EAAS Conference 2016 Call for Proposals – deadline June 15, 2015

*****Proposals are invited*****

*****for the next Conference of the*****

*****European Association for American Studies*****

EAAS Conference Call for Proposals

Open Call for Presentations To highlight the range and diversity of American Studies in Europe the EAAS is issuing an open call for proposals for the April 2016 conference, to be hosted in Constanta, Romania.

Proposers may wish to identify and explore long-standing, current and emerging intellectual debates in American Studies; to explore critically the varying practices and methodologies in American Studies; to bring to life current discussions and to posit potential paradigms in American Studies.

The various anniversaries of 2016 provide a variety of potential foundations for proposals.

  • 150 years earlier marked the start of post-Civil War Reconstruction.
  • The 1860s was the era of the dime novel, and Seeley Regester’s The Dead Letter, credited by some as the first full-length American crime novel, appeared in 1866.
  • 125 years will have passed since Thomas Edison patented the motion camera.
  • 1916 saw the creation of the US National Parks Service;
  • the opening of the nation’s first birth control clinic;
  • the election from Montana of Jeanette Rankin, the first woman to sit in the US House of Representatives;
  • the release of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance;
  • the publication of Carl Sandburg’s Chicago Poems.
  • Shirley Jackson, Walker Percy, and Walter Cronkite were born in 1916.
  • Henry James died in the same year.
  • The National Organization for Women celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2016.
  • Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, its narrative echoing the American Revolution, also dates from 1966.
  • Star Trek first reached TV screens in that same year.
Contemporary American Studies topics could include, for example:

  • discussion and exploration through various methodologies of the USA’s strong, diverse and expanding literary canon;
  • the multi-dimensional character and seemingly endless inventiveness of America’s cultural output;
  • the adaptability of American culture in an age offering radically new social media;
  • the heritage that might be left after the nation’s first African-American presidency;
  • the ongoing 2016 elections.

The EAAS conference encompasses topics across the disciplinary spectrum in American Studies, as well as interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches to the subject. The themes mentioned above are only indicative, and not in any way intended to be a definitive list.

The conference content will be defined by the range and breadth of your suggestions and the conference committee looks forward to receiving many different and stimulating proposals.

Format The EAAS is moving away from its former Workshop format. Proposals are now invited that may use a variety of presentation styles. The conference structure is expected mainly to consist of traditional panel sessions with papers, and proposals for panels of papers are very welcome indeed, but submissions may also be proposed as roundtables, workshops, shop-talks, dialogues, interviews, performances, individual lecture presentations, readings or in other innovative formats. Proposals for individual papers are also welcome, and will be considered for inclusion in appropriate conference sessions. Anyone interested in putting together a panel would be welcome to use the EAAS elist to seek panellists. It is expected that the conference will be made up mainly of sessions lasting 90 minutes or 2 hours, but there may be opportunity for shorter sessions. All proposals are expected to include the opportunity for discussion.

The conference website: http://eaas2016.org/

And proposal form: http://www.enl.auth.gr/abstracts/index.html

Deadline for Proposals ~~ 15 June 2015.