Racing Across Borders:
National and Transnational Narratives
An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference
Saturday, May 13, 2006
Centennial House, UC Santa Barbara

Submission Deadline: March 1, 2006
Website: http://acc.english.ucsb.edu/conference/grad2006/

Keynote Speaker: Shelley Streeby, Professor of Literature, UC San Diego;
Winner of the 2003 Lora Romero First Book Publication Prize for
_American Sensations: Class, Empire and the Production of Popular
Culture_ (UC Press, 2002).

The 2006 American Cultures and Global Contexts Graduate Conference, an
interdisciplinary forum at UCSB, will explore issues revolving around
race and racial formation and how these processes function differently
as they move across a variety of borders such as gender, sexuality,
ethnicity, class, discipline and nation. We are interested in how
multiple racial formations arise and are represented within particular
cultural contexts as well as what happens to these formations and
representations when they come into contact with racial structures from
other cultural contexts. Our conference invites scholars to investigate
what happens to the concepts and constructions of race as they move
across various contact zones, borders, and intersections, and how the
increasing speed of this mobility challenges national and global
assumptions about race.

This one-day conference will focus on national and transnational
narratives of race and racial formation. We hope to provoke discussions
of both contemporary and historical narratives that emerge from the
broadest definition of culture, encompassing literature, the visual
arts, religion, politics, the media, class, music, ethnicity, race,
gender, sexuality, law, commerce, and so on. In particular, one of the
bigger questions we seek to open up, is what happens to race when we
bring together Global studies and American studies? Is race elided or
does it undergo a transformation? How do we discuss ethnic/race studies
when they are globalized?

We especially invite proposals that bridge disciplines and explore
questions of race within different historical periods and diverse
spatial constructions, national and international, in the U.S. and
abroad. The conference will also feature an exhibition of artistic
responses such as paintings, sculptures, and montages related to our
theme, and so, visual arts proposals are highly encouraged.

Presentation topics may include but should not be limited to an
investigation of the suggestions below:

? Representations of the recent race riots in France ? Issues involving
New Orleans?Hurricane Katrina
? Gender in nationalist movements
? Women's bodies and international human rights
? Formula 1 racing across cultures
? Debates around global languages
? Labor across borders
? Global tourism
? Modes of travel
? Travel culture: ships, hotels etc.
? Mobility for men vs. for women
? The global narratives of museums
? Borders between disciplines
? Transnational religious movements
? Politics and history of rap/reggae
? Global art
? Global media and representation
? Torture issues, black sites
? Legalized racism
? WEB Du Bois across borders
? Narratives of First Nations
? Border studies
? American Renaissance transnational
? Transnational Moby Dick
? Historical discussions of Reconstruction
? The Underground Railroad
? Transcontinental Railroad
? Issues around immigration
? Colonization of the Americas
? Reading The Tempest

To Submit an Abstract:

Please submit 250-word individual abstracts or panel proposals
(comprised of a 250-word abstract for the panel as a whole and titles
for each paper) to acgc-info_at_english.ucsb.edu by March 1, 2006. Paste
your proposal into the body of the email message and include any
technology requests. If submitting a work of art, please attach a
low-resolution image of your piece, if possible, in addition to your
abstract.

Submit to: acgc-info_at_english.ucsb.edu Email Subject: Abstract for
Racing Across Borders
Deadline: March 1, 2006

For more information about the American Cultures and Global Contexts
Center, visit http://acc.english.ucsb.edu

--Eric L. MartinsenGraduate Fellow, 2005-2006American Cultures & Global Contexts CenterUniversity of California, Santa Barbara ========================================================== From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List CFP_at_english.upenn.edu Full Information at http://cfp.english.upenn.edu or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu ==========================================================Received on Tue Jan 24 2006 - 17:18:16 EST