CFP: 23rd Annual MELUS Conference

23nd Annual MELUS Conference, April 2-5, 2009
Red Lion Hotel at the Park, Spokane, WA
Washington State University, Pullman, WA

MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the US: www.melus.org

Conference Theme:
“Poetic Justice: Imagination, Empowerment, and Identity in Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the US”

Multi Ethnic Literatures in the United States narrate the stories not only of an individual or of a people, but also of the flaws and potentials of societies, nations, laws, ideologies, and of ideals like equality and freedom. These creative works of art are also profound efforts in identity formation, most often in the contexts of hostile locations: geographic, social, or ideological. Taken together, these literatures have historically served, and continue to serve, to inspire and empower marginalized populations in the United States to resist oppression, to make their voices heard, and to imagine for themselves things like home, freedom, and justice differently than those versions that, for so long, have been imagined for them. This deep synergy between artistry, identity, empowerment, and social justice that defines multi-ethnic literatures in the United States provides a rich theme for the conference with abundant potential for the critical examination of varied facets.

We invite paper abstracts and complete panels, workshops, and roundtable proposals on all aspects of the multi-ethnic literatures of the United States. We are particularly interested in proposals for papers that engage with and build bridges between the very real intersections of the creative arts (writing, painting, sculpture, film, comic books, puppetry, etc.) with theory.

Submissions should detail requests for specific audiovisual equipment, if needed. We also ask that a proposal for a complete panel, roundtable, or workshop include a brief description of the central topic, supplemented by brief abstracts of individual speakers’ contributions.

Abstracts and proposals (250 words) are invited by the deadline of 15 December 2008.

Please email abstracts to:
Dr. Lisa Guerrero: laguerre@wsu.edu.

All presenters, chairs, and respondents must be members of MELUS. Membership information can be found on the MELUS website. All membership dues payments must be mailed directly to MELUS, not to the conference organizers. Hotel rooms have been set aside at the: Red Lion Hotel at the Park 303 W. North River Drive, Spokane, WA 99201,
Direct: 509/328-7361,
Toll Free: 1-800-Red-Lion (800-733-5466),
http://redlion.com/park.

Hotel rates are $99 for single/double occupancy and $109 for triple/quad. Applicable taxes are currently 10.6% in Spokane and the County Tourism Promotion Assessment is $1.50 per guest room night.

Please be sure to mention the MELUS conference to get the conference rate for your room when you make your reservation. RESERVATION CUT OFF DATE IS MARCH 12, 2009.

Hotel Amenities: Free parking. Complimentary Shuttle Service to and from the Spokane Airport and all other locations within 2 miles of hotel. Complimentary High Speed Wireless Internet in all guest rooms and all public spaces. Each guest room is equipped with a hairdryer, iron, full-size ironing board, and in-room coffee maker.

Spokane is a walking city! Within walking distance of the Red Lion Hotel you will find:
• Shopping: RiverPark Square and a number of unique downtown shops
• Dining: over 50 restaurants
• Entertainment
• Riverfront Park: home of the 1974 World’s Fair
• Spokane Falls: right outside your hotel
• Spokane River Walk

Other unique northwest experiences you may want to look into while you enjoy our Pacific Northwest hospitality:
• Winery Tours
• Museums
• Biking
• Boating
• Climbing
• Fishing

Spokane International Airport (GEG) is served by a number of major airlines, including Alaska, America West, Delta, Express Jet, Frontier, Horizon, Northwest, Sky West, Southwest, US Airways, and United.

CFP: Contributors are invited for the volume New Directions

Call for papers: contributors are invited for the volume New Directions
in Travel Writing and Travel Studies – Carmen Andras, editor 

Travel studies have recently gained an important place among academic fields owing to
their inter- and trans-disciplinary character. Contributions are invited to Carmen Andras at mailto:carmen_andras@yahoo.com on the subject of travel from the perspectives of history, literature, geography, imagology, cartography, anthropology, sociology, political sciences, or other related domains of research. Culture is in a great measure a history of travel and migration, including their integration in new topographies such journeys, exodus, nomadism, pilgrimage, (e/im)migration, exploration, dislocations of the labour force, etc., and the reading or writing about these experiences. Conceived in a broad sense, the idea of travel can also refer to the circulation and reception of books, documents, ideas, cultural influences, translations, etc. Other themes of interest include new directions and theory of travel writing and travel studies, histories of travel and the travel of histories, spaces of intercultural and international communication and conflicts of interests, maps of travel and the travel of maps, travel-knowledge-power, and discourses of identities and/or difference. Papers should be 6000-7000 words and in the MLA style of parenthetical sources and a works cited (but no footnotes or end notes).

