Call for Papers: The Future(s) of Border Studies
Essay Collection
Deadline: 1 October 1999
Interest in border studies has exploded across academic disciplines in
recent years: artists and scholars in the fields of anthropology,
philosophy, cultural studies, Chicana/o studies, American studies, and
literary/postcolonial theory have begun to look at how the U.S.-Mexico
borderlands and its subjects are mapped in various literary, filmic, and
political discourses. As a site of increased transnational flows
associated with globalization, the "border" has become a term of
translation for imagining connections between a U.S.-Mexico border
culture, other historical and cultural zones such as the "Black Atlantic,"
and emerging diasporic communities. In this view, the border has become a
synonym for a surge in postnational diasporic public spheres that
challenge and further contest nationalist U.S. discourses.
But while the transformation of the border into a cross-cultural metaphor
has emphasized anti-nationalist notions of cultural hybridity and
transnational coexistence, it has not yet sufficiently traced the
specificities and inequalities of cross-border contacts. We are looking
for essays that challenge what Aijaz Ahmad has called the
"globalising-hybridist anti-histor[ies]" that have been written under the
aegis of border and postcolonial studies. We are especially interested in
papers that explore the material specificities of transnational border
cultures, not only along the U.S.-Mexico boundary but also in other
geopolitical border zones. We envision a collection of essays that draw on
methodologies and materials from a number of academic
disciplines--including, but not limited to geography, anthropology,
political science, sociology, environmental studies--as well essays
grounded in literary and cultural studies.
Please send (by 1 October 1999) completed essays or detailed abstracts by
email or regular mail to both coeditors:
Claudia Sadowski-Smith
Department of American Thought & Language
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824-1033
cssmith@pilot.msu.edu
James D. Lilley
Literature Program
University of Arizona
Modern Languages 445
Tucson, Arizona 85721
jlilley@u.arizona.edu
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