CFP: Activism and American Culture (6/1/04; NYMASA, 10/30/04)

From: Sophie Bell (sophiebell@verizon.net)
Date: Wed Apr 28 2004 - 22:09:42 EDT


Call for Papers

>From Tea Parties to Free Speech Zones: Activism and American Culture

The New York Metro American Studies Association (NYMASA), in partnership
with The New-York Historical Society, is seeking abstracts and papers for
"From Tea Parties to Free Speech Zones: Activism and American Culture," a
conference to be held at The New-York Historical Society on Saturday,
October 30, 2004.

In imagining this conference we would like participants to engage with any
combination of the following questions: how does activism get defined and
named? How do representations of activist movements shift along historical,
generic, and/or ideological boundaries (for example, how is one person's
riot another's uprising?)? Is activism inextricable from explicitly
political action? How do race, gender, class, region, and other categories
of identity shape activist movements? What are the relationships between
popular action and "the authorities"?

As well as traditionally understood forms of collective action, such as
rebellions, strikes, riots, nonviolent protest, and boycotts, we are also
interested in more broadly defined forms of activism: performative,
pedagogic, artistic, literary, and even eccentric. We particularly
encourage submissions that discuss activism before the 20th century, and
presentations that cross historic and disciplinary borders.

 Please submit abstracts by June 1, 2004 to Sarah Chinn via email at
sarah.chinn@hunter.cuny.edu or via U.S. mail at

 Sarah E. Chinn
 English Department
 Hunter College, CUNY
 695 Park Avenue
 New York, NY 10021

 Electronic submissions are preferred.

 Possible topics may include:

* Violent and/or nonviolent protest
* The language of activism
* Revolutions and their meanings
* Crackdowns and paranoia
* Pedagogy and activism
 * Activism across the political spectrum
 * Populism and demagoguery
 * Transatlantic movements
 * Riots, mobs, and disorder
 * Activism and technologies

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