Opportunities

Quicklinks:
Visual Culture Student Focus Group
CFP: "Orphans No More: Ephemeral Films and American Culture", A Proposal for a Theme Issue of Journal of Popular Film and Television
CFP: Velvet Light Trap, Issue #64, Fall 2009—Failures, Flops, and False Starts
CFP: Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries
CFP: The Weaver: Historical and Literary Interpretations
Call for Panel and Roundtable Proposals:  The 2008 meeting of the Modernist Studies Association - Modernism and Global Media
CFP: Black Lesbian Culture & Politics Anthology
CFP: Cosmopolitanism and the Appropriation of Culture
CFP: The Role of Visual Culture in War
Award: 2009 OAH HUGGINS-QUARLES AWARD
CFP: The Green Nineteenth Century
CFP: Re-Orienting Whiteness Conference
CFP: Expanding Literacy Studies, Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Conference
CFP: More than Adaptation: Asking the Big Questions about Film, Narrative, and Disciplines
CFP: Premiere issue of Uli: Journal of Visual Arts and Culture
CFP: Journal of Media Practice Special Issue: A Decade of Media Practice: Changes, Challenges and Choices
CFP: Rethinking Visual Narratives from Asia: Intercultural and Comparative Perspectives
CFP: Islamic Resurgence in the Age of Globalization: Myth, Memory, Emotion
CFP: Exploding Genre
CFP: Joint Faculty/Graduate Student Seminar on Violence, Race, and Gender
CFP: "Black History: Full Disclosure": AAAHRP Conference
CFP: LIMINA: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies
CFP: The Society for Emblem Studies
CFP: FILM AND FILM CULTURE Issue 5, "Frontiers and Futures in Film and Digital Media"
CFP: Tenth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History

CFP: "Orphans No More: Ephemeral Films and American Culture", A Proposal for a Theme Issue of Journal of Popular Film and Television
From the early 1900s to the present day, millions of workers, students, corporate sales employees, and members of civic organizations have viewed nonfiction films and videos at school, at the office, in church basements, on television and at their local theater. Ephemeral and Orphan films refer to a wide range of non-Hollywood film genres, including but not limited to: management and sales training, mental hygiene, science, travel and religious education films. These films were mostly produced and funded by corporate, governmental or private institutions and although often shown as shorts in theatres or on television in the early years, without the provenance of the Hollywood factory system they have received minimal scholarly attention. We propose a Journal of Popular Film and Television theme issue that addresses the ephemeral/orphan film as a newly emerging field of research in the fields of Film and Video Studies, Communication, Cultural Studies, and American Studies.

We welcome a variety of historical, analytical and critical approaches to this subject. Contributions to this special issue might focus on
industrial, educational or corporate films and videos by answering any of the following questions:

* How do orphan films utilize the styles of popular film and television genres, including: animation, film-noir, exploitation and serials, and to
what end?
* How has the documentary film, which historically has shared similar funding, exhibition and distribution venues, intersected with the forms and functions of ephemeral films?
* What has been the relationship between Hollywood and the industrial, educational, governmental or civic structures of ephemeral production? What can we learn about the careers of stars, directors, cinematographers and other personnel who have worked in both industries?
* How do industrial, educational and scientific films and videos add to our understanding of the strategies and ideologies of governmental, corporate, and educational organizations?
* How have industrial, educational, corporate and scientific films and videos helped to shape the construction of American identity in terms of
class, race, gender and sexual orientation?

Other topics to be explored might include the following:

* Critical analysis of individual films and videos
* Histories of early industrial, corporate or educational film companies
* The uses of industrial, corporate, educational and scientific films and videos as primary source documents for historians in various fields.
* Industrial, educational, corporate and scientific films and videos as a record of fashions, trends and popular ideas.
* The aesthetics of the orphan film

Please address any questions or submissions to Heide Solbrig at hsolbrig@bentley.edu. Submissions should be limited to twenty-five pages,
double-spaced, MLA style. The submission deadline is 1 September 2008. This special issue will be guest edited by Elizabeth Heffelfinger, Faye Riley, Robert Goff and Heide Solbrig in conjunction with the Journal of Popular Film and Television.

CFP: Velvet Light Trap, Issue #64, Fall 2009—Failures, Flops, and False Starts
Histories of the moving image tend to highlight financial, critical, and popular successes: films that generated monumental revenues at the box office, television series that were acclaimed by critics and adored by audiences, technologies that revolutionized the ways in which we exhibit and consume narratives and images, etc. Yet, new media, failed or abandoned projects, hardware, institutions, businesses, or content can serve as constructive ways in which to examine oppositional discourses, alternative conceptions, failed visions and botched efforts, as they pertain to the construction, distribution, exhibition, and consumption of the moving image. By examining failures we can get a better sense of the true impact of successful projects and programs, as well as an improved understanding of marginalized or contradictory modes of production, discourse, and reception.

We welcome an inclusive definition of failures, flops, and false starts capable of illustrating not only what was and didn’t work, but also what could have been. Projects that lacked funding, artistic movements or business strategies that went nowhere, and programs that never reached fruition can sometimes be more revealing than a finished product and a job well done. The category of brilliant but cancelled—or, conversely, terrible but produced nonetheless—envelopes an untold number of media products and visions, revealing insights to industrial processes of production and promotion, and cultural practices of organized protest, advocacy and activism. The losers of a format, hardware, and programming war (such as HD DVD or Beta) punctuate the economic risks of attempting technological innovation.

For every success, there are innumerable failures. The Velvet Light Trap invites submissions for a special issue on Failures, Flops, and False Starts that helps us to better understand the ways in which unsuccessful film, television, and new media projects, technologies, and strategies can improve our understanding of the haphazard, opposing, and unlikely ways in which media forms, criticism, industries, and practices have developed.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Failed formats and exhibition spaces
Technological failures (e.g. exhibition upgrades, delivery systems, and media formats)
Marketing failures
Critical and commercial flops
Failures of taste
Failed media theories or disciplines
Breakdowns in the production, distribution, or exhibition processes
Short-lived experiments and painful transitions
Losers in format wars Ill-fated attempts to pursue new audiences/demographics
Miscommunications, misunderstandings, and mistranslations
Troubled collaborations
Unproduced, unreleased, or unrealized properties and projects
Funding miscalculations
Startups that didn’t and new studios that weren’t
Brilliant but cancelled (e.g., killed franchises, series and networks)
Aborted manifestos, unproductive movements, and unrealized revolutions

Papers should be between 6,000 and 7,500 words (approximately 20-25 pages double-spaced), in MLA style with a cover page including the writer's name and contact information. Please send four copies of the paper (including a one-page abstract with each copy) in a format suitable to be sent to a reader anonymously. All submissions will be refereed by the journal's Editorial Advisory Board. For more information or questions, contact Germaine Halegoua (grhalegoua@wisc.edu), Heather Heckman (heckman@wisc.edu), Josh David Jackson (joshjackson@wisc.edu), or Mark Minett (minett@wisc.edu).

