CALL FOR PAPERS

?INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS?
An Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students
Department of Romance Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
September 21-22, 2007

The graduate students of the Romance Studies department at Duke University are
pleased to invite submissions for their fifth annual interdisciplinary
conference. The conference will bring together graduate students from a wide
variety of disciplines whose work engages questions of inclusion and exclusion.
In order to encourage a truly interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, we welcome
papers in fields including, but certainly not limited to: literary studies,
political science, cultural anthropology, philosophy, Latin American studies,
art history, language studies, women's studies, history, film studies, critical
theory, media studies, musicology, European studies, and psychology. We hope to
initiate meaningful conversation through an exploration of various problems
posed by inclusion and exclusion.

Papers could engage questions such as:

? How are so-called ?underground? texts (literature, film, music, etc.)
and their authors affected by mainstream approval? Why might an author/artist
choose to stay ?underground??
? To what degree is the dynamic of citizen participation and exclusion
fundamental to the existence of the nation-state?
? What is "inside" a text, and what is "outside"? How do marginal notes, early
drafts, a writer's biography, her correspondence, etc., relate to the "finished"
text?
? What are the stakes of membership in a religious, political, social, or
ethnic group? Of exclusion? What is at stake when a non-member becomes a member
of these groups (or vice versa)?
? Higher education: bastion of the elite or motor of social advancement?
? Is the distinction between ?insiders and outsiders? a false dichotomy?
What are some ways this distinction might break down? Is there such a thing as
an intermediate or liminal position?
? How does technology unite or divide people?
? What is the relationship between works in the literary or religious canon
and marginal, dissident or apocryphal works?
? How are so-called ?minor? languages?languages spoken by minority
groups inside countries like Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, etc.?faring
in artistic/literary production?
? Does a language?s status as a minority dialect confer special status on
those who speak/write it? Or does such status doom a language?s speakers to
existence on the margins?
? How do peripheries define the center (and vice versa)?
? How do public spaces (museums, monuments, parks, etc.) baptize the citizen
into the national family? What are the implications of presence in or absence
from such places?
? In an age that has seen increasing globalization and the advent of "virtual
space," what is the significance of national/regional boundaries? Are
boundaries, and hence categories like ?citizen,? ?resident,?
?immigrant,? etc. losing their relevance?

Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words to
insidersandoutsiders_at_gmail.com. Abstracts must be submitted in English. In
order to facilitate discussion across the disciplines, presentations will also
be made in English. Presentations will last 12-15 minutes. With your
submission, please include on a separate page your name, institutional
affiliation, phone number, street address, email address, and a brief
biographical sketch focusing on your academic work. Deadline for submissions
is June 15.

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Received on Wed Apr 04 2007 - 17:24:02 EDT