CFP: Urban Spaces and Cultures of the American West (6/10/05; WLA, 10/19/05-10/23/05)

CFP: Urban Spaces and Urban Cultures of the American West

For the 2005 Western Literature Association Conference in Los Angeles,
we plan to organize several interdisciplinary panels exploring how urban
theorists and urban cultural producers (including writers, filmmakers,
artists, photographers, songwriters, etc.) have explored the
urbanization and suburbanization of the American West. While the
American West is often understood as a wild frontier region, this Old
West has largely been paved over by an industrialized and urbanized New
West. This panel will explore how our sense of the American
West-including both its material and cultural landscapes-changes when we
emphasize its new urban and suburban spaces: from its urban ghettos,
ethnic neighborhoods, corporate skyscrapers, and public city centers to
its vast sprawling suburbs, strip malls, tract homes, Wal-Marts,
McDonalds, and Dairy Queens. In addition, we also want to explore how
our understanding of cities-including urban spaces, urban cultures, and
urban forms-changes in the context of the American West. What is
different and unique about the ways in which urban spaces and urban
cultures have developed in the American West, and what does this New
West tell us about the consequences and futures of urbanization more
broadly? Given the conference's location in Los Angeles, we are
particularly interested in papers that focus specifically on Southern
California, Mike Davis, and/or the L.A. School, but we are also broadly
interested western urbanization in general, and we welcome papers on how
urbanization and suburbanization are transforming the physical and
cultural landscapes of the entire American West-from Portland and
Phoenix to Fresno and Boise. Some of the kinds of issues that we hope to
explore include:

*How does our understanding of the spatial and cultural geography of the
American West change when we see it as more urban or suburban than
rural?

*How have western cities developed new-decentralized, multinuclear,
postindustrial, consumer-oriented, carceral, etc.-urban forms, and how
do these new western cities differ from other cities? How has the unique
socio-spatial geography of these cities influenced their cultural or
political traditions?

*What aesthetic strategies have writers and other artists used to
represent the urban spaces and cultures of western cities? How have the
spaces and cultures of western cities influenced cultural producers as
diverse as Jack Kerouac, Thomas Pynchon, Maxine Hong Kingston, Sherman
Alexie, Joan Didion, Chuck Palahniuk, the Dead Kennedys, Joni Mitchell,
Ice T, David Hockney, James Dean, Ridley Scott, or Quentin Tarantino?

*How has Los Angeles been theorized by architectural and urban theorists
associated with the L. A. School-from Carey McWilliams and Reyner Banham
to Mike Davis and Edward Soja? What are the strengths and weaknesses of
the L.A. School's theoretical models, and how do its theories compare
with those of other architectural and urban theorists?

*How does the spatial and cultural geography of western cities reflect
broader global economic forces, making these cities as global as they
are regional or national? How have critics and artists explored the
tension between these cities' local and global dimensions?

Please send a 1-page proposal and 1-page CV to Robert Bennett by Friday
June 10, 2005.

Proposals may be sent either by email (preferable):
bennett_at_english.montana.edu
or by mail: Robert Bennett / 2-270 Wilson Hall / English Department /
Montana State University / Bozeman, MT 59717

More info about the conference is available online:
www.usu.edu/westlit/conference2005.html

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Received on Tue May 03 2005 - 20:54:11 EDT