*****Please forward widely to graduate students. Thanks!*****

CALL FOR PAPERS

The graduate program in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University will host the
conference:

RISK AND BREAKDOWN: SHIFTING THE STUDY OF CULTURE
Duke University, Durham, NC
Friday, March 31, 2006

http://culturalanthropology.duke.edu/news/Riskandbreakdown.html

This conference explores how risk and breakdown are used both in discourse and
in practice. Risk and breakdown are often associated with social panic,
surveillance, political unrest, and psychosis. However, these associations need
not be understood as disabling. In what ways can risk and breakdown, as critical
terms and as practices, be productive? How might they help us think beyond the
agency/structure paradigm? In particular, we are interested in addressing the
cultural specificities of risk and breakdown and how these terms travel across
time, space, and discipline.

We welcome proposals that interrogate risk and breakdown as they relate to the
daily lives of the people we study and our own methodological practices as
researchers. When and where in our research do we encounter risks and
breakdowns? What are the ethical implications of studying people at risk, or
even representing them as such? In what ways can breakdown help us rethink the
way we define culture in our work? Proposed papers might explore how the
cultural politics of risk and/or breakdown relate to questions of
governmentality, human rights, militarism, identity, performativity, or the
academy. In accordance with our commitment to the transdisciplinary study of
culture, we hope to forge a dialogue between students of anthropology, history,
literary studies, film studies, cultural studies, sociology, and psychology.

Papers should not exceed fifteen minutes. The deadline for submission of 250-500
word abstracts is January 1, 2006. Please include your name, institutional
affiliation, e-mail address, and phone number. Abstracts should be submitted
via e-mail to riskandbreakdown_at_yahoo.com. Please check
http://culturalanthropology.duke.edu/news/Riskandbreakdown.html for routine
updates about the conference. Information on logistics such as travel and
lodging will shortly be available on the website.

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Received on Thu Nov 03 2005 - 12:46:54 EST