Submissions are due September 15, 2008, and should be emailed to the above addresses, or sent to: The Velvet Light Trap University of Wisconsin, Madison Department of Communication Arts 821 University Avenue Madison, WI USA 53706-1497.

The Velvet Light Trap is an academic, peer-reviewed journal of film and television studies. Issues are coordinated alternately by graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Texas-Austin. The Editorial Board includes such notable scholars as Peter Bloom, David Desser, David Foster, Sean Griffin, Bambi Haggins, Charlie Keil, Michele Malach, Dan Marcus, Nina Martin, Joe McElhaney, Tara McPherson, Jason Mittell, James Morrison, Steve Neale, Karla Oeler, Aswin Punathambekar, Malcolm Turvey, and Michael Williams.

CFP: Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries
Conference at the German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C., *March 19-21, 2009

Conveners:  Martin Klimke (GHI Washington), Anne Kuhlmann-Smirnov (History Department, University of Bremen), Mischa Honeck (Heidelberg Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg)

Persons of African descent have been present in Europe throughout the past millennium. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, Africans crossed the Mediterranean to Spain, Sicily, and Italy or made their way to Europe via the Middle East and the Byzantine Empire. In later centuries, the system of transatlantic trade brought black people from the different regions of the Americas to Europe.

In Central Europe, African “court moors” became increasingly present during the Early Modern Period and were an integral part of courtly representation. As a result of exchange processes between Europe, Africa, and the West Indies, the social roles of blacks in Europe and European discourses on blacks diversified over time. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, an increasing number of black Europeans lived in middle-class households, especially those of retired colonial officials, plantation owners or merchants residing in Europe. Others lived independently as seamen or as guild members. Transatlantic chattel slavery, however, fundamentally reconfigured Afro-European relations and transformed perceptions of black people throughout the Atlantic World. Over time, black people were increasingly referred to as “slaves” or “negroes” instead of “moors,” an older term associated with, among other things, images of brave warriors that derived from the presence of black soldiers in the armies of the Islamic Empire on the Iberian Peninsula and humanist images of a Christian “land of the moors” ruled by a mythical Prester John in Ethiopia.

By the early nineteenth century, racist views on blacks had found broad public acceptance in Europe. Scientific racism, a branch of ethnology that began to infiltrate Western science from the 1840s onward, further consolidated notions of black inferiority and was widely used to justify the continued enslavement of African peoples. Simultaneously, proslavery arguments were vehemently challenged by Enlightenment ideas of human equality, which gained broader significance on both sides of the Atlantic through the rise of various abolitionist and revolutionary movements. This dialectical contest between racial egalitarianism and white supremacy persisted well into the early twentieth century, when the latter reemerged forcefully in the guise of European imperialism.

The conference “Black Diaspora and Germany Across the Centuries” will retrace these processes of change and revaluation from the eleventh century to the beginning of World War I. Particular emphasis will be laid on the interactions between blacks of various origins (the Americas, the Caribbean, Byzantine Empire, Africa, or born in Europe) and people in the German-speaking parts of Europe.

Researchers of all disciplines are invited to discuss continuities and ruptures in this history of mutual perception and contact: migration, art and court historians, American, German and African studies as well as scholars from the field of cultural studies, literature, sociology, musicology, linguistics, etc.

Possible conference topics include:

1. Geopolitical and social spaces of communication and interaction: Which geographical areas and groups of individuals or social classes were involved in processes of exchange? What kind of action repertoires did these spaces leave or offer to people of color?

2. Perception and appropriation of African culture, art, music, etc. and their representations in various contexts (e.g. European court cultures, literature, art production).

3. Altering influence of religious, philosophical, and scientific discourses on modes of Afro-European contacts.

4. Race/Racism vs. egalitarianism as discourse and social practice in the African-German encounter.

Please send a proposal of no more than 500 words and a brief CV to Martin Klimke at klimke@ghi-dc.org.

The deadline for submission is October 15, 2008. Participants will be notified by mid-November.

The conference, held in English, will focus on discussing 5,000–6,000-word, precirculated papers (due February 1, 2009). Expenses for travel and accommodation will be covered.


CFP: The Weaver: Historical and Literary Interpretations,  Date: 2008-09-15

The production and use of woven fabrics over time has entailed significant changes in the work of weavers and the process of weaving;
however, these changes were neither linear nor uniform. Comparable discontinuities between specific circumstances and overarching
generalities exist with respect to the status and identity of weavers, the social matrices of manufacture, and the economics of trade as well
as cultural representations of practices and practitioners. Both empirical and theoretical approaches to craft persistence and its
extinction or transmutation into occupation(s) can reveal dimensions of this multi-faceted experience.

Proposals for scholarly papers concerning weavers are solicited for an edited volume that aims to explore the weaver from a historical and
literary perspective. Toward that end, we issue this call for book chapters and materials for an edited collection, to be submitted for
consideration to a university press. We welcome submissions focusing on any geographical location or time period including pre- and
post-industrial weavers from scholars of any rank, provided that the research is based on original research and has not previously been
published elsewhere in English. Scholarship that is interdisciplinary in nature and/or which reflects on a wide series of discourses and
practices is encouraged.

PROPOSALS: 250-500 word abstract (and full essay if already written), select bibliography, and brief biographical statement, including
present institutional affiliation, by email to: Helene J. Sinnreich at hjsinnreich@ysu.edu

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: September 15, 2008. Completed essays will be due September 2009, and will be expected to be 25-35 double-spaced pages in length.


Call for Panel and Roundtable Proposals:  The 2008 meeting of the Modernist Studies Association - Modernism and Global Media Nashville, Tennessee, November 13-16, 2008, Loews Vanderbilt Hotel. 

