How do representations and discourses of immigration draw upon or undermine conceptions of authenticity and artifice? From the cultural demands upon immigrants to perform both difference and belonging to the legal language of naturalization, documentation, and fraud, the "immigrant's life is experienced in the zone where the authentic is put to a test," as Ilan Stevens has noted. This session invites proposals that interrogate notions of authenticity and artifice through representations of borders, migrations, and immigrants. All temporal and geographical foci welcome.

Submit 250-word abstracts by June 14, 2013 to Kristin E. Pitt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, kepitt@uwm.edu. Accepted presenters must join the M/MLA and register for the convention by 7/12/13.