CFP: [Cultural-Historical] Imperial Manhood

full name / name of organization: 
Matthew Brophy
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CALL FOR PAPERS

Shifting Tides, Anxious Borders: A Graduate Conference on Nineteenth
Century Transatlanticism

1st Annual Graduate Conference of the American Studies and Victorian
Studies Associations
Binghamton University
Binghamton, New York November 7-8, 2008
Keynote Speaker: Leonard Tennenhouse, Brown University

Panel Title: Imperial Manhood

This panel will explore the ways in which the rise of British and U.S.
imperialism shaped varying ideals of masculinity in the nineteenth century.
 To do so, we must look at the intersection of race and gender in cultural
works produced both at imperial centers and the margins of empire.
Discourses centered around such key terms as “civilization,” “savagery,”
“evolution,” and “degeneration” often intertwined gender politics with
imperial politics, equating the “manliness” of a race with its capacity for
self-governance. Imperial manhood thus often took on contradictory
characteristics of militarism and restraint, violence and charity.
Hegemonic constructions of masculinity tended to promote an ideology of
white male supremacy, but other marginalized masculinities challenged
notions of racial and national superiority. Papers are encouraged which
investigate the many ways in which imperial manhood was defined, redefined,
and critiqued in nineteenth-century U.S. and British literature.

Abstracts between 250-500 words should be submitted no later than August
15, 2008.

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Received on Thu May 01 2008 - 14:51:00 EDT