With the title, “Modernism and Global Media,” conference organizers wish to foreground issues such as transnational and international aesthetic interaction, Diaspora, media in various colonial and anti-colonial projects, war, global economics, migration, the Jazz Age, the Harlem Renaissance, and popular music as well as the ways in which global media shapes racial, ethnic, gendered, classed, and regional identities and affiliations.  Participants are welcome, however, to submit panel and roundtable proposals on any topic: the primary criterion for selection will be the quality of the proposal, not its link to the conference theme (capacious as it is).

Founded in 1999, the Modernist Studies Association is devoted to the study of the arts in their social, political, cultural, and intellectual contexts from the late nineteenth through the twentieth century.  Through its annual conferences and journal, Modernism/Modernity, the organization seeks to develop an international and interdisciplinary forum for exchange among scholars in this revitalized and rapidly expanding field.  This year’s event, “Modernism and Global Media,” will be hosted by Vanderbilt University with generous financial support provided by the Office of the Dean, Vanderbilt’s Center for the Americas, and various Vanderbilt departments and programs, including English and Film Studies. Detailed information about the conference, including updated calls for proposals, housing arrangements, travel information, and details regarding subsidiary events will soon be found on-line at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/msax. All email queries should be directed to the conference organizers at msax@vanderbilt.edu. Visit the MSA website for a full list of CFPs for paper presentations.

CFP: Black lesbian culture & politics anthology
Areas of content include African American Studies, Gender and Sexuality, Women's Studies, Gay and Lesbian Studies,and African Diaspora Studies. Deadline December 1, 2008.

In studies of African American life and culture, migration and geographical spaces have been used to explore the differences and distinctions within black life. In each case—whether it is the music of jazz and hip-hop, language and dialect, literature and fiction, or the visual art—geography shapes and changes the aesthetics and elements used to represent Black identity and culture across the U.S. Yet, there are few collections that have explored the how these geographical factors produce different sexual cultures, communities, and identities amongst Black people. This anthology seeks to show how black lesbians in the south have created their own identities, identity politics, and culture to represent their same-gender loving and same-sex desires. Our goal with this collection is to document and preserve those manifestations.

We invite established and emerging scholars, non-affiliated intellectuals, activists, and creative writers who are black/lesbian/southern-identified (born and/or bred and/or [im]migrant) to write up to 2500 words (essay, fiction, nonfiction, drama, or interview) or up to 5 poems relevant to these ideas. Though we are interested in the following broadly construed topics, we will consider others not listed:

Marriage/civil unions/adoption/child rearing/family structures
southern identities and genders within lesbian communities
regional politics and lesbian culture
migration(s) to the south/north
southern lesbian history/ political figures (regional and local)
being southern and queer on university campuses
lesbians in HBCUs
impact/intersections of spirituality/religiosity, gender and queerness
queer(ing) representations of southern culture in film, lit and music
place, space and landscapes in southern lesbian experience or representations
butch/femme aesthetic and beyond the binary
inter-racial relationships
history of slavery and lesbian culture
lesbian clubs, parties, circuits and production companies
social activities
political groups

Submit your work by email, as an attachment in MS word to Lmonda@juno.comand and marlonRmoore@gmail.com. Submit an abstract for essays and interviews; all other genres should meet word limitation standards. Include your name, mailing address, email address, and a bio WITHIN the .doc file with your piece, as submissions will be separated from emails to be read.

CFP: Cosmopolitanism and the Appropriation of Culture
Panel in the Conference on "Ownership and Appropriation" (Auckland, New Zealand, 8-12 December 2008)
Co-organisers: Mark Busse (University of Auckland) and Jade Baker (University of Canterbury)

In a chapter of his 2006 book Cosmopolitanism, provocatively titled “Whose Culture Is It, Anyway?”, Kwame Anthony Appiah argued that objects of cultural value “belong in the deepest sense to all of us” and “are of potential value to all human beings”. While reminding us of our common humanity, cosmopolitan claims to a universal connection to art (what Appiah called “the connection despite difference”) are also an appropriation—a claim to pan-human ownership that sidesteps political and economic inequalities in the contemporary world. These inequalities privilege people living in metropolitan centres who have access to public museums and art galleries, and allow only the wealthiest individuals to enjoy valuable cultural objects on a daily basis. This panel will further debates arising from cosmopolitan claims of universal ownership of cultural objects, and the on-going appropriations underwritten by such claims. It will do this by comparing and contrasting connections “despite difference” with what Appiah called “the connection to art through identity” (the connections people feel to objects that were created by their ancestors), as well as the concrete manifestations of such connections in art markets, histories of cultural objects in museums and private collections, the significance of repatriation in a globalizing world, and arguments against the cosmopolitan position which emphasize the entanglement of objects, persons, communities and places.

This panel continues discussions started at a special session of the College Arts Association in New York in February 2007, the proceedings of which are being published as a forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Property

The conference on "Ownership and Appropriation" is a joint conference of the Association of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, the Australian Anthropological Society, and the Association of Social Anthropologists of Aotearoa New Zealand. For further information, see the conference website: http://www.theasa.org/asa08/index.htm or contact the conference organisers Professor Veronica Strang (v.strang [at] auckland.ac.nz) or Dr Mark Busse (m.busse [at] auckland.ac.nz).

CFP: The Role of Visual Culture in War
Radical History Review (RHR)
Issue #106: Taking Sides:
The Role of Visual Culture in War, Occupation and Resistance

The RHR solicits contributions for a special issue on visual culture in war, occupation and resistance. Artists have often taken sides in ideological conflicts and in actual conflagrations. In terms of visual culture and resistance, the literature and music of the South African struggle, the murals of Belfast and Derry in Ireland and the poetry of the many Latin American movements for change are relatively well documented. Less analysis is available on the role of artists on one side or another of recent conflicts. Wars of Liberation and popular revolts such as those in Angola, Algeria, Iran and the Basque Country spring to mind. Despite the scale and impact of the Vietnam War, little knowledge is available in terms of the role of visual culture in the mass mobilizations against both the French and US occupations.

Approaching five years into the occupation of Iraq and with numerous groups engaged in resistance, what form does visual culture play in demarcating opposing political positions? How have artists in colonized or oppressed nations viewed themselves and their work in terms of the largely western models that shape what is commonly defined as ‘art’ (the gallery, theater etc)? What has been the role of visual culture in support of imperialism or colonial expansion, as well as officially ‘state sanctioned’ cultural production?

