Future conferences and cfps (2 showing)

MAY 2009: Narratives of Indigeneity: Literature, Law, Sovereignty

School of English and Humanities and the School of Law
Birkbeck, University of London, U.K.
May 22, 2009

This interdisciplinary one-day conference will explore expressions of
Indigenous cultural identity/identities and political activism in
literature, law and debates about sovereignty or self-determination. The
conference is particularly concerned with articulations of the
relationship between Indigenous subjectivity and political agency in
literature, and the law; as well as the ways in which past and present
Indigenous literature presents theoretical and conceptual challenges to
contemporary literary, legal, and political thought and opportunities for
cross-disciplinary dialogue. We are also interested in all aspects of
Indigenous sovereignty which includes representational, cultural,
intellectual, and rhetorical sovereignties, as well as issues of
religious/spiritual practice.

We invite papers which explore Indigenous writings, both “fiction”
and “non-fiction”, by Native American, First Nations, Indigenous
Australian, and Maori authors and/or narratives which explore the
historical, political, and legal aspects of (post)colonial peoples in
settler-state nations.

We also invite papers which examine the legal constructions of
indigeneity as a part of a colonial hegemony; the modes by which such
narratives may be deconstructed; and Indigenous voices and/or bodies
within the legal narrative.

We would particularly welcome contributions from Indigenous
scholars/researchers.

Approaches may include the following:

- Indigeneity in Indigenous and non-Indigenous literature
- Indigeneity in the law
- Indigenous storytelling/ Indigenous histories
- Indigenous sovereignty/ies and political autonomy
- Indigeneity and land
- (Post)colonial Indigenous identity/ies
- Indigenism as resistance/activism
- Indigenous studies and the academy
- “Theorising” Indigenous cultural production—“Indigenising” theory

Papers should be 20 minutes long. Please e-mail a 300-word abstract and
short biographical note to both Dr. Sharon Holm
(s.holm_at_english. bbk.ac.uk) and Kathleen Birrell (k.birrell_at_law. bbk.ac.uk)
by December 15, 2008.

JUNE 26-28 2009: Culture and the Canada-US Border (University of Kent)

Border studies in North America has hitherto focused primarily on the United States’ border with Mexico, the point at which, Gloria Anzaldúa has noted, ‘the Third World grates against the first and bleeds’. This conference seeks to shift border discussions North to the 49th parallel and its representation in both Canadian and American cultural products and, in so doing, to offer an intervention into familiar border discourses. If the US-Mexico border effects a brutal juxtaposition of national economic prosperity and deprivation, operating alongside a generally perceived linguistic and ethnic divide, what functions do we attribute to the Canada-US border, traditionally celebrated as the longest undefended border in the world? How far North can we take the insights produced by US-Mexico border studies—or do we need different theories altogether for a different border? If the Canada-US border figures prominently in Canadians’ sense of their national identity, how does it figure south of the border? And to what extent do subnational groups’ relationships to this border diverge from dominant national positions?

We invite papers that examine issues raised by the cultural implications of Canada-US border in Canadian and/or American literature, television, cinema, visual art, music, and other cultural forms. Papers may address, but are not limited to, the following issues:

- Indigeneity and cross-border identifications and dislocations
- Challenges to nation-state borders posed by indigenous self-determination
- Challenges to nation-state borders and the idea of the nation posed by Québec nationalism
- Diasporic communities across the border (e.g. relationships between African-Canadian and African-American culture; between Asian-Canadian and Asian-American culture)
- The border in dominant national(ist) fictions
- Constructions of Canada-US sameness and difference
- Comparisons of Canadian and American impressions of the Canada-US border
- Comparisons of the 49th parallel and the Alaska/Yukon border
- Comparisons of Anglo-Canada’s and Québec’s relationship to the Canada-US border
- Assessments of the usefulness of US-Mexico border studies, and border theory based on the US-Mexico border, to the Canada-US border
- Hemispheric contextualisation of the Canada-US border.

Papers will be 20 minutes long. Please send a 300-word abstract and short bio-biographical note to both David Stirrup (d.f.stirrup@kent.ac.uk) and Gillian Roberts (gillian.roberts@nottingham.ac.uk) by 31 October 2008.