Wednesday, July 25, 2007

CFP: Teaching the City

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE

Teaching the City

The editors of Transformations seek articles (5,000 - 10,000 words) and
media reviews (books, film, video, performance, art, music, etc. - 3,000
to 5,000 words) that explore the city in a variety of pedagogical contexts
and disciplinary perspectives-literature, women's and gender studies,
urban studies, architecture, anthropology, folklore, history, psychology,
sociology, art, photography, geography, religion, working-class studies,
ethnic studies, cultural studies, science, music, performance studies, and
others. Essays must focus on pedagogical theory and/or praxis.



Topics might include: teaching the city in K-12 and higher education;
defining urban space; gendering the city; the history and interpretation
of public space; globalization and the city; the politics of urban
education; intersections of race, class, and gender in the city; economics
and gentrification; environmental education; greening the city; community
and cultural identity in the city; representations of the city in
literature, visual, and popular culture; expressive forms and traditions;
post-industrial transformations; im/migration and transnational labor;
architecture and urban planning; building and re-building cities, public
history in/and the city; urban geography; urban sexualities, health and
the city.





Send a hard copy in MLA format (6th ed.) and a 250-word abstract to:
Jacqueline Ellis and Edvige Giunta, Editors, Transformations, New Jersey
City University, Hepburn Hall Room 309, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey
City, NJ 07305 OR email submissions and inquiries to:
transformations@njcu.edu. Email submissions should be sent as attachments
in MS Word or Rich Text format. For submission guidelines go to
www.njcu.edu/assoc/transformations.



Published semi-annually by New Jersey City University

Deadline: November 30th, 2007

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

CFP Perceptions of Space and the American Experience

American Studies Association of Turkey
32nd Annual American Studies Conference

Perceptions of Space and the American Experience

November 7 – 9, 2007
Hacettepe University
Ankara, Turkey


According to Michel Foucault, "space itself has a history in Western
experience…Our epoch is one in which space takes for us the form of
relations among sites." However, "despite the whole network of
knowledge that enables us to delimit or formalize it, contemporary
space is still not entirely desanctified…[it is] still nurtured by the
hidden presence of the sacred." Foucault's argument suggests the
intractable aspect of the concept of "space," which is constantly
eluding our grasp, and reverting back into the realm of nature and the
"natural." This conference seeks to fill the scholarly vacuum that
continues to exist with respect to space by removing it from the
domain of the sacred, questioning its conceptualization, and exposing
its manifestations within American Studies. We hope such a focus will
advance the interaction between scholars who have conflicting
historical and spatial epistemologies regarding the American
experience.

Space is difficult to quantify because it eludes quantification: it
comprises the celestial and the terrestrial, the infinite and the
infinitesimal, and being and nothingness, all at once. Despite its
indefinable framework, it has been a perpetual theme within the
American context. For example, in Call Me Ishmael, Charles Olson
takes "SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America, from
Folsom cave to now," and he "spell[s] it large because it comes large
here. Large and without mercy." On the other hand, it can also be
large enough "for all modes of love and fortitude," as Ralph Waldo
Emerson posits. Above all, it has a multitude of meanings,
encompassing unlimited progress and its discontents; the visual and
the invisible; the present and the absent; and as Foucault maintains,
the sacred and the desanctified.

The American Studies Association of Turkey invites proposals that
consider space, broadly conceived. We particularly encourage
proposals which incorporate transdisciplinary explorations of space,
and welcome proposals from any field of study.

Possible themes include, but are not limited to:

• Spatial Boundaries/Spatial Relations
• Outer Space/Inner Space/Interspace/Interstitial Space
• Walking Space/Living Space/Lebensraum
• Psychological/Mental/Physical/Space
• Private/Public/(Inter)Personal Space
• Environmental/Ecological Space
• Marginal Space and Agency
• Landscapes/Terrains/Regional Space
• Technoscapes/Cyberspace/MySpace.com
• Real/Virtual Spaces
• Urban Space/Cityscapes/Walking Space
• Commercial(ized) Space/(Over)used Space
• Heartland/Hinterland
• Theatrical/Dramatic/Performance/Performative Space
• Space, Time and Memory
• Travel Narratives/Space-phobias
• Sites/Countersites/Utopias/Heterotopias
• Subversive/Resistive Space
• (Non)violent Space
• Active/Activist Space
• Chaotic/Ordered Space
• Liminal Space/Zones/Boundaries
• Poetics of Space/Textual/Linguistic Space
• Space and the Body/Gendered Space
• Racial/Ethnic/Political Space
• Imaginary/Imagined Spaces/Geographies
• Museums/Ethnographic/Indigenous Space
• Classroom/Educational Space
• Modern/Postmodern Spaces
• Mythic/Sacred/Symbolic/Religious Spaces
• (Anti)Social Space
• (Sub)Cultural/Traditional/Spiritual Space
• Artistic/Musical Space
• Pioneering/Exploration Space
• Expansionism/Manifest Destiny/Imperialism

The time allowance for all presentations is 20 minutes. An additional
10 minutes will be provided for discussion.

We also invite submissions for an undergraduate student panel.

Proposals for papers, panels, performances, exhibits, and other modes
of creative expression should be sent to Tanfer Emin Tunc
(asat2007@gmail.com) and Bilge Mutluay Cetintas
(mutluay@hacettepe.edu.tr) and should consist of a 250 – 300 word
abstract in English, as well as a 1 – 2 paragraph c.v./biographical
description for each participant.

• Deadline for submission of proposals: August 15, 2007.

• Notification for acceptance of proposals: September 1, 2007.

More information (e.g., on accommodation and registration) are
posted on our conference website:

http://www.ake.hacettepe.edu.tr/ASAT2007


Tanfer Emin