The role of visual culture in conflict situations also prompts an examination of the implications of artistic ‘neutrality’. Despite current global instability many artists and cultural producers, especially in the western artistic tradition, consider their work to be apolitical or neutral. Can artistic neutrality be said to exist in conflict situations, or is culture ultimately, in the words of Edward Said, “…a battleground on which causes expose themselves to the light of day and contend with one another?” (Culture and Imperialism).

This issue of RHR is particularly interested in exploring these questions. Issues of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas:

Award: 2009 OAH HUGGINS-QUARLES AWARD

Named for Benjamin Quarles and Nathan Huggins, two outstanding historians of the African American past, the Huggins-Quarles Award is
given annually to one or two graduate students of color at the dissertation research stage of their Ph.D. program.

To apply for a $1,000 award ($2,000 if only one is awarded), the student should submit a five-page dissertation proposal (which should
include a definition of the project, an explanation of the project's significance and contribution to the field, and a description of the
most important primary sources), along with a one-page itemized budget explaining travel and research plans.

Each application must be accompanied by a letter from the dissertation adviser attesting to the student's status and the ways in which the
Huggins-Quarles Award will facilitate the completion of the dissertation project. Please also include email addresses for both the applicant and the adviser, if available.

One complete copy of each application (including cover letter, abstract, budget, and reference letter), clearly labeled "2009 Huggins-Quarles Award Entry," must be mailed to each member of the Committee on the Status of African American, Latino/a, Asian American, and Native American Historians (ALANA) and ALANA Histories listed below and received by December 1, 2008. The committee will evaluate the
applications and announce the award by the 2009 annual meeting of the OAH, to be held in Seattle, Washington, March 26-29.

Lionel Kimble Jr.
Department of History/Philosophy/Political Science
Chicago State University
9501 South King Drive, SCI 116-A
Chicago, IL 60628

Amrita Chakrabarti Myers (Committee Chair)
Department of History
733 Ballantine Hall
Indiana University
1020 East Kirkwood Avenue
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103

Lydia R. Otero
Cesar Chávez Building, Room 208
University of Arizona
PO Box 210023
Tucson, AZ 85721-0023

Adrienne Petty
Department of History
NAC 5/144
The City College of New York
138th Street and Convent Avenue
New York, NY 10031

George J. Sánchez
Program in American Studies & Ethnicity
University of Southern California
3470 Trousdale Parkway, WPH 303
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4033

CFP: The Green Nineteenth Century
30th ANNUAL CONFERENCE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY STUDIES ASSOCIATION, Milwaukee, Wisconsin March 26-28, 2009

We welcome paper and panel proposals concerning any aspect of "green" studies in the long nineteenth century, including, but not limited to
"ecocriticism" in nineteenth-century studies; history of ecological science, environmental ethics, and environmentalist activism; nineteenth-century studies and animal welfare; ecofeminist philosophy and gender politics; contemporary discourses on nature; nineteenth-century ecotourism; Romantic "ecopoetics" and the politics of nature; "green" program music and tone poems; sustainability, including sustainable architecture and interior design; landscape painting and nature imagery; dramatic scenery; color associations and color theories; gardening and farming; conservation movements; and the idea of the "natural" or "unnatural."

Equally welcome are proposals for papers and panels on Irish studies, earth-centered religions, the idea of the "new," and other understandings of "green" studies in the nineteenth century.

Abstracts (no longer than 250 words) for 20-minute papers that provide author's name and paper title in heading, as well as a one-page c.v.,
due by Oct. 3, 2008 to Christine Roth, Program Chair, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, roth@uwosh.edu

Graduate students whose proposals are accepted can, at that point, submit a full-length version of the paper in competition for a travel
grant to help cover transportation and lodging expenses. Bringing people together for conferences can impact the environment through the smog and greenhouse gas emissions associated with air and ground travel, as well as the paper, plastic, and food waste associated with the event.  For this reason, the 30th annual meeting of the Nineteenth Century Studies Association will also incorporate as many "green" options and resources as possible to reduce the conference-related environmental impact.

CFP: Re-Orienting Whiteness Conference
Melbourne, 3-5 December 2008
Keynote Speakers:
ANN LAURA STOLER, New School for Social Research
AILEEN MORETON-ROBINSON, Queensland University of Technology
LYNETTE RUSSELL, Monash University
PATRICK WOLFE, La Trobe University
MATT WRAY, Harvard University

Featuring a Public Forum: 'After the Apology: Perspectives from Indigenous Speakers'

'Re-Orienting Whiteness' invites scholars to explore the potential, or otherwise, of 'whiteness' in analysing the operations of 'race', past and present. The conference particularly seeks to bring whiteness studies into a closer conversation with other approaches to 'race', particularly those which have emerged from studies of colonialism and postcolonial theory. There has been remarkably little cross fertilisation between these areas of scholarship, despite the many obvious synergies between them. We envision the conference traversing a variety of countries, periods, methodologies and theoretical concepts, bringing together scholars of diverse backgrounds and interests. Broadening out from the (settler colonial) context of the United States, we wish to explore how whiteness operated in colonial and non-colonial contexts across the globe.

Possible themes include:
Indigenous perspectives on whiteness
The politics of apology/assimilation/sovereignty/restitution/power
Whiteness in the colonial/settler colonial encounter
Whiteness in non-colonial contexts
The gendered privileges of whiteness
The chronology of whiteness: visibility/invisibility
Cultures, representations, borderlands, bodies, transformations
Refugees, asylum, immigration, inclusion/exclusion
Does whiteness even matter?

Proposals for 20 minutes papers, or panels of up to three speakers, are most welcome. Please send a 200 word abstract, along with a brief half-page CV, by 29 August 2008.

To submit a proposal, or to be placed on the conference email list, write to: reorientingwhiteness@gmail.com

Proposals will be considered on a rolling basis. Some funding is available to support postgraduate students and Australian Indigenous
postgraduates. See conference website for further details: www.arts.monash.edu.au/historical-studies/news-and-events/reorienting-whiteness-2008

In association with the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association. Supported by the School of Historical Studies, Monash University, Reconciliation Victoria and the University of Melbourne.

CFP: Expanding Literacy Studies, Graduate Student Interdisciplinary Conference

Literacy Studies is a recent construct. At the same time, it addresses long-standing questions and concerns within and across disciplines. But what is literacy? Who is studying it? And how is it being studied? Literacy is traditionally defined as reading and writing. Contemporary constructs, however, include everything from cyber and health literacy to mathematical and visual literacy. The potential advance this broadened view might represent is complicated by historical myths about literacy, persistent fears about declines in literacy, and failure to connect literacy research across disciplines. Addressing the need for an expanded conversation about literacy that exceeds disciplinary boundaries, this conference is a space for graduate and professional students from all fields to ask questions, consider directions, examine representations, make connections, and share investigations of literacy, broadly defined.  This conference aims to expand the
 dialogue and explore the landscape and intersections of literacy studies as a framework of critical investigation. This approach is
meant to do the double work of expanding the field while critiquing the expansion. To that end, we invite proposals from graduate and professional students in ALL fields. Deadline: We will begin reviewing conference proposals September 1, 2008. Proposals will not be accepted after October 15, 2008. See our website for more detailed information about the conference.

Possible Topics and Points Of Entry:
    * health literacy     * literacy and technology     * visual literacy     * representations of literacy     * definitions of literacy     * law and literacy     * art literacy     * uses and abuses of literacy     * motivations for literacy     * symbol systems     * the sociology of literacy     * the teaching of literacy     * reading and writing     * literacy and science     * performances of literacy     * literacy and popular culture     * the future of literacy     * histories of literacy     * intersections of literacy     * production and consumption of texts     * multiple literacies     * the literacy myth     * literacy and social change     * sites of literacy     * literacy in communities     * work literacy

Presentations must be accessible to interdisciplinary audiences. Presentations should be engaging (and interactive when possible).
Presentations should address the conference theme and goals.

Conference Special Features:
  * Keynote Panel: "Responses to The Literacy Myth: 30 Years Later" In honor of the 30th Anniversary of the publication of The Literacy Myth:
Literacy and Social Structure in the Nineteenth Century, author Harvey J. Graff will respond to a panel of graduate students from various
disciplines speaking about "the literacy myth." Harvey J. Graff is currently Ohio Eminent Scholar in Literacy Studies and Professor of
English and History at The Ohio State University.   

CFP: More than Adaptation: Asking the Big Questions about Film, Narrative, and Disciplines
40th Anniversary Convention, Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Feb. 26-March 1, 2009
Hyatt Regency - Boston, Massachusetts

We’ve all attended the conferences with the panels on film focused on the famous or obscure auteur, the hottest adaptation of a children’s fantasy novel to the big screen, or the works of various national cinemas.  These are all vital areas of study that illuminate the ways that individuals, histories, technologies, and cultures approach stories. This panel takes a step back and asks for us, as scholars, to consider the meaning and importance of why we study film outside of the cinematic discipline.

Film as a narrative (both fictive and non-fictive) medium presents certain challenges and advantages to the contemporary scholar who finds themselves pulled towards interdisciplinarity but also held to the standards of their individual departments.  Film presents a fantastic opportunity for us to not only deal with an immensely powerful communication tool of language and story.  It also presents an arena for us to investigate the relationships between these ideas, and it is time that we came together to begin to articulate why and how we do so. With a debatably increase in the visual nature of narratives in contemporary society, we must prepare and interrogate the role of this powerful visual medium in our studies of language, literature, and rhetoric.

Specifically, this panel seeks to raise and address questions of the perspectives that we as scholars of modern language can bring to the study and teaching of film and also address the ways that leaving our discipline open to the ideas of those in the media, film, and visual aesthetics fields provides vibrancy and challenges that strengthen and engage us. It is not intended as a venue for papers whose primary focus on the analysis of specific texts or individuals. I solicit papers from scholars working to theoretically bridge and mediate between the written, spoken, and viewed words, languages, and narrative.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

Teaching, Studying, and Enjoying Film
Film as Politics, Pedagogy, Worship, or Identity
Film and Disciplinarity
Students and Non-traditional Approaches to Teaching with or about Film
“Visual Narrative” vs./and “Film
Beyond the Blockbuster/Indy
Film and Culture
Theories of Film as Dialogue

Please include with your abstract:

Name and Affiliation
Email address
Postal address
Telephone number
A/V requirements (if any; $10 handling fee)

The complete Call for Papers for the 2009 Convention will be posted in June at www.nemla.org.

Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA panel; however panelists can only present one paper.  Convention
participants may present a paper at a panel or seminar and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.
Please submit your 150-250 word abstract to scs23@psu.edu

Deadline: September 15, 2008

CFP: Premiere issue of Uli: Journal of Visual Arts and Culture
ULI: Journal of Visual Arts and Culture is a referred academic bi-annual publication of the Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (visit nsukkaartschool.info). It is to be published in June and December each year electronically and, occasionally, in hard copies.

The publication aims to critique and document contemporary developments in the visual arts and culture of Nigeria, Africa and the world. It shall open up and sustain debate on issues in Nigerian and international art as a way of contributing to art scholarship and professionalism in the so-called Third World.

Well-researched papers are invited for the first issue to be published in December 2008. Historical, critical, art educational, and other scholarly articles on modern and postmodern tendencies in the art and visual culture of Africa are welcome, as well as reviews, interviews and portfolios.

Articles should be typed and double-spaced on A4 paper and should not exceed 20 pages. Reference should conform to the Harvard style. Photographs and illustrations should be clear enough for print reproduction; poor quality photographs will not be accepted.

Submissions can be sent in hard copy by post or in soft copy via e-mail. Although materials are accepted all year round, the deadline for submission for the maiden issue is 31st November, 2008.

All correspondences to:
Dr. Ozioma Onuzulike
Department of Fine and Applied Arts,
University of Nigeria,
Nsukka.
E-mail: oozioma@nsukkaartschool.info
Uli-journal@nsukkaartschool.info

CFP: Journal of Media Practice Special Issue: A Decade of Media Practice: Changes, Challenges and Choices
The Journal of Media Practice is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2009! To mark this anniversary, the Journal is looking for contributions from colleagues involved in media practice around the world, whether as teachers or practitioners.

The current decade is witnessing vast changes in the production, consumption and forms of media. With digital technology, video art, documentary, film and other visual media are all going through interesting changes at the institutional, artistic and audience levels. Web 2.0 is blurring the lines between the production and consumption of media, and is opening up new spaces of expression in societies where state censorship hinders freedom of speech in traditional media. It is also instigating changes in web design. Satellite television is consolidating itself as the primary medium in places like the Middle East. Digital radio is opening up new possibilities for broadcasting. More synergies are being created between different media forms, whether between the internet and television, the internet and documentary, or any number of other possibilities.

