ASA 2013 Panel: Slavery, Trafficking, and Criminalization; abstract deadline Jan. 19

full name / name of organization: 
Lyndsey Beutin / American Studies Assoc.
contact email: 

ASA Panel, CFP: Slavery, Trafficking, and Criminalization

American Studies Annual Meeting, "Beyond the Logic of Debt, Toward an Ethics of Collective Dissent"
November 21-24, 2013, Washington, DC
Abstract deadline: Jan. 19 to Lbeutin@asc.upenn.edu

This panel will critique the "modern-day slavery" initiatives of the US state by offering structural analysis and historical context. I am particularly interested in bringing together scholars who research criminalization, prisons, farmwork, migrant laborers, and US trade policies. Scholars who work in these areas, but have not explored the topic alongside contemporary human trafficking, are encouraged to participate. The goal of the panel will be to juxtapose area expertise and workshop its application to contemporary human trafficking collaboratively with other presenters and the audience. Scholars already working on historicizing human trafficking are also encouraged to submit.

My research analyzes the visual and rhetorical culture of social movements that use the metaphor of slavery in their organizing. I aim to advance this study by developing and applying a broader "reparations framework for thinking" (Thomas, 2011) to argue that metaphors of slavery threaten to "strategically minimize" (Quirk, 2011) the memory of US plantation slavery and its legacies.

If interested in participating, please email Lyndsey Beutin at Lbeutin@asc.upenn.edu a 300-500 word abstract and short bio with affiliation, no later than Sat, Jan. 19. The panel will be a "talk" format, which means full papers will be submitted to the chair, but presentations will be more discussion-oriented.

Many thanks,
Lyndsey