This proposed panel for the Annual Meeting of the American Studies
Association 2002 (11/14-11/17, Houston, TX), addresses accounts of
imprisonment and testimony occurring within and without America's borders
(but involving Americans as either victims or agents of incarceration).
Imprisonment and testimony have emerged separately in the past decade as
central themes in both academic scholarship and politics. They have gained
such attention not only because of their political currency but also
because of their influence as crucial frames for examining the functions of
literature and art in contemporary transnational contexts. The panel seeks
to bring together the discourse on testimony with literary representations
of imprisonment, to ask any or all of the following questions: how do the
particularities of scenes of imprisonment impact the conditions of
subjectivity and hence the conditions of testimony? How and why does the
trauma of incarceration and/or torture resist representation? What are the
political implications of various narrative structures for testimony, from
realism to formal experimentation and alternatives (music, visual media)?
What is the relationship between imperialism and incarceration, and how
does that relationship influence testimony?
Participants must be ASA members by April 30, 2002. Please note your
membership status in your cover letter. Send 500-word abstracts and brief
vitae by January 15, 2002 (note extended deadline) to:
Kimberly Drake (kdrake@vwc.edu)
English Department
Virginia Wesleyan College
1584 Wesleyan Drive
Norfolk, VA 23502
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