theory

November 12th, 2011
Keynote: Professor Liam Kennedy (University College Dublin)

The British Association of American Studies (BAAS) welcomes papers for its annual postgraduate conference, to be held at the University of Birmingham on November 12th, 2011.

The general theme of the conference is 'American Frontiers'. The notion of the frontier has permeated the history of the United States, from colonial expansion to the optimistic rhetoric of the Kennedy administration. Moreover, the meaning of 'America' and its place within the world has been a site of ongoing negotiation in geographic, political, economic, military, intellectual and cultural terms.

Aesthetics / Class / Worlds
Keynote Speakers: Eric Cazdyn and Kristin Ross
2nd Annual Conference of the Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature Department at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
October 14-15, 2011

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The Preservation of Place: Regionalism and Ecological Conservation

"We seek the balance between cosmopolitan pluralism and deep local consciousness. We are asking how the whole human race can regain self-determination in place after centuries of having been disenfranchised by hierarchy and/or centralized power" (Gary Snyder, "The Place, the Region, and the Commons").

"And so I look upon the sort of regionalism that I am talking about not just as a recurrent literary phenomenon, but as a necessity of civilization and survival" (Wendell Berry, "The Regional Motive").

CFP : Cyborg in Cinema

The online journal 'Jura Gentium Cinema' (www.jgcinema.com) is seeking articles (3,000-4,000 words) for a special issue on 'Cyborg in Cinema.'

Contemporary women's writing continues to be preoccupied with and influenced by conceptualisations of time and space, both as separate and as inherently interconnected concepts. At the turn of themillennium, it is inevitable that feminist theory, politics and practice are increasingly interested in the relationships between past, present and future,
and at the same time they have also become more global and diversified in their focus. This event seeks to explore the ways in which contemporary women writers – through fiction and non-fiction, short story and poetry, drama and critical theory – engage with and conceptualise notions of time and space in their work. Topics may include but are by no means limited to: