CFP: City at War: ACLA 2009 Convention

ACLA 2009 Convention
March 26-29, 2009
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

Seminar Organizers: Shawn C Doubiago, UC Davis; Susanne Hoelscher, U of San Francisco

The City at War

"The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. It's the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, their instantaneous magnetism."
-Jean Baudrillard

This seminar explores how synthesizing notions of global cities, as expressed by Baudrillard, are disrupted by the violence of war. We invite interdisciplinary contributions that draw from a large array of genres and time periods to discuss the implications of destructive conflicts carried out on the body of the city and its inhabitants. In particular, we are interested in analyzing intersections of the spatial and social fabric in an urban environment under siege.
We seek to investigate how the aggression by external and/or internal forces disrupts and restructures urban spaces and communities, and how affected subjects react to the violations in their public and private spheres.
Topics might focus on:
- The City as Site of Contestations/Contested Sites in the City
- Victors? Claim to the City
- Penetration of Private and Public Realms
- Displacement
- Gendered Experiences
- Inner Cities and Ghettos
- Ethnic Conflicts and Colonization
- Divisions, Borders and Boundaries
- The City as Semiotic Field
- The City as Literary Figure
- The Razed City
- Topography and Architecture
- Conflicts in Historic Cities

Please submit paper proposals by Nov. 1, 2008 directly through the ACLA
website at: http://www.acla.org/acla2009/?page_id=7