[UPDATE] Blood Moves: the transmission of bodies, ideas and diseases between the early republic and the Caribbean. The Soc

full name / name of organization: 
Ray Leonard University of Miami
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Blood Moves: the transmission of bodies, ideas and diseases between the early republic and the Caribbean.
The Society of Early Americanists Tenth Biennial Conference, (2017 SEA Biennial)

Raymond Leonard RXL220@miami.edu

This panel is looking for papers that capitalize on the recent turn towards the Caribbean in Early American studies. Scholars such as Michael Drexler, Ed White, Ashli White and Marlene Daut have provided an invaluable framework for conceiving the fraught connections between the U.S and the Caribbean. Of interest is work that investigates the (de)generative discourses and ideologies produced by the movement of bodies, ideas and disease between the U.S, the Caribbean and the broader Atlantic. Papers might focus on how these categories were themselves compromised- bodies as diseases, diseases as ideas, ideas as diseases- through the process of movement and transmission. Such inquiries might furthermore work to elucidate how this profound instability challenged or redefined the ideological and material construction of race, gender class and nation heading into the 19th century.

Please submit a 250-400 word abstract and brief bio to Ray Leonard, University of Miami by April 18th