Graduate Student Conference:
The New School for Social Research
CFP: What Remains: Living Through Ruins, Thinking Through Empire
(grad) (3/31/06; 5/11/06-5/12/06)

"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow out of this stony
rubbish?" ~ T.S. Eliot, 'The Wasteland'

Call for Papers

We are soliciting papers from graduate students in anthropology,
history, geography, literature, sociology, and other relevant
disciplines related to our focus on empire and ruins. The deadline for
submission of abstracts is March 31, 2006. For more information,
questions or submissions, please e-mail David Bond or Joseph DeStefano
at: RuinsConference2006_at_gmail.com

Papers should focus on one of the following themes:

~ Imperial Debris and the Making of Everyday Life

As emblems of empire dissolve into disuse, what sort of lives and
imaginations congregate in (or against) their faltering presence?
Empire's infrastructures â€" roads, fortifications, ports, armaments,
outposts â€" often outlive empire. What undoings and remakings gain
palpable possibility in the midst of imperial debris? What sort of
historical sensibilities (insurgent, irreverent, etc) are affixed to
the everyday lives that move within the crumbling remainders of
empire?

~ Decimated Landscapes as an Imperial Present

What are the ecologies of imperial destruction? How is the creation of
 'zones of abandonment' integral to imperial practices? Is ecological
destruction the 'fall out' of empire or is it built into the very
formation of empire; is a genealogy of destruction part of imperial
present? What does it mean to live in an aftermath? What does it mean
to embody aftermath? Some of the topics we would like to explore
include: Agent Orange, failed urban planning, pesticides, cultural
heritage projects, nuclear testing, rezoning and oil exploration.

This conference will precede and be held in conjunction with:

Scarred Landscapes/Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruins of Empire

The Department of Anthropology, New School for Social Research, NY May
11th & 12th, 2006

Participants include: Nadia Abu El-Haj, Tom Biolsi, Carol
Breckenridge, Jacqueline Brown, Susan Buck-Morss, Sharad Chari, John
Collins, Val Daniel, Faisal Devji, Nancy Hunt, Claudio Lomnitz, Nancy
Lutkehaus, John Pemberton, Adriana Petryna, Vicente Rafael, Hugh
Raffles, Vyjayanthi Rao, George Steinmetz, Ann Stoler, Hylton White.

         ==========================================================
              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 Mar 07 2006 - 18:22:42 EST