The volume is to be published in the Shaker publisher monography series of Books in Comparative Culture, Media, and Communication Studies http://www.shaker.eu/catalogue/booklist.asp?Reihe=451.

Dr. Carmen Andras
“Gheorghe Sincai” Institute for Social Sciences and the Humanities of
the Romanian Academy
Targu Mures
Romania
Email: carmen_andras@yahoo.com

Recoded: Landscapes and Politics of New Media

“RECODED: LANDSCAPES AND POLITICS OF NEW MEDIA”
University of Aberdeen, April 25-26, 2008
www.abdn.ac.uk/modernthought/recoded/

This conference promotes a serious discussion on the place – both intellectual and institutional — of the new media in modern thought, culture, and academia. We want to explore how new media is posing problems to how we think about States, institutions, subjects and materiality itself, while bypassing the traps set by dichotomies between technophilia and technophobia, power and resistance, art and science, technology and the human, and other such binaries.

Organizers: Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli and Mario Biagioli, Centre for Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen

PROGRAM:

Friday, April 25

Panel I, “Societies of Surveillance”

Tom Levin (German and Architecture, Princeton University)

Trevor Paglen (Geography, University of California at Berkeley)

Julia Scher (Kunsthochschule für Medien, Köln)

Kriss Ravetto-Biagioli, (Film Studies, University of Aberdeen)

Commentator: Arnold Davidson (Philosophy, University of Chicago)Panel II, “New Media Technology and the Body Politic”

Eugene Thacker (Literature, Communication & Culture, Georgia Tech)

Thomas Keenan (English & Human Rights Project, Bard College)

Sha-Xin Wei (Topological Media Lab, Concordia University)

Commentator: Mario Biagioli (Centre for Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen; History of Science, Harvard University)Film Screening: Secrecy (Peter Galison and Rob Moss, 2007), Q&A with Peter Galison to follow the film.Saturday, April 26

Panel III, “New Media in Global Contexts”

Ken Goldberg (Industrial Engineering and Operations Research; Berkeley Center for New Media, University of California at Berkeley)

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun (Media Studies, Brown University)

Alexander Galloway (Media, Culture, and Communication, NYU)

Sande Cohen (Critical Studies Department, California Institute for the Arts)

Commentator: Alberto Moreiras (Hispanic Studies & Centre for Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen)Panel IV, “New Media: New Forms and Figures”

Tim Lenoir (Jenkins Collaboratory, Duke University)

Brian Rotman (Comparative Studies, Ohio State University)

Colin Milburn (English and Science Studies, University of California at Davis)

Commentator: Peter Galison (History of Science & Physics, Harvard University)Panel V, “Interface/Affect/Thought”

Laura Marks (School for the Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University)

Siegfried Zielinski (Media Theory – Archaeology and Variantology of the Media , Universität der Künste, Berlin)

Mark Hansen (English and Committee on Film & Media Studies, University of Chicago)

Commentator: Chris Fynsk, (Director, Centre for Modern Thought, University of Aberdeen)Sarah Duncan
University of Aberdeen
School of Language and Literature
Taylor Building
Aberdeen, AB24 3UB
Scotland, UK
Email: sarah.duncan@abdn.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/modernthought/recoded/

Postdoc: Humanities or Social Sciences, Stanford University

Stanford University , Humanities or Social Sciences – Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Introduction to the Humanities

Stanford University is now accepting applications for 8 to 10 postdoctoral fellows for 2008-09. Fellows lead seminar discussions for Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) courses that fulfill Stanford’s liberal arts requirement for freshmen, following the curricular tradition first established at Stanford in 1919. Fellows teach three seminar discussion sections (averaging 15 students each) that meet twice weekly and coordinate with course lectures given by Stanford’s senior faculty.

