DARTMOUTH COLLEGE ANNOUNCES A ONE WEEK SUMMER INSTITUTE

THE FUTURES OF AMERICAN STUDIES INSTITUTE: QUESTIONS WORTH ASKING

MONDAY, JUNE 22 – SUNDAY, JUNE 28, 2015

Director: Donald E. Pease (Dartmouth College)

Co-Directors: Colleen Boggs (Dartmouth College), Soyica Diggs Colbert (Georgetown University), Elizabeth Maddock Dillon (Northeastern University), J. Martin Favor (Dartmouth College), Winfried Fluck (Freie Universität, Berlin), Donatella Izzo (Università degli studi di Napoli “L’Orientale,”), Eric W. Lott (City University of New York, Graduate Center)

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~futures

Institute Faculty: Stephen M. Best (University of California at Berkeley), Barrymore Anthony Bogues (Brown University), Kimberly Juanita Brown (Harvard University), Hamilton Carroll (University of Leeds), hristopher Castiglia (Penn State University), Michael Chaney (Dartmouth College), Russ Castronovo (University of Wisconsin at Madison), Duncan Faherty (City University of New York, Graduate Center), Nancy Fraser (New School), Elizabeth Freeman (University of California at Davis), Christian Haines (Dartmouth College), Glenn Hendler (Fordham University), Cindi Katz (City University of New York, Graduate Center), Caroline Levander (Rice University), Heather Love (University of Pennsylvania), Lisa Lowe (Tufts University), Giorgio Mariani (Sapienza Università di Roma), Annie McClanahan (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee), Alan Nadel (University of Kentucky), Tavia Nyong’o (New York University), Heike Paul (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg), Eliza Richards (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Judith Roof (Rice University), John Carlos Rowe (University of Southern California), Ivy Schweitzer (Dartmouth College), Jonathan Senchyne (University of Wisconsin at Madison), José David Saldívar (Stanford University), Caleb Smith (Yale University), Hortense Spillers (Vanderbilt University)

Description: The eighteenth year of the Institute is the first of a five-year focus on “Questions Worth Asking.” The speakers at the 2015 Futures Institute are invited to address questions concerned with emergent, residual, and dominant formations within the field of American Studies. Each of the following questions will serve as the basis for a plenary session consisting of three invited speakers and a moderator:

* What are the strengths and limitations to the digitization of American Studies?

* What is surface reading? Why did it emerge? What are its strengths and limitations?

* How has Afro-Pessimism reconfigured African-American Studies?

* How have historical, cultural, and geo-political forces brought about changes in the periodization of American literary studies?

* How have financial speculation and state securitization influenced the mode of production of contemporary US literature?

* Why have US American literary studies scholars returned to the literatures of the Civil War at this historical conjuncture?

* What are the new directions in queer theory?

* What are the new European perspectives on Trans-Atlantic American Studies?

* What are the new directions in hemispheric and Trans-Pacific Studies?

The Institute is divided into plenary sessions that feature talks from Institute faculty and research seminars in which all participants present and discuss their own work-in-progress.

Each day of the institute begins with a morning session in which plenary speakers deliver presentations of no longer than thirty-minutes that contribute to our convoking topic. These presentations are followed by questions from the participants. After a lunch break, the Institute’s participants meet in intensive workshop groups (consisting of no more than 15 participants), each of which is led by a Co-Director of the Institute. These workshops offer those enrolled in the Institute–over one hundred scholars from a variety of disciplines and institutions–the opportunity for critical conversations about the central intellectual issues in their research.

The Institute welcomes participants who are involved in a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary interests. Their research need not be restricted to the questions organizing the plenary sessions.

The Institute was designed to provide a shared space of critical inquiry that brings the participants’ work-in-progress to the attention of a network of influential scholars. Over the past seventeen years, plenary speakers have recommended participants’ work to the leading journals and university presses within the field of American Studies, and have provided participants with recommendations and support in an increasingly competitive job market.

Fee: The fee for the Institute (covering registration, housing, and seminars) is $695.00. The fee to attend only the Institute plenary sessions is $500.

Applications: Applications for the 2015 Institute will be accepted until all slots have been filled, but applications received by May 22, 2015 will be granted priority. Applicants should send a brief description of their own projects (no more than 1 page) along with a current CV, a writing sample (10-15 pages) and a $10 application fee (please make checks payable to “Dartmouth College”).

Applications should be mailed to:

The Futures of American Studies Institute
Dartmouth College
116 Wentworth Hall
Hanover, NH 03755.

For further information, please contact:

Futures of American Studies
email: Futures.of.American.Studies@Dartmouth.EDU
url: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~futures/
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/futures.of.american.studies
phone: 603-646-3592