Crossing America’s Internal Borders

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Crossing America’s Internal Borders: The 41st Annual International Conference of the American Studies Association of Korea (ASAK), Oct. 27-28, 2006 in Seoul

U.S. imperialism has been the object of study and criticism by scholars of many disciplines and, especially since the start of the Iraqi war, U.S. imperialism and militarism have been examined and severely criticized by scholars and activists both inside and outside the U.S. Alongside this scrutiny of U.S. imperialism, recent trends in American Studies or, all across the board in the Humanities and Social Sciences, have reflected various ways in which the intersection of gender, race and class have changed the way we view the U.S. both synchronically and diachronically.

The 2006 ASAK conference committee seeks to shift the current scholarly concerns to the “internal borders” within the U.S.

The catastrophic events brought on by Hurricane Katrina have exposed and lay bare in the eyes of the world not only the actual material consequences of racial and class divides in the U.S. but also of the complex workings of other less visible internal borders within the U.S. Some of the questions that might be raised may be: Do regional differences still exist in the U.S.

How are the questions of race and class interrelated with economic and regional divides? How has the traditional notion of “class” changed in terms of everyday life of Americans? How is the regional or geographical divide related to issues of race and gender?
The committee invites papers from all disciplines and in the spirit of the tradition of past ASAK conferences, welcomes new, innovative interdisciplinary approaches, but this year, the committee would like to especially encourage papers from various disciplines in the Social Sciences and from scholars with diverse background and training. The conference committee hopes to foster a productive and rewarding dialogue among the scholars of the Humanities and the Social Sciences, carefully seeking to go beyond the discursive realm and find possibilities of intervening in the social processes. Rather than viewing the U.S.
as a monolithic superpower, locating the real or imagined “third worlds” within the U.S. may transform the way we imagine the future world.

Please submit a one-page proposal and your curriculum vitae by February 28, 2006 to: Shin-wha Lee (swlee@korea.ac.kr)

Department of Political Science and International Relations
Korea University
Seoul, Korea



Or
Jee H. An


Department of English
Seoul, National University
Seoul, Korea



The conference committee will respond by April 30, 2006, by email. ASAK will provide expenses for local transportation and room and board for all participants from overseas