Conferences

IASA FIRST WORLD CONGRESS: 22-24 MAY, 2003
LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS

Call For Proposals For Panels, Seminars and Roundtables
TOPIC: How Far Is America From Here?

The IASA

Founded in 2000, the International American Studies Association, the only internationally chartered association of/for Americanists from all parts of the world, defines its mission as furthering the international exchange of ideas and information among scholars from all nations and various disciplines who study and teach America regionally, hemispherically, nationally, transnationally and as a global phenomenon. For more information, please see the IASA’s website at http://iasa.la.psu.edu/

The first World Congress of the Association will be held at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 22-24 May 2003. Calls for seminar, panel and roundtable proposals follow. All presenters and participants in the Congress proceedings must be paid-up members of IASA at the time the Congress takes place. (See membership link on the IASA website for details; membership registration will also be available at the Congress.)

The Congress

University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 22-24 May 2003

Plenary Speakers: Kousar Azam, Edouard Glissant, Werner Sollors

The Program Committee hopes that the topic of the Congress, "How Far is America From Here?," will allow for a considerable range of comparative, interdisciplinary and other theoretical approaches to American nations and cultures. It is very much at the heart of this comparative agenda that "America" be considered as a hemispheric and global matter. We welcome proposals that seek to rethink the question of American identities relationally, whether the relations under discussion operate within the borders of the United States, throughout the Americas, and/or worldwide.

To this end, we will welcome proposals for seminar sessions, panels, roundtables or individual papers that seek to interrogate the topic of the Congress itself, e.g. (1) Which, whose America, when, why now, how? (2) What is meant by "far"–distance, discursive formations, ideals and ideologies, foundational narratives, political conformities, aberrations, inconsistencies? (3) Policy formations and deformations (rhetorical and otherwise); (4) Where is here–positionality, geographies, spatial compressions, hegemonic and subaltern locii, disciplinary formations, reflexes and reflexivities? It is hoped that participants will address such questions, and others, in the multiple Americas within the USA and the bi-continental western hemisphere, as part of and beyond interamerican cultural relations, ethnicities across the national and cultural plurality of America, mutual constructions of North and South, borderlands, issues of migration and diaspora. The larger contexts of globalization and America’s role within this process will be addressed within the Congress, alongside issues of geographical exploration, capital expansion, integration, transculturalism, transnationalism and global flows, pre-Columbian and contemporary Native American cultures, the Atlantic slave trade, the environmental crisis, the political and cultural implications of free trade, relationships between America and the Caribbean, varieties of language, U.S. literature in relation to Canadian or Latin American literature, religious conflict both within the Americas and between the Americas and the rest of the world, with such issues as American Zionism, exceptionalism, and the discourse of/on terror and terrorism.

Proposals are welcome from scholars working in diverse fields, including history, anthropology, and the social sciences, as well as literature, media, and culture. The Program Committee actively seeks proposals that reflect the diversity of scholarly interests and range of methodological approaches within the social sciences; we are especially interested in how the humanities and the social sciences in American studies might inform one another on common themes or subjects, and we therefore encourage proposals that bring the humanities and social sciences into juxtaposition. The Committee welcomes explorations of "America" according to such topics as: society, demography, immigration, race, ethnicity, gender, class, culture, space, landscape, the natural and the built environment, economy, technology, infrastructure, architecture, political economy, politics, policy, and planning. Participants may also like to consider the significance of the Internet and other new technologies, both as a topic in itself and as a way of presenting material. (Multimedia facilities will be available at the Congress.) In this way, the program will be constructed to allow participants to speak to each other across disciplines as well as across nationalities.

Proposals can be either for individual papers (normally 20 minutes) or for complete panels (normally 90 minutes). The Program Committee also welcomes different formats and invites proposals for roundtables on specific topics, where each speaker would offer an initial position paper (5-10 minutes) before the session is opened up to wider discussion and participation.

The Program Committee also invites proposals from those wishing to lead seminars. Such proposals should include a description of the topic and a current curriculum vitae for the seminar leader. Seminar topics should be clearly defined so as to provide the maximum benefit to participants. The IASA will advertise the seminar and register participants, with short papers being exchanged in advance to allow more time for discussion. Seminars will normally be limited to fifteen people.

Proposals for individual papers should be up to 250 words. Proposals for complete panels, roundtables or seminars should be up to 500 words, and should include the names and institutional affiliations of all participants. Please send material by 15 September 2002 [DEADLINE FOR PANEL AND PAPER PROPOSALS EXTENDED TO TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2002] to either of the Co-Chairs of the Program Committee: Lois Parkinson Zamora, Department of English, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA. E mail:.lzamora@uh.edu; Paul Giles, Department of English, Oxford University. Email: paul.giles@english.ox.ac.uk. E mail submissions are welcome.