The Journal invites international contributions responding to the changes and challenges in the media practice landscape over the last decade, be it television, radio, video art, documentary, film, screenwriting, the internet, the press, or any other form of print, audio, visual or audiovisual media, and the choices that those changes and challenges have created for media practitioners, institutions and audiences.

In addition to academic articles, the Journal encourages the submission of:
- Interviews with key media personnel and artists
- Reflections by media practitioners on their own practice (whether within institutions or as independent practitioners)
- Reviews of exhibitions and other media events
- Critical pieces about changes in technology, content and delivery of media products and tools, or the work of media institutions around the world

Articles should be 5000 words, reviews 500-1000 words, and critical pieces and reflections between 1000-3000 words. The Editor is happy to discuss other possibilities with potential contributors prior to the deadline below. All submissions are subject to peer review. Please send all completed submissions to jmp@rhul.ac.uk. The deadline to receive all completed material (full articles, reviews etc.) is October 17, 2008. Informal queries, speculative abstracts and proposals can be sent to the Editor Lina Khatib: lina.khatib@rhul.ac.uk in advance of the October deadline.

CFP: Rethinking Visual Narratives from Asia: Intercultural and Comparative Perspectives

The Department of Fine Arts at the University of Hong Kong will host an international conference on Rethinking Visual Narratives from 8-9 June 2009. The conference will bring together approximately fifteen scholars presenting new and original research to discuss how visual narratives function in different cultures and exploring connections and interactions between the arts of Asia and that of Asia and the West. The papers and discussion will consolidate academic understanding of visual narrative theories and augment them through analysis of their potential as a tool for exploring inter-cultural interactions and questioning cross-cultural assumptions. The focus will be on the visual with a cross-cultural dimension and dating to any time period within a broadly defined art historical discipline and material culture studies.

Possible panel topics include, but are not limited to:

*  The place of narrative: architecture and the disposition of imagery
*  Theories of narration
*  Word and image: illustration and interpretation
*  Printed texts and images: semiotic dialogue
*  The social embeddedness of narrative
*  Narratology
*  The role of non-narrative or anti-narrative elements in imagery

Papers will be hosted on the conference website by the end of April 2009. It is expected that a conference proceedings will be published.

Abstracts due on 5 September 2008 by email to -

Dr. Alexandra Green
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Fine Arts, University of Hong Kong
Email: greenar@hkucc.hku.hk

CFP: Islamic Resurgence in the Age of Globalization: Myth, Memory, Emotion
Venue: NTNU-The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim
Date: September 4-6, 2009
Organizers: Ulrika Mårtensson, NTNU; Itzchak Weismann, Haifa University; Mark Sedgwick, Aarhus University.

The resurgence of Islamic sentiment starting in the later part of the twentieth century assumed various forms, from moderate da‘wa organizations to radical jihad vanguards. This multitude of Islamic and Islamist discourses and modes of collective action are now being integrated, together with the societies in which they are embedded, into the wider process of globalization. The dramatic increase in economic, social, cultural, and political connections across the globe, and the growing awareness that we all live in one world, have deeply affected many Islamists’ perceptions of Self and Other, their assessment of the nature of the challenges Islam faces, and their modes of resistance to the hegemonic West and to local Westernized elites.

Existing studies of the contemporary Islamic and Islamist upsurge include social surveys of various movements, analyses of the teachings of ideologues, and sophisticated reflections concerning their meaning and significance. The conference seeks to contribute to this ongoing research by adopting an interdisciplinary approach which combines two complementary perspectives, the historical and the cultural studies approach; the latter has in fact developed in conscious relation to globalization and its concomitant communications revolution.

We invite interdisciplinary paper proposals dealing with the Islamic resurgence in the late 20th and early 21st centuries from the perspective of three key concepts: myth, memory and emotion. Myth is used here especially in Roland Barthes' sense as a form of meta-language in which given symbolical signs are appropriated and stripped of their original contexts, history, and significances only to be infused with new and “mystifying” conceptual content. Examples of myths could be the new significances ascribed to Saladin and the Crusades, Jerusalem and Karbala, the hijâb and the siwâq. This connects to memory (remembering and forgetting), either collective (such as different - liberal, radical, Sufi – “remembrance” of the legacy of al-salaf, of the Ottoman Empire, of the “orthodox” Sultan Awrangzeb, etc.) or private (inspired by childhood experiences, persecution of relatives, etc). Finally, emotion refers to the social and psychological mechanisms which motivate people to adopt religious attitudes, join Islamic organizations and movements of various types and shades, and sometimes even be prepared to sacrifice their lives on the path of God.

Keynote speakers are: Dale Eickelman, Dartmouth College Armando Salvatore, Humboldt University Hakan Yavuz, University of Utah

It is intended that an edited volume will be published, based on the proceedings of the conference. Traveling expenses and accommodation for paper presenters will be covered by the organizers, as will be an excursion to the fjords and a concluding dinner. Abstract proposals (maximum 400 words, with a brief CV, maximum two sentences) should be sent by January 31, 2009 to: Ulrika Mårtenson (ulrika.martensson@hf.ntnu.no) Itzchak Weismann (weismann@research.haifa.ac.il) Mark Sedgwick (mjs@teo.au.dk)

CFP: Exploding Genre
Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture
Deadline: 20th December 2008
Submission Guidelines

Genre has undergone radical transformations since the advent of a media society, in which popular texts are not so much literary but visual. Narrative studies of genre, such as John Cawelti's Six-Gun Mystique (1970) and Darko Suvin's Metamorphoses of Science-Fiction (1979), were quickly overturned by an increasing interest in cinematic, televisual, visual and digital textualities. Studies of different and interrelated media superceded the structuralist interest in narrative. Increasingly generic identity was conceived of as modal, or adaptable between media, consumed and produced by differently situated groups of readers, cultures and audiences.

