NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL THEORY:
(Re)Locating Borders: Negotiating & Constructing Identities

University of Arizona
March 3-4, 2007

CALL FOR PAPERS:

The 2007 New Directions in Critical Theory Conference, an
interdisciplinary graduate student forum at the University of Arizona,
will focus on interrogating the tensions inherent in constructing and
negotiating identities against and through physical and metaphorical
borders. Considering our proximity to a physical border in an era of
political discourse that continues to use the concept of identity in a
divisive manner, we wish to address the many ways and reasons that
identities fluctuate in an ongoing process of negotiation and
re-articulation.

In addition to theorizing the work that goes into identity formation
when individuals are physically displaced, this conference also seeks
to explore what happens when the borders in question are not as
concrete as the line on a map. Borders may be understood as an
attempt to define and fix what belongs or does not belong in a given
space; they also invoke fluid identities on multiple levels. The
contextualization of identity requires that we deny neither fixity nor
changing practices within individuals or groups. Scholars and
activists speaking of identity frequently invoke a subtext of
marginality in order to explore how categories such as race, class and
gender disenfranchise and empower individuals. How do individuals and
groups deploy these categories in oppositional and definitional ways
to intervene in and challenge borders?

We wish to build upon the interdisciplinary nature of many graduate
programs and knowledge in general to acknowledge the potential impact
of crossing boundaries - in the academy, in scholarship, in daily
life. We welcome papers and presentations that examine the many
parallel and intersecting borders that come into play in constructing
and processing identity, to explore which borders are real or socially
constructed and for what purposes. Traditionally, New Directions
sponsors a guest speaker whose work is related to the theme of the
conference. This year will be no different. We are currently still in
the process of negotiating contracts with potential speakers. An
update will be posted when the speaker is confirmed.

We invite graduate students from any discipline to present
theoretically-oriented scholarship and creative work (such as
photography, poetry, film, artwork, installation projects, and so on)
that investigates the theme of borders and how they may or may not
intersect, how they locate us inside or outside a particular concept
of identity, and how we may seek to (re)locate them in order to claim
new facets of identity. A list of possible topics and subject areas
may include:

* Alienation
* Appropriation and Co-optation
* Bodies of/and Knowledge
* Borders and Criminalization
* Consumerism, Media and Identity
* Diaspora, Displacement and Im/migration
* Diversity and Similarity
* Feminist, Queer and Critical Race Theories
* Geographical Borders
* Global/Local Politics and Policies
* Heterinormativity/Homosexuality/Transsexuality
* History/Autobiography
* Hybridity and Embodiment
* Language and discrimination
* Memory and Identity
* National/Cultural/Racial/Sexual/Gendered/Class Identity
* Policy and planning
* Popular Culture/High Culture
* Post/Neocolonialism
* Science and Technology
* Sex and Economy
* Space and Mobility
* Spirituality and Subjectivity
* Texts, Bodies and Spectacle
* The Academy, Activism and Community
* The Rhetoric of Territories and Frontiers
* Tourism and Travel Writing
* Translation/Adaptation/Interpretation
* Virtual Borders and Identities

Please submit 100-250 word individual abstracts or panel proposals
consisting of a 100-250 word abstract for the entire panel and one
100-250 abstract for each paper. Include names, email address, mailing
addresses, institutional affiliations, technology requests, paper
titles, and abstracts by January 15, 2007 to New Directions Co-Chairs
at ndconf_at_gmail.com or c/o English Department, Modern Languages
Building, Room 445, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721.

Kind regards,
New Directions Co-Chairs

Daniel Griffin, Rhetoric, Composition and the Teaching of English
Michael Kolakoski, Literature
Andrea Modarres, Literature
Carly Thomsen, Women's Studies

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Received on Sat Nov 25 2006 - 20:17:46 EST