IHUM courses build intellectual foundations in humanistic study and enhance skills in textual analysis, reasoning, argumentation, and oral and written expression. Interdisciplinary, thematic courses in autumn quarter are followed by disciplinary two-quarter course sequences in winter and spring. Students enroll in autumn and winter/spring courses to satisfy the three-quarter IHUM requirement. Stanford reviews and renews the specific IHUM course offerings every academic year.

Current and former fellows cite the IHUM Fellowship’s collegiality and support for excellence in teaching. The Fellowship encourages systematic reflection on effective teaching strategies in an environment that fosters exchange and collaboration, especially around topics in interdisciplinary pedagogy.

Fellowships are open to scholars in all humanistic disciplines and areas of specialization, who will have completed all requirements for their Ph.D. degree no later than June 30, 2008. IHUM especially seeks candidates from the fields of archeology, classics, comparative literature, American studies, drama and performance studies, East Asian studies, English, French and Italian, European history, music, philosophy, religious studies and history of science.

IHUM Post-doctoral Fellows are appointed September 1, 2008 for a one-year term renewable for two additional years depending on programmatic need and job performance. Starting salary will be at least $45,000. Supplemental stipends of at least $1800 are provided to support Fellows’ research and scholarship. The Fellowship also provides support for professional development in the use of new media and technology in teaching. After successful completion of their first-year, IHUM Fellows will be eligible for one quarter of research leave and may also arrange to teach a course of their own design.

Eligibility requirements include: Ph.D. filed by June 30, 2008; a strong record of humanities scholarship; and evidence of teaching excellence. Other desired qualifications are: experience in teaching first-year university students; interdisciplinary research and/or teaching experience; familiarity with team-teaching; and experience in writing instruction.

To apply for a Stanford Introduction to Humanities post-doctoral fellowship:

1. Complete the on-line application form, and identify courses for which you would like to be considered:
http://ihum.stanford.edu/fellows/applicants.html2. Write a letter of application that addresses all aspects of your qualifications (including the status of your dissertation) and describes your preparation for teaching the specific courses that you identified in the on-line form.

3. Include a Teaching Statement that describes your teaching philosophy and your approach to teaching a seminar on one or more of the texts taught in courses that you identified in the on-line form.

4. Include student, peer and/or other teaching evaluations. Evaluation summaries are preferable to copies of individual student forms.

5. Send application letter, curriculum vitae, Teaching Statement and evaluations to the IHUM Post-Doctoral Fellows Search Committee, Introduction to the Humanities Program, 250-106, Main Quad, Stanford, CA.
94305-2020.

6. Arrange for three letters of reference to be sent to this address. Please be sure that least one referee describes the status of your dissertation progress.

7. Submit all application materials by February 28, 2008. Decisions are expected to be announced by the end of May.

AS A PRIVATE INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY HAS A STRONG AND ONGOING COMMITMENT TO THE PRINCIPLE OF DIVERSITY. IN THAT SPIRIT, WE ESPECIALLY ENCOURAGE APPLICATIONS FROM ALL PEOPLE INCLUDING WOMEN, MEMBERS OF ETHNIC MINORITY GROUPS, AND DISABLED PERSONS.

Contact Info:
IHUM Post-Doctoral Fellows Search Committee
Introduction to the Humanities Program
250-106, Main Quad
Stanford, CA 94305-2020
Website: http://ihum.stanford.edu

Asian Visual Cultures Workshop

Asian Visual Cultures Workshop
University of California, Irvine
April 13, 2008

Call for Papers:

Graduate students of the departments of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Comparative Literature, and Visual Studies at the University of California, Irvine invite submissions from graduate students, independent scholars, and visual artists/filmmakers for a one-day workshop on Asian Visual Cultures. This workshop aims to create a space for dialogue among those interested in Asia and visual cultures (including but not limited to art, cinema, games, theater, architecture, animation) beyond disciplinary frameworks in order to explore
methodologies, theories, and objects of analysis.

We hope that this workshop will become an ongoing forum for sharing ideas, difficulties, and criticism around dialoguing research interests and dissertation projects.

