CFP "Contact: The Sovereign Body and Realized Zones of Community in American Literature," Santa Barbara, CA, April 23rd 2016

full name / name of organization: 
American Cultures and Global Contexts Center, UCSB English Department
contact email: 

UCSB's American Cultures and Global Contexts Center Presents:
"Contact: The Sovereign Body and Realized Zones of Community"
Conference Date: April 23rd, 2016 at UC Santa Barbara
Proposal Due Date: January 24th, 2016

The 2016 American Cultures and Global Contexts center presents the topic of the sovereign body in United States literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. We invite proposals for papers, panels, and art pieces for our annual conference, titled "Contact: The Sovereign Body and Realized Zones of Community," to be held on April 23rd, 2016.

Conference organizers invite graduate students from the Humanities and Social Sciences to weigh in on the challenges and possibilities of sovereignty and autonomy, and in particular on the role of affect, contact, and touch in literature. We invite papers, roundtable discussions, and art pieces that engage with United States literature and culture, with an emphasis on the role of the body in politics, society, and art.

Presentation topics may include, but are not limited to:
 Depictions of the body in United States literature
 Trials and problems in the path of sovereignty and autonomy
 The body in social media
 United States communities and borders
 Creative acts and social justice
 Commodification of the body
 Intersections of violence and identity
 Biopolitics of race
 Narrative and healing, contagion, the medicalized body
 Affect and public policy
 Transmission of affect, affect and alienation, affect and social space
 Minority literature and affect theory
 United States poetry and poetics
 Intimacy and contact in American literature

Please submit 250-word individual abstracts or panel proposals (comprised of a 250-word abstract for the panel as a whole and titles for each paper) to acgc.grad@gmail.com by January 24th, 2016. Please include a CV with your email. We request that you paste your proposal into the body of your email and include any technology requests. If submitting a work of art, please attach a low-resolution image of your piece, if possible, in addition to your abstract. Accepted participants will be notified by February 8th, 2016. The conference will be held at UC Santa Barbara on April 23rd, 2016.

If you have any questions, please email the conference organizer, Nicole Dib, at acgc.grad@gmail.com.