cfp.english.upenn.edu

Keynote Speaker: Greg Grandin (NYU), author of Fordlandia, Empire’s Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, and The Blood of Guatemala

How are individuals’ and groups’ beliefs and practices reshaping the nation-state in Latin America? The vindication of the local, the significance of social protests and spatial occupation, the influx of global movements—such as sustainability—in discrete regions of countries, the search for economic alternatives, indigenous movements for autonomy, and unique distributions of bodies and communities across the globe are only some of the many phenomena which challenge our understanding of citizenship and belonging. This conference seeks to bring together scholars from across the disciplines to discuss ways in which communities’ beliefs and practices mediate their relationship to the state.

To be held February 22-23, 2013 at Emory
We encourage you to submit papers on topics including but not limited to:

Reconfiguring spaces of belonging
Heterotopias, dystopias, utopias
Borders, frontiers, contested regions
Transnational identities, relationships
Diaspora, exile, immigration
Migration, urbanization
Urban, rural tension
Liminality, marginality
Redefining cultural spaces and representations
Topographies, geographies, social escapes
Postnationalism
Sustainability and politics
Environmental security
Local environments and resources global policies
Emerging economies in a global context
Historicizing the present
Sociolinguistic practices and their relation to broader sociopolitical process including:
racial/ethnic consciousness, gender identity, cultural identity, and hegemony.

Topics may be in any discipline or field related to Latin American and Lusophone histories, literatures, cultures, and linguistics. Any form of cultural/historical production such as cinema, theatre, music, and the arts are welcome.

Please submit abstracts of 250-350 words by email to Stephanie Pridgeon, spridge@emory.edu, no later than December 3, 2012. The body of the email should include the title of the presentation, name, phone number, email address, and institutional affiliation of the presenter. The abstracts (and presentations) may be in English, Portuguese or Spanish. Send your abstract as a Microsoft word attachment. Participants will be notified by January 1, 2013.