Genre became differentiated from within itself, no longer identical but constituted at the interface of various media and readers. It was assembled from other genres, a combination of overlapping, discontinuous tropes that played ironically with its own established forms. Postmodernism had broken with both the neo-classicism of the New Criticism and with a historically minded structuralism to produce a new critical view of genre, one that fostered the emergence of hybrid and self-conscious fictions between media. Its readers were no longer seen as isolated but, in their engagement with multiple practices of interpretation, were recognized in distinct communities. Studies like Janice Radway's Reading the Romance: Women, Romance and Popular Fiction (1991) and Henry Jenkins' Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (1992) explored new ways of looking at popular texts within their contexts.

It is with a view to addressing these changes that this issue of Reconstruction will investigate the function of genre in theory and fictions alike. Papers are sought that address the fragmented state of genre theory, spread as it is across studies of new and old media, fan and reading communities, narrative and visual theory. We are interested in the function of genre in different medias, such as comics and games. Why has genre persisted in this age of multi-modal expressions? What makes it tick, travel across media, to return and coalesce in new and old forms of narrative, visuality and intertextuality?

We envisage papers covering a variety of theoretical / discursive positions, including:
- feminist theory
- queer theory
- postcolonial theory
- convergent/transformative media
- new cultural histories
- ludology

Please send completed essays, multimedial performances, etc. to Helen Merrick and Darren Jorgensen at exp.genre_at_gmail.com by 20th December, 2008. We are happy to consider abstracts and proposals prior to this date. Publication is expected in the third quarter of 2009.

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture (ISSN: 1547-4348) is an innovative online cultural studies journal dedicated to fostering an intellectual community composed of scholars and their audience, granting them all the ability to share thoughts and opinions on the most important and influential work in contemporary interdisciplinary studies. Reconstruction publishes one open issue and three themed issues quarterly. Reconstruction is indexed in the MLA International Bibliography.

Call for Papers: Joint Faculty/Graduate Student Seminar on Violence, Race, and Gender
November 7, 2008
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA

The Joint Faculty/Graduate Student Seminar on Violence, Race, and Gender is designed to offer a unique space for intellectual community-building where advanced graduate students and faculty scholars who do work at the intersection of violence, race, and gender can collaborate. Joy James, Professor of Humanities and Political Science at Williams College and author of Resisting State Violence: Radicalism, Gender and Race in U.S. Culture, and Andrea Smith, Assistant Professor of American Culture and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan and author of Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, will lead the day-long seminar along with Macarena Gómez-
Barris, Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity at USC, who will moderate.

The seminar will consist of two groups of participants.  The first will include six students whose papers will serve as the framework for the seminar. Professors James and Smith will respond to the papers and help structure the discussion.  Joining in the discussion will be the second group of participants—a small cohort of faculty members and graduate students from the USC community whose work is also implicated in the intersection of violence, race and gender.  All participants will be responsible for reading in advance the pre-circulated papers and a representative text (TBA) that will engage central themes to be raised in the seminar.

The organizers invite abstracts from graduate students who have completed substantial papers (20+ pages) they are looking to publish and/or develop into dissertation chapters.  Submissions from across a range of disciplines, dealing with any topic related to the intersection of violence, race, and gender, are welcomed.  Depending upon the availability of funds, participants selected from outside of the Los Angeles area may be provided small stipends to help offset the costs of attending the seminar.  Further details will be provided to those chosen to participate. 
Interested students should submit the following:

•    A one-page abstract
•    An abbreviated CV
•    A one-page statement addressing your interest in attending the seminar and its potential usefulness for your work.
•    A statement of your audio/visual needs, if necessary.

Materials should be submitted in Word format (please no submissions in Vista) by September 10, 2008.  Late submissions will not be considered.  Selected participants will be notified by September 15, 2008, and final papers will be due by October 15, 2008.

Submissions and questions should be directed to Terrion Williamson at uscseminar@gmail.com.
Terrion L. Williamson
University of Southern California
Doctoral Candidate, American Studies & Ethnicity

CFP: "Black History: Full Disclosure": AAAHRP Conference
Submission deadline: October 31, 2008

The Association for African American Historical Research and Preservation (AAAHRP) is accepting proposals for individual papers, panels, original documentaries, and workshops for its 2009 Biennial Black History Conference. Scholars, professional and avocational historians, genealogists, librarians, archivists, authors, and graduate students from the United States and other countries are encouraged to submit proposals based on previously neglected or unfamiliar black history and culture. Individuals engaged in the preservation of black history at historic sites, museums, or history societies are also encouraged to submit proposals. The conference theme, "Black History: Full Disclosure," allows a wide range of topics including, but not limited to: economics, education, fine arts, imperialism, law, literature, local history, media, miscegenation, politics, religion, and women's movements. Proposals within the realm of the African Diaspora that include Africans in Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, or South America are of particular interest to the AAAHRP Conference Committee.

Graduate students should indicate "Debut Paper" if it will be its first presentation at an academic conference. Debut papers may be grouped together at the conference, with prizes awarded based on comprehensiveness of research, presentation technique, adherence to time limits, and other factors. Authors of the first and second place selections will receive $200 and $100 respectively to help defray the costs of attending the conference.

Abstracts should not exceed 500 words, and must include the paper's provisional title, the author's title and name, affiliation, mailing address, country, contact phone number and e-mail address. The abstract should be sent with a short bio (300-word maximum) to AAAHRP2009Conference@comcast.net.

For workshop approval, submit details, including special requirements (300-word maximum); for original documentaries, provide short description (300-word maximum). All submissions must be in English. For additional conference details and inquiries, please contact
AAAHRP2009Conference@comcast.net .

One goal of AAAHRP conferences is to increase public awareness and understanding of African American history so we expect a sizeable attendance at the conference from the public. Information about AAAHRP's 2007 black history conference can be found at www.aaahrp.org/html/2007_conference_.html. Additional information can easily be found by searching for "AAAHRP" on the Internet. Please note that the expenses of attending the AAAHRP 2009 Biennial Black History Conference (including travel, conference fee, and any other expenses) will be the responsibility of the participants.

CFP: LIMINA: A Journal of Historical and Cultural Studies
Call for Submissions, Volume 15
Submissions Deadline 30 September 2008

Limina is an online, refereed, academic journal of historical and cultural studies based in the Discipline of History at The University of Western Australia. Limina provides opportunities for new work to be communicated in a lively and diverse forum, and encourages studies that engage with, discuss and enlarge theoretical debates.

We are especially committed to publishing the work of postgraduate students and early career researchers. Research students include current postgraduates working on Graduate Certificates and Diplomas, Masters students, and Doctoral candidates. Early career researchers are students whose research degrees are in progress or were completed within the last five years.

