cfp.english.upenn.edu

PEACE and WAR

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference

The University of Illinois at Chicago

April 16, 2010 

Submission Deadline: December 1, 2009 

This graduate student conference is intended to address some of the problems of defining peace and war in the various disciplines, and to question if or how the ways we conceptualize peace and war have changed in the twenty-first century. 

How do we view “peace” and “war” in the twenty-first century, if our paradigms for conceptualizing both have changed in light of the global “war on terror” and new theories of sovereignty, the nation-state, borders, and transnational identities? How do we convey ideas about states of peace and states of war—throughout history and up to the present day—in rhetoric, literature, visual arts, media, film, criticism, and theory? Is peace a material possibility, and how do we construct topographies of peace, theoretically or artistically?

This one-day conference is intended to provide scholars withthe opportunity to present individual papers from their own research. Graduate students of all disciplines are invited to submit paper proposals and participate in the conference. Proposals from all disciplines and perspectives are welcome.

Keynote Speaker: Michael Allen

Assistant Professor of History at Northwestern University, Michael Allen is a scholar of twentieth-century U.S. politics and culture, war, and memory. Professor Allen will present from his book Until the Last Man Comes Home: POWs, MIAs, and the Unending Vietnam War (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

* War’s Representations in Rhetoric, Literature, Film, and Other Media

* Nonviolence as Power

* Utopias / Dystopias

* Religion and Peace / War

* Terrorism / “War on Terror”

* Military-Industrial Complex / Military-Vital Complex

* Just War Theory

* Identity Politics and Peace / War

* Postcoloniality

* Anticolonial Conflicts

* Gender and Peace / War

* Theories of National and Transnational Sovereignty

* Human Rights

* Genocide

* “Enemy Combatants” and Extralegal Incarceration

* Trauma and Shame Theory

* The Body and War

* Science / Technology and War

* Biological Imperatives and War

* Global Capital Flows and Peace / War

Papers should be able to be presented in approximately 15 minutes. Please send an abstract of 300-500 words to Mark Bennett at mbenne2@uic.edu by December 1, 2009.