Histories of Violence: War and Memory
The Northwestern University Critical American Studies Working Group seeks presenters and participants for a day-long Histories of Violence symposium on Friday, May 10, 2013. This event will be held at Northwestern University's Evanston campus.
Histories of Violence constitutes a new intellectual movement that intersects with multiple fields of interdisciplinary inquiry, including American Studies, Literary Studies, Ethnic Studies, History, Theater Studies, Anthropology, and Performance Studies. Defined by particular narrative, archival, and pedagogical questions, emerging work in Histories of Violence recognizes the non-linearity and in/visibility of violent experiences while seeking to empower witnesses, survivors, and descendents of violence.
This symposium explores Histories of Violence through the theme of War and Memory. Specifically, we seek papers that address the long and broad aftermaths of war, including those that mobilize the figures of veterans, refugees, colonial subjects, and sex workers. We are interested in the transnational circulation of violence, weapons, tactics, and symbols, as well as the relationship between violence and power both in the United States and in transnational context. How do people remember violent experience, and what are the social costs of such memories? What legacies of American violence continue to shape identity, projects of empire, and political discourse? Can we read the relationship between state and interpersonal violence in memory?
Lisa Lowe (Tufts University, Department of English) will be the featured keynote speaker.
The symposium will be organized as a set of roundtable discussions; rather than deliver papers in a traditional panel format, presenters will share pre-circulated conference-length papers with symposium participants. Lunch and dinner will be provided. We invite paper abstracts of no more than 300 words, sent as e-mail attachments to historiesofviolence@gmail.com. Please include your contact information and affiliation, as well as any unusual audio/visual requirements. The roundtables will be assembled by conference organizers.
The deadline for submissions is November 28, 2012.
For those who wish to attend but not to present, please send an e-mail of interest.
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Contact:
Natasha O. Dennison
+1 847 491 3525