This workshop will be experimental in nature. Instead of a conventional conference format, we imagine spending more time providing feedback to each presenter in a round-table discussion after each paper is presented. Also, presentations need not follow the standard of ‘reading’ papers. Let’s talk about the work in progress, methodological difficulties, and theoretical impasses.

While there is no limitation to possible topics, we would be very interested in the following questions and problematics:

Cinema and Erotics
Affect and spectatorship
Genre Practice and its historicity
Transnational Asian Films: Production and reception
Feminist visual theory and criticism
Film festivals
Memory and history
Familiar/familial space
Queer visual culture
Vernacular modernity and urban space
Medium specificity
Re-imagining field/discipline
Film studies/area studies
Methodology, epistemology, objects of analysis
“Death” of cinema/ “rise” of “digital”

The deadline for submissions is Sunday, March 16, 2008. Please email a brief abstract (200-350) to Yun-Jong Lee: yunjongl@uci.edu

Please feel free to contact us for more information at:
kannoy@uci.edu (Yuka Kanno) or eyhuang@uci.edu (Erin Huang)

Asian Ways: Traditions and Transitions – 2nd Annual Conference, Bangkok

Call for Papers: Asian Ways: Traditions and Transitions – 2nd Annual Asian Cultural Studies Association Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, 5-6 August 2008
DEADLINE 31 MARCH 2008

The insistence of journalistic discourse to refer to Asia today as to a continent in transformation, on the rise, in motion, in progress, in transfer and transition can but make one wonder about the seemingly irresistible need to resort to the metaphor of movement to convey the world’s opinion on the changes Asia has been undergoing in recent decades.

Still, movement implies a journey and journeys map out the roads – those more and less taken. And while moving us forwards, the same roads may in fact lead us back into the past. To a journalist this may well seem yet another opportunity to invoke the famous ‘Asian Paradox’- a useful turn of phrase coined to express practically every aspect of Asian culture that escapes Occidental logic. For has it not been already declared that Tradition stands in a way of Progress and the two are mutually incompatible? How is one then to comprehend the notion of a modern traditional society – as an oxymoron, a paradox, or perhaps as just one of the many observations that can be made about contemporary Asia?This conference seeks to explore new ways of understanding Asian traditions and transitions, inviting contributions reflecting on the changes in reading and representing Asian literatures, cultures and societies.We invite papers and presentations on Asia-related aspects in literature, language, literary criticism, film & media, theatre & performing arts, art & design, architecture, new media, cultures & societies, gender, race & ethnicity, popular culture, martial arts, religion, philosophy, ideology, semiotics, critical theory and any other forms of cultural expression. All critical approaches are welcome.

Please submit your 200-word abstracts to Katarzyna Ancuta at kancuta@au.edu
or kancuta@gmail.com by 31.03.2008, including your University affiliation, and whether or not you will require any visual aid equipment for your presentation.

Katarzyna Ancuta
Graduate School of English
Assumption University of Thailand
Ramkhamhaeng Rd. Soi 24, Huamak,
10240 Bangkok, Thailand

10th Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies

The 10th Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies will be held on September 11-14, 2008, at the University of California, Berkeley, co-hosted by the U C Berkeley School of Law and its Kadish Center for Morality, Law and Public Affairs.

The conference organizers seek papers and panels on the study of utilitarianism and the utilitarian tradition broadly conceived. That includes scholarship on contemporary issues, as well as topics such as democracy, law, political economy, colonization and international law.

The conference welcomes faculty and graduate students in all Humanities and Social Science disciplines, including, but not limited to, History, Literature, Political Science, Philosophy, Law, and Economics.

Individual papers, panels of 2-3 papers, and round-table discussions linked to a common theme are all welcome and encouraged. Proposals should include a 200-word abstract for each paper and a 1-page c.v. for each participant. Panel and round table proposals should also include a brief precis of the topic as a whole.

Please place the proposals and cv’s in electonic format and submit as an email attachment to: ISUS@law.berkeley.edu by February 18, 2008. Notification will be provided by the end of March.

