News
CFP: East of California Conference:
Posted on: 05/30/2006
Sites of Asian American Studies: November 3-4, 2006, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
In 2001, the East of California Conference was hosted by Oberlin College. Five years later, the EOC conference returns to the state of Ohio, to be hosted by The Ohio State University. In the years since EOC first came to Ohio, the nature and tenor of Asian American Studies has altered dramatically. Beyond the simple east coast-west coast split that has characterized Asian American Studies, regions in between—the Midwest, South, Southwest, the Great Plains and the Mountain states—have emerged as vital places from which to document and engage key political and social issues facing Asian Americans within and outside of the Academy. Mindful of these critiques, this year's conference organizers seek to reconsider the contours and practices of Asian American communities and scholarship east of California.
With a view to enriching and broadening the ways Asian Americanists conceptualize our subjects and objects of inquiry, we are proposing to organize panels focused around key terms and concepts that have shaped Asian American Studies. The reasons for this approach are multi-fold. First, we wish to explore how the location of Asian American Studies in America's heartland—away from the two coasts—compels us to redefine the field. How does studying the Midwest and the South and establishing programs and departments therein necessarily challenge the field's key assumptions and existing paradigms? Moreover, how might we reflect on the location of Asian American Studies in relation to other interdisciplinary programs such as American Studies, Asian Studies, Queer Studies, and Women's Studies, particularly in terms of implementing programs and departments? How might collaborations with the methodological and theoretical possibilities afforded by other departments and programs sensitive to the exigencies of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality productively reshape the objects and subjects of our critical work?
With these questions in mind, we invite 200-word abstracts that describe how the key organizing concepts listed below shapes the nature of your research and/or activism. Please note that we may not use all the rubrics, so feel free to signal how your work might offer intersectional analyses of one or more category.
1. Aesthetics
2. Black-white racial binary
3. California-centrism
4. Cultural studies
5. Labor
6. Nation/ empire
7. Neoliberalism
8. Queer studies
9. Surveillance
10. Transnationalism and Diaspora
We are soliciting individual papers to draw out the theoretical and
methodological complexities of engaging these key terms. Please indicate which key term your paper engages. We envision panels of 3 presenters, in which panelists will have the option of pre circulating papers so as to allow the panel time to be devoted to a critical interrogation of the key concept. We also invite you to submit a panel (consisting of three papers). We will, however, be inviting our colleagues from OSU and Denison University to serve as chairs and respondents. In so doing, we hope to facilitate a regionally-diverse and rich approach sensitive to the changing needs of Asian American Studies in places without established histories of AAS.
The 2006 EOC conference will run from Friday, November 3- Saturday, November 4, 2006. Our tentative keynote speaker will be anthropologist, Martin F. Manalansan, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Manalansan is the author of several pioneering works on gay Asian American masculinities, and most recently, the author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2004. Please send abstracts of 200 words or less by to Anita Mannur (eoc_conf_2006@yahoo.com). Please include a 1 page CV with your submission.
In 2001, the East of California Conference was hosted by Oberlin College. Five years later, the EOC conference returns to the state of Ohio, to be hosted by The Ohio State University. In the years since EOC first came to Ohio, the nature and tenor of Asian American Studies has altered dramatically. Beyond the simple east coast-west coast split that has characterized Asian American Studies, regions in between—the Midwest, South, Southwest, the Great Plains and the Mountain states—have emerged as vital places from which to document and engage key political and social issues facing Asian Americans within and outside of the Academy. Mindful of these critiques, this year's conference organizers seek to reconsider the contours and practices of Asian American communities and scholarship east of California.
With a view to enriching and broadening the ways Asian Americanists conceptualize our subjects and objects of inquiry, we are proposing to organize panels focused around key terms and concepts that have shaped Asian American Studies. The reasons for this approach are multi-fold. First, we wish to explore how the location of Asian American Studies in America's heartland—away from the two coasts—compels us to redefine the field. How does studying the Midwest and the South and establishing programs and departments therein necessarily challenge the field's key assumptions and existing paradigms? Moreover, how might we reflect on the location of Asian American Studies in relation to other interdisciplinary programs such as American Studies, Asian Studies, Queer Studies, and Women's Studies, particularly in terms of implementing programs and departments? How might collaborations with the methodological and theoretical possibilities afforded by other departments and programs sensitive to the exigencies of race, class, culture, gender and sexuality productively reshape the objects and subjects of our critical work?
With these questions in mind, we invite 200-word abstracts that describe how the key organizing concepts listed below shapes the nature of your research and/or activism. Please note that we may not use all the rubrics, so feel free to signal how your work might offer intersectional analyses of one or more category.
1. Aesthetics
2. Black-white racial binary
3. California-centrism
4. Cultural studies
5. Labor
6. Nation/ empire
7. Neoliberalism
8. Queer studies
9. Surveillance
10. Transnationalism and Diaspora
We are soliciting individual papers to draw out the theoretical and
methodological complexities of engaging these key terms. Please indicate which key term your paper engages. We envision panels of 3 presenters, in which panelists will have the option of pre circulating papers so as to allow the panel time to be devoted to a critical interrogation of the key concept. We also invite you to submit a panel (consisting of three papers). We will, however, be inviting our colleagues from OSU and Denison University to serve as chairs and respondents. In so doing, we hope to facilitate a regionally-diverse and rich approach sensitive to the changing needs of Asian American Studies in places without established histories of AAS.
The 2006 EOC conference will run from Friday, November 3- Saturday, November 4, 2006. Our tentative keynote speaker will be anthropologist, Martin F. Manalansan, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Manalansan is the author of several pioneering works on gay Asian American masculinities, and most recently, the author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora, Duke University Press, 2004. Please send abstracts of 200 words or less by to Anita Mannur (eoc_conf_2006@yahoo.com). Please include a 1 page CV with your submission.
