CFP: Insiders and Outsiders (grad) (6/15/07; 9/21/07-9/22/07)

CALL FOR PAPERS

?INSIDERS AND OUTSIDERS?
An Interdisciplinary Conference for Graduate Students
Department of Romance Studies, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
September 21-22, 2007

The graduate students of the Romance Studies departmentbr /> choose to stay ?underground??
? To what degree is the dynamic of citizen participation and exclusion
fundamental to the existence of the nation-state?
? What is "inside" a text, and what is "outside"? How do marginal notes, early
drafts, a writer's biography, her correspondence, etc., relate to the "finished"
text?
? What are the stakes of membership in a religious, political, social, or
ethnic group? Of exclusion? What is at stake when a non-member becomes a member
of these groups (or vice versa)?
? Higher education: bastion of the elite or motor of social advancement?
? Is the distinction between ?insiders and outsiders? a false dichotomy?
What are some ways this distinction might break down? Is there such a thing as
an intermediate or liminal position?
? How does technology unite or divide people?
? What is the relationship between works in the literary or religious canon
and marginal, dissident or apocryphal works?
? How are so-called ?minor? languages?languages spoken by minority
groups inside countries like Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland, etc.?faring
in artistic/literary production?
? Does a language?s status as a minority dialect confer special status on
those who speak/write it? Or does such status doom a language?s speakers to
existence on the margins?
? How do peripheries define the center (and vice versa)?
? How do public spaces (museums, monuments, parks, etc.) baptize the citizen
into the national family? What are the implications of presence in or absence
from such places?
? In an age that has seen increasing globalization and the advent of "virtual
space," what is the significance of national/regional boundaries? Are
boundaries, and hence categories like ?citizen,? ?resident,?
?immigrant,? etc. losing their relevance?

Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words to
insidersandoutsiders_at_gmail.com. Abstracts must be submitted in English. In
order to facilitate discussion across the disciplines, presentations will also
be made in English. Presentations will last 12-15 minutes. With your
submission, please include on a separate page your name, institutional
affiliation, phone number, street address, email address, and a brief
biographical sketch focusing on your academic work. Deadline for submissions
is June 15.

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Received on Wed Apr 04 2007 - 17:11:09 EDT