Studying the South: Approaches and Orientations A one-day colloquium organised by the Southern Studies in the UK Network (www.ssukn.com) 26th August 2017, University of Hertfordshire Studies of the U.S. South have radically changed across the last century, and especially so in the twenty-first. As Michael Bibler (2016) has argued recently, southern studies scholars “begin with the assumption that there’s no such thing as a solid South. We are interested in all kinds of Souths, bringing a dazzling range of theoretical approaches” to the region. This one-day colloquium will explore the variety of perspectives or “orientations” (Bibler) that open up discussion of the U.S. South today. Where historically the South has been considered as the “nation’s region” (in Leigh Ann Duck’s words), southern studies scholars see the region in smaller and larger scales and frames. The South can be read in relation to other American regions like the West or Midwest; it can be thought […]

The Apollonian Vol. 4, Issue 3 (September 2017) Special Issue on Troubled Identity and the Continuing Relevance of Cultural Studies Deadline: 1 June 2017 Guest edited by Jonathan Wright and Susan Flynn (London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London) Our increased attention with new forms of citizenship, changing social landscapes and emergent sets of social relations suggest that Cultural Studies and its analyses of cultural products must rapidly evolve in order to stay relevant.  Our visions of the future seem to be replete with fears of new social realities; new media technologies call us to question privacy, location, marginality, the ability to relate meaningfully with others, and the unequal distribution of material wealth. Are Cultural Studies equipped to deal with the theorization of these new realities? Popular culture would have us believe that traditional identity categories are undergoing profound changes; gendered norms are called into question, the structure of the conventional […]

CFP: Social Cohesion in Times of Uncertainty, 24-25 September 2017 The annual Cumberland Colloquium stimulates discussion on areas of pressing social and ethical importance. This year’s theme is ‘Social Cohesion in Times of Uncertainty’. We live in an increasingly uncertain world. In recent years we have seen a chain of overlapping and intersecting crises – from the financial crisis to the refugee crisis, the ecological crisis and the crisis of liberal democracy. These crises pull us unevenly in every direction: pressing strangers together and pulling neighbours apart, creating new forms of hate and new forms of kinship. In these uncertain times, what are the prospects for social cohesion? How do we make sense of these issues from diverse disciplinary positions and professional backgrounds, and where are the commonalities between our understandings? We welcome proposals for presentations of research papers, roundtable discussions, film screenings and other events, from both academics (of all disciplinary backgrounds) and practitioners interested in social cohesion, broadly conceived, from community volunteers to […]

Exploring Identity: Between Being and Belonging AHRC NWCDTP Postgraduate Conference 2017 Dates: 25-26 October 2017 Venue: The University of Liverpool and FACT The AHRC North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership is delighted to announce that this year’s postgraduate conference, Exploring Identity: Between Being and Belonging, will be hosted by The University of Liverpool and FACT on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th October 2017. The conference aims to bring together postgraduate researchers and academic staff in the Arts and Humanities to explore the concept of ‘identity’ from a range of interdisciplinary perspectives. Scholars, performers and creative practitioners are invited to reflect on ‘identity’, as representing a stable condition of being, a collective notion of belonging, and a continual process of becoming, in the light of current, progressively challenging contexts. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to examine the concept of ‘identity’ against this backdrop as it manifests across literature, language, and culture. We […]

Deadline for submissions: July 1, 2017 Full name/name of organization: Jody Baumgartner, editor Contact email: ABCCLIOSATIRE@GMAIL.COM Seeking contributors for ABC-CLIO’s two-volume forthcoming encyclopedia, “American Political Humor: Masters of Satire and Their Impact on U.S. Policy and Culture.” This two volume set, due out in the fall of 2019, will have a total of approximately 110 profiles, 2,000 words in length, of important individuals or media outlets (specific magazines, television shows, websites, and specific vehicles of political humor). These will be divided into 12 chronological chapters. In exchange for agreeing to contribute, all authors will have complimentary e-book access to the set and an ABC-CLIO gift card worth $100 as a token of appreciation. The complete list of the topics to be covered in the encyclopedia can be found at http://satire.jodyb.net (entries that are already “claimed” are in strike-out, italicized text). If you are interested, send an email to ABCCLIOSATIRE@GMAIL.COM listing […]

CALL FOR PAPERS Slavery’s Untold Stories in the Era of Trump and M4BL University of Liverpool, Friday 27th October 2017 We announce this call for papers at a profound and troubling moment in American life and politics. Persistent structural inequalities remain acute within healthcare, education, housing and the deeply discriminatory criminal justice system; while the M4BL has emphasized that the vulnerability of the black body remains at the very heart of the American-African experience. Historians now see the deep roots of these problems in slavery’s racialized discrimination and violent exploitation, and have recognised that the history of slavery cannot be told without taking into consideration the long and ongoing process of black emancipation. We invite researchers (postgraduate and established academics) from any discipline, as well as writers, artists and other creatives to participate in a one day workshop that aims to open up new ways of thinking about slavery and […]

