The American Studies Graduate Committee at the University of Texas at Austin
calls for papers for its upcoming graduate conference, "The Idea of America:
Dreams, Desires, and Disasters," to be held in Austin on 27-29 September
2007.

The idea of "America" has been used to exclude, include, exhort, chastise,
and celebrate. Our conference theme urges participants to examine
constructions of what America "is" and "should be" and how they have been
used. In examining the notion of America as a place of contested and
celebrated meaning and provider of cultural context, we encourage
scholarship from multivalent perspectives. We seek papers which look at
ideas and aspects of America in the musical, literary, artistic, religious,
political, visual, psychological, natural, built, social, and transnational
realms, including work which looks beyond the political borders of the
United States to the "Americas" and beyond. In addition to standard
conference papers, we also invite other presentation formats and creative
works, such as short films and poetry/fiction/drama readings.

As interdisciplinary work is at the core of American Studies, we encourage
different methodological approaches and invite submissions from a variety of
disciplinary perspectives, including but not limited to: African and African
American Studies, American Studies, American Indian Studies, Anthropology,
Architecture and Urban Planning, Art and Art History, Asian and Asian
American Studies, Borderland Studies, Botany, Chicana/o Studies,
Communication Studies, Education, English, Environmental Studies, History,
Geography, Government, Journalism, Latin American Studies, Law, Mexican
American Studies, Music, Philosophy, Psychology, Public Affairs, Queer
Studies, Radio-Television-Film, Religious Studies, Rhetoric, Sociology,
Women's Studies, and Zoology.

Though our conference program committee will primarily be assembling the
panels out of individual submissions, we also will consider pre-formed
panels. Jointly-authored presentations are acceptable. We also invite any
graduate students collaborating with community partners on service,
activist, educational, artistic, or other projects to present in conjunction
with those partners.

To propose a presentation, please submit an abstract of no more than 200
words and a biography for each presenter/participant of no more than 150
words to the American Studies Graduate Committee by email at
utamst07_at_gmail.com no later than 20 June 2007. Submission text may be
embedded in the email or included in a Word attachment. Please proofread
your submissions and keep them within word limits, as they may be published
in our conference program. Please note that we will first schedule sessions
for Friday, 28 September; if we receive quality proposals in sufficient
quantity, we will also hold panels on Saturday, 29 September. Please only
submit if you know you will be available to present on Friday. If accepted,
each graduate student presenter will be asked to pay a $15 registration fee
to help cover conference expenses. We do not want this cost to be
prohibitive for anyone; financial assistance is available to cover part or
all of the registration fee, and may be requested after one is accepted to
the conference.

We thank you in advance for your submissions! If you have any questions,
please do not hesitate to contact us.

Lisa Powell, Conference Organizer
Irene Garza, Program Committee Chair
email: utamst07_at_gmail.com
website: http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/amsgsa/index.html

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Received on Thu May 17 2007 - 15:28:15 EDT