychology, linguistics, political sciences, educational sciences, ethnology, gender/queer studies, anthropology, and sociology. Graduate students are highly encouraged to participate.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
-Comparative American Studies
-The history of American Studies
-Temporality in American Studies
-The American presence in the world
-Constructing Americanness
-Cultural mobility, cross-cultural exchange
-Migratory networks
-Flows of people, culture, and capital
-Contact zones, communion, contamination
-Memory, identity, and representation
-Multiculturalism, transculturation, transnationalism
-Class, racial, ethnic, diasporic identities
-LGBT
-Commodities, consumerism, neoliberalism
-Piracy, refugee, bare life
-War, ethnic/racial conflict
-East and West, North and South, Old World(s)/New World(s)
-Fashion and cuisine
-WWW, SNS, new media
-Folklore, films, music, arts
-Research methods and pedagogical matters
-International American Studies
Instructions on submitting abstracts/panels:
Proposals may be submitted as individual paper proposals or as session proposals.
Individual proposals should include a 250-word abstract and a one-page CV.
Session proposals should include a 250-word proposal with title and topics for a session of three to four presentation papers. The session organizers should attach individual abstracts and CVs for all participants.
Two panel proposal CFPs are below:
Title: “Sound(ing) America: The World in American Music / American Music in the World”
(Ulfried Reichardt and Regina Schober, University of Mannheim, Germany)
Abstract:
While it is common news as well as cause for much lament that American (popular) culture, and even more conspicuously, American music have been disseminated globally and have dominated the world of popular music, certainly after WWII, what has mostly been ignored in this critique is that many traces and the immense influence of non-Western music have strongly marked music in the United States itself. US-American music, in fact, is always already “world music,” marked by stylistic pluralism and eclecticism. This is part of the reason why the modularized and highly popular music coming from the US is adapted in all corners of the globe but also why American music is often ascribed a certain degree of ‘universality.’ Our panel will investigate different musical constellations between America and other parts of the world, including the transfer of musical forms and material into the US from places and cultures around the globe or vice versa, as well as projections of ‘the global’ in American music. While the political dimension of cultural hegemony should not be neglected, we are interested in the ways in which musical forms travel globally, mix, adapt, are hybridized, and in how new forms emerge in this process.
The organisers invite papers from all disciplines and continents that focus on music and creative transfer, translation and mixing of musical forms and traditions from diverse angles such as musical form, philosophy, politics, social relations, economics, among others. Two papers by the panel organizers have already been confirmed: One on varieties of African based music in the Americas (Ulf Reichardt), and another one on the global aesthetics of postmodernist music (Regina Schober). Other topics could for example include Henry David Thoreau on sounds and Asian philosophy, George Crumb’s Black Angels as the only (US-American) piece of classical music focusing the Vietnam War, American music and Zen Buddhism, the first concert of The Rolling Stones in Shanghai in the late 1980s and its effect on Chinese pop culture, HipHop Culture in East Asia, European Jewish composers in exile in the US, the music of the Americas …. Many more topics are possible, and we are looking forward to further suggestions and ideas. To (take the transnational project of IASA into account and to) allow a high degree of exchange between the participants of the panel, we suggest a format that is somewhat different from the usual one. Instead of listening to four papers, we will have eight to ten short, yet provocative presentations, no longer than 8 to 10 minutes (at the most) that will present theses in a concise and examples in a condensed form. This will – hopefully – enable a truly inter-national and inter-cultural debate.
Please send abstracts for papers to either:
rschober@mail.uni-mannehim.de or ulfreich@mail.uni-mannheim.de
Title: “Writing and Filming the ‘Global War on Terror’”
The panel is open to any discussion of the now numerous writings (autobiographies, blogs, novels, short stories, poetry), films, and documentaries on the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, but also to analyses of the domestic repercussions of the war, the fate of war veterans, the war as seen from perspectives other than that of the U.S., the differences and similarities between previous wars (the Vietnam War in particular) and the current, both local and global, conflict. As witness, among other things, recent debates and disagreements over the Clint Eastwood movie, American Sniper, there seems to be little consensus on what might be the most effective ways of telling (or filming) the stories of these 21-st century wars. Hoping to attract interest from scholars based in different cultural, institutional, and geographical contexts, this panel wishes to move beyond what has been so far a largely US-centered debate on the merits and shortcomings of the literature and cinema of the GWT.
Please send your paper abstract to:
All proposals should be sent to the emails below by 15 April, 2015:
Submissions in English and Korean: iasaseoul@gmail.com
Submissions in French: johnson64@nd.edu
Submissions in Spanish: begona.simal@udc.es
Submissions in Portugese: anaessus@uol.com.br
The notification of acceptance will be sent individually by May 1, 2015.
Should any questions arise, contact:
Should any questions arise please do not hesitate to contact the Organizers:
iasaseoul@gmail.com
Communications concerning the logistics of the Congress:
asakorea15@gmail.com
Questions concerning submissions:
In English: iasaseoul@gmail.com
In Korean: iasaseoul@gmail.com
In French: johnson64@nd.edu
In Spanish: begona.simal@udc.es
In Portuguese: anaessus@uol.com.br
Questions concerning post-conference publications:
•Publications in RIAS: johnson64@nd.edu
•Publications in Journal of American Studies: asakjournal@gmail.com
IASA UK Representative: Professor Martin Halliwell: mrh17@le.ac.uk