I have proposed the following Special Session for SAMLA, November 10-12,
2000, in Birmingham:
The Cultural Property of "Race" in U. S. Texts
This panel will include papers that investigate how "race" functions as a
form of cultural property within the United States to maintain and/or
challenge the white hegemony and the ideologies sustaining "race" categories.
Given the recent work in the field of whiteness studies, panelists should
examine the construction of "race" within U. S. texts not as a biological or
sociologically-constructed category, but as a form of property that is
"valued" in ways that provide material, psychological, and cultural benefits.
More specifically, papers might investigate how racial property is invested
with or divested of "value;" how our understandings of "race" are embedded
within the capitalist culture of exchange; how "race" as a form of property
can be inherited, lost, stolen, gained, or used in ways that reify and/or
threaten our understandings of "race;" or how the transmission of racial
property from one generation to the next creates anxiety through the
potential to destabilize white hegemonic control of cultural power. Papers
may focus on various U. S. texts (e.g., novels, poetry, speeches, films,
visual texts) from any period of U. S. history. Special consideration will be
given to papers investigating textual representations of "mixed-race"
characters, "interracial" families, or "multi-cultural" communities.
Please send 1-2 page abstracts via email by March 29, 2000, to jacary0@cs.com.
Julie A. Cary
University of Kentucky
Department of English
1215 Patterson Office Tower
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
jacary0@cs.com
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