Additional information concerning the conference can be found at: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/kadish/isus/ or by emailing: ISUS@law.berkeley.edu

If you are unable to submit the proposals electronically, please send them in hard copy form to:

Prof. David Lieberman
School of Law
University of California
Berkelely, CA 94720-7200
USA

Freeman Japan Studies Workshop – Honolulu

FREEMAN INSTITUTE FOR INFUSING JAPAN STUDIES INTO THE UNDERGRADUATE CURRICULUM, HONOLULU, HAWAII    MAY 18 – JUNE 6, 2008
Application deadline:  February 1

The Japan Studies Association, with a generous grant from the Freeman Foundation, will conduct a 3 week intensive workshop on Japan for faculty and administrators from two and four-year colleges and universities. The workshop is for individuals who have little or no prior academic background on Japan and who wish to begin incorporating Japan Studies into their courses. The program is open to faculty in the humanities, social sciences, business or education. Administrators and librarians are also eligible to apply.

The workshop will cover a wide variety of topics relating to Japan, including history, politics, literature, business, and the arts. Its primary purpose is to introduce faculty and administrators into all aspects of Japanese society so that they can return to their institutions and begin incorporating Japan Studies into their courses.  It will have multiple instructors, primarily drawn from the University of Hawaii, but also including noted scholars from other universities.

The workshop will be held at Tokai University in Honolulu, Hawaii. Tokai is located about a ten- minute walk from Waikiki. Participants will be expected to arrive at Tokai on Sunday, May 18th by 6:00 PM for opening ceremonies. The obligatory closing banquet is Friday evening, June 6th. Participants must check out of Tokai by Saturday, June 7th, unless other arrangements are made with the Tokai staff. Due to the intensive nature of the program, participants are not allowed to bring spouses or domestic partners.

There will be only 20 participants selected for the Freeman Fellowships. Each participant will receive up to $600 to cover roundtrip airfare to Hawaii. Single rooms, some meals and a stipend will be provided.  Each college or university is required to pay a $500 Program Fee for its participant. This fee must be paid by May 1st.  Completed applications are due electronically by February 1st. Successful candidates will be notified by February 15th.   Application forms and a sample schedule may be found at the JSA website: http://www.japanstudies.org/freemaninfo.htm

If you have any questions address them to Dr. Joseph L. Overton, President of the JSA at: overton@hawaii.edu

Sino-Japanese Education: Past, Present, Future

Invitation to the Third Kangaku Summer Course
Sino-Japanese Education: Past, Present, Future
at Foscari University of Venice (Italy)
(Columbia-Keio-Venice Consortium)

Graduate students, faculty, and library professionals are invited to participate in a twelve-day Summer Course on Sino-Japanese Studies to be held at Foscari University of Venice (Italy) from July 21st to August 1st 2008. The course will focus on the history and materials of traditional kanbun education and their impact on Japanese culture. To connect traditional practice to modern kanbun education, there will be two mini-workshops at the end of the summer course: the first mini-workshop is devoted to discussing methods and materials of kanbun education at Western universities. At a second mini-workshop participants will explore the impact of the traditional kanbun curriculum on Japanese literature through texts of their own interest and expertise.

The Summer Course will be co-taught by Professors Sato Michio (Keio University), Horikawa Takashi (Tsurumi University), and Sumiyoshi Tomohiko (Shido bunko Institute, Keio University). Lectures will be accompanied by afternoon classes that include reading of primers such as the Mengqiu or the Wakan roeishu and practical training in kanbun kundoku.

This course is part of a consortium between Columbia University/Barnard, Keio University and University of Venice/Italy, which take turns in hosting annual Kangaku Summer Courses.

Although there is no tuition for the course, participants will have to pay for their travel and for their housing. Depending on demand, a group rate at a nearby hotel can be arranged for our participants.

Please send application materials in English or Japanese (For students: CV, transcript, brief statement of purpose explaining previous work and current interest in the field. For all others: CV, brief statement of purpose) to the address below by March 15 2008. Space restrictions force us to limit the course to 20 participants.

Professor Aldo TOLLINI
Foscari University of Venice
Department of East Asian Studies
Palazzo Vendramin
Dorsoduro 3462
30123 Venezia
ITALY

Mail: tollini@unive.it

Dr. Seuss

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose,” (Dr. Seuss: Quoteland.com).