CFP: North American Women and World War One (November 4 2017) The University of Worcester’s annual Women’s History Conference seeks papers for this year’s event under the heading of: ‘North American Women and World War One’.  Send an abstract of 300 words to Dr Wendy Toon w.toon@worc.ac.uk by 31 July 2017. The United States entered World War One to make the world “safe for democracy” on April 6 1917.  As in other belligerent countries, women would participate in the war effort in unprecedented ways in the twentieth century’s “war to end all wars”.  Women’s lives were affected by the conflict whether they contributed to the home front; worried about, or lost, loved ones; carried out “war work” of a host of different types; inspired patriotism and rallied public support or became involved in humanitarian organizations such as the American Red Cross, YMCA, Salvation Army and others or served in the military. In the armed services […]

One-day international workshop organised by the Invasion Network at Lancaster University, 8th September 2017. Key-note speaker: Professor Emeritus David Glover Call for Papers Deadline: 31st July 2017 Hosted by the Department of History, Lancaster University and supported by the Irish Research Council, this is the second international workshop of the Invasion Network, a group of social and cultural historians, literary scholars, and a range of other specialists and independent researchers working under the broad theme of invasion, with a particular focus on British invasion fears in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. ‘War of the Worlds: Transnational Fears of Invasion and Conflict 1870-1933’ seeks to expand this focus geographically to consider the fear of invasion as a global phenomenon and temporally to take in the period between the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1) and the rise of the German Third Reich. We invite papers that consider invasion fears in any region in which […]

Deadline for submissions: August 1, 2017 Full name/name of organization: Kevin M. Scott and Connor M. Scott Contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com Call for Paper (June 7, 2017) Oh, The Horror: Politics and Culture in Horror Films of the 1980s Kevin M Scott (Albany State University) Connor M Scott (Georgia State University) Contact email: ohthehorror80s@gmail.com In the 1980s, a decade significantly known for Ronald Reagan, the Moral Majority, and the ascendance of the corporation as an aesthetic, Hollywood recovered from and reacted to the director-centric 1970s by reasserting studio control over mainstream cinema. With notable exceptions, the films of the 1980s were constructive—supporting a neater and more optimistic view of history and American culture—as opposed to the deconstructive films of the prior decade, challenging and, often, fatalistic. A simple review of Oscar nominees for the 1980s, compared to those of the 1970s, demonstrates that the capitalistic desires of the studios aligned neatly […]

Slavery’s Untold Stories in the Era of Trump and M4BL University of Liverpool, Friday 27th October 2017 Please note: In order to ensure a healthy take-up of the postgraduate travel support we have extended the deadline for proposals to Thursday 10th August. We announce this call for papers at a profound and troubling moment in American life and politics. Persistent structural inequalities remain acute within healthcare, education, housing and the deeply discriminatory criminal justice system, while the M4BL has emphasized that the vulnerability of the black body remains at the very heart of the African-American experience. Historians now see the deep roots of these problems in slavery’s racialized discrimination and violent exploitation, and have recognised that the history of slavery cannot be told without taking into consideration the long and ongoing process of black emancipation. We invite researchers (postgraduate and established academics) from any discipline, as well as writers, artists and other […]

HOTCUS Annual Postgraduate Conference: ‘Contesting Power: Rights, Justice, and Dissent in America and Beyond’ Saturday, 21 October 2017, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge Keynote Speaker: Dr Kerry Pimblott, University of Manchester The United States has recently witnessed dissent on a scale unprecedented in recent decades.  Mass protests like the Women’s March on Washington, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and Standing Rock demonstrations, as well as the renegotiation of boundaries of free speech and minority representation on university campuses nationwide are testament to the increasingly visible forms of resistance and activism that have emerged.  As nationalist sentiment grows in the US and across western Europe, and with the prospect of major shifts in American policies in foreign relations, voting rights, immigration, labour, civil rights, education, healthcare and elsewhere, 2017 presents an important time to consider the contestation of power in modern American history, both domestically and internationally.  At present, efforts […]

The American Weird: Ecologies & Geographies (Call for Papers) “The one test of the really weird is simply this—whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers.” —H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927) “This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top.” —David Lynch, Wild at Heart (1990) For H.P. Lovecraft, the weird conveys “a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe’s utmost rim.” Taking its cue from Lovecraft’s enduringly influential conceptualization, this conference examines and broadens the notion of weirdness towards an ecology and geography of the weird as a new field of theoretical and practical resonances. What we call The American Weird comprises not only an aesthetics evoked by literary practices or films from the […]