Limina publishes scholarly articles of approximately 5000 words from any field within the humanities, favouring work of an interdisciplinary nature. They must demonstrate original research and must be substantially different from other published work.

Please ensure that your submission conforms to the Limina style guide. For more information please visit our website at: http://limina.arts.uwa.edu.au Submissions (in MS Word or RTF format) or enquiries by email: limina@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

The final submission date for articles to be considered for Volume 15 is 30 September 2008 with intent to publish in June 2009.

CFP: The Society for Emblem Studies
The Society for Emblem Studies ( www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/SES/) invites your proposals to participate in the Emblem Sessions at the
44th International Congress on Medieval Studies (May 7–10, 2009) at the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan
 
Suggested Topics:
Emblem books and manuscripts,  Medieval sources for emblems and imprese. Emblems and heraldry, court culture, and royal entries. Emblem and the arts and in architecture. Symbol theories and emblematic ideas in art and writing. Emblems and national traditions. Emblems in religious practice and theology. Emblems in political discourses and iconography. Emblems in the material and visual culture. Emblems and the history of the book. We welcome new approaches to emblem studies, including gender perspectives, global reception and production of emblems, contribution on the practice and theory of emblem digitization.
 
Deadline for proposals: September 1, 2008
Session Organizer: Sabine Mödersheim
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Department of German
818 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
Fax (608) 262 7949
Email: smoedersheim@wisc.edu
 
The International Congress on Medieval Studies is an annual gathering of over 3,000 scholars interested in Medieval Studies. It features over 600 sessions of papers, panel discussions, roundtables, workshops, and performances. There are also some 90 business meetings and receptions sponsored by learned societies, associations, and institutions. The exhibits hall boasts nearly 70 exhibitors, including publishers, used book dealers, and purveyors of medieval sundries. The Congress lasts from Thursday morning until Sunday at noon. More informataion here: http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/index.html

CFP: FILM AND FILM CULTURE Issue 5, "Frontiers and Futures in Film and Digital Media"
Cinema is changing. Cinema has always changed: evolved, developed and adapted to shifts in technology and culture since its inception in the 19th century. The nature of the medium itself has undergone radical realignment in the past decade however, particularly with the growth of the internet and the refinement of digital technologies in the production and delivery of filmed entertainment. Arguably, the convergence of technological giddiness and the refocusing of global capitalism represent a new climate for the production and reception of cinema not unlike that which prevailed at its origins. Is YouTube the new Salon Indien? Are developments in gaming changing what audiences expect in terms of interactivity with the image? Is the third coming of 3-D really our next step towards Star Trek holodecks? Does the shift from mechanical to digital production fundamentally change the art of film and how we should theorise it? Film and Film Culture is looking for articles on the frontiers and futures of Film and Digital Media. Articles could span a range of topics, addressing production, distribution,
reception, representation, art and aesthetics, economics, and include reference to digital media including online filmmaking, machinima, gaming and television, but always with an eye for the implications and relationship with film and film culture.

Articles should be between 4000 and 8000 words in length and should use the MLA referencing style. In the first instance, however, an expression of interest and/or an abstract (c200 words) should be submitted to the editors at the addresses given below.

Film and Film Culture is a peer-reviewed film journal originating in Ireland which focuses on all aspects of international film and film culture
in a global context. It aims to promote research, debate, and intellectual engagement with cinema through the publication of a wide range of high quality writing by academics, critics, and practitioners.

Details on back issues can be found at http://www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/lanlit/research/film_journal/index.html

Proposals should be sent by 27th September 2008, with final article to be submitted on16th January 2009. Contact:Harvey O'Brien. Harvey.obrien@ucd.ie, Niamh Thornton, n.thornton@ulster.ac.uk

CFP: Tenth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign ~ March 5-7, 2009
Submission Deadline: November 1, 2008

The Executive Committee of the Tenth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce a call for papers. The Symposium, which is the capstone event of the History Department's Women's History month celebration, is scheduled for March 5-7, 2009. To celebrate and encourage further work in the field of women's and gender history, we invite submissions from graduate students from any institution and discipline. The Symposium organizers welcome individual papers on any topic in the field of women's and gender history; papers submitted as a panel will be judged individually. Preference will be given to scholars who did not present at last year's Symposium.

This year's theme, "Transforming Power," seeks to interrogate a variety of trends shaping the field of women's and gender history. The Symposium Executive Committee is interested in assembling a geographically and temporally diverse body of papers; exciting proposals could focus on, but would not be limited to, analysis of whether and to what extent power-as both a force in the world and an analytical scaffold-has been transformed over the past decades of feminist scholarship and activism. Of related interest, as well, would be proposals that engage the issue of difference in women's and gender studies and history, especially the benefits and difficulties of using difference as a scholarly and political frame of reference. These questions are purposefully broad, inviting perspectives and reflections from a variety of temporal, geographical, and inter/disciplinary perspectives. Additionally, in order to celebrate the Symposium's tenth anniversary and in keeping with our theme's focus on gender, power and the politics of location, we hope to assemble a specifically historiographic panel addressing the state of the field.We are, then, particularly interested in paper proposals that problematize the history of feminist history or suggest new historiographic avenues of inquiry for our futures.

For the Tenth Annual Symposium, we are delighted to announce a keynote speaker who engages many of these themes in his work: . Roderick A. Ferguson, Associate Professor of American Studies, University of Minnesota The journal Gender & History will again sponsor a prize for the best graduate student paper presented at the Symposium. Conference presenters will also have the opportunity to publish their work in the on-line proceedings volume. We possess limited resources to subsidize travel expenses for presenters. Giving priority to presenters with limited conference experience, we will allocate these funds based on the quality of presenters' proposals and the availability of funds.

To submit a paper or panel by email (preferred method); please send only one attachment in Word or PDF format containing a 250-word abstract and a one-page curriculum vitae for each paper presenter, commentator, or panel chair to gendersymp@gmail.com . To submit a paper or panel in a hard copy format, please send five (5) copies of all abstracts and curriculum vitae to: Programming Committee, Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History 309 Gregory Hall, MC 466, 810 S. Wright Street Urbana, Illinois 61801. For more information, please contact Programming Committee Chairs, David Greenstein or Laura Duros at gendersymp@gmail.com .