[JFKI-News] WG: Newsletter July 2019

[John-F.-Kennedy Institute <administration@jfki.fu-berlin.de>]

Von: Catrin Gersdorf <executive_director@dgfa.de>
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 25. Juli 2019 21:08
An: jfki@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Betreff: Newsletter July 2019

 

Liebe Mitglieder der DGfA,

mit dieser e-Mail erhalten Sie den neuesten Newsletter. Ganz besonders möchte ich Sie auf den CfP für Workshop Proposals für die DGfA-Jahrestagung 2020 in Heidelberg hinweisen. Wie immer ist die Deadline für Vorschläge der 1. Oktober 2019. Vorstand und Beirat werden dann auf der Herbst-Sitzung die eingereichten Vorschläge sichten und auswählen.

Ich wünsche Ihnen allen, dass Sie gut durch den heißen Sommer kommen.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen,
Catrin Gersdorf
Geschäftsführerin

 

1. DGfA

1.1. Call for Workshop Proposals, 67th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA): “Participation in American Culture and Society,” Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), Heidelberg University, June 4-6, 2020
Deadline: October 1, 2019

1.2. Call for Papers: 2020 EAAS Conference “20/20 Vision: Citizenship, Space, Renewal,” Warsaw, May 1–3, 2020
Deadline: November 30, 2019

2. Ausschreibungen

2.1. Willi Paul Adams Award
Deadline: May 1, 2020

2.2. David Thelen Award
Deadline: May 1, 2021

3. Veranstaltungen und Call for Papers

3.1. Call for Papers: (Re-) Thinking Home: 21st-Century Caribbean Diaspora Cultures & Geopolitical Imaginaries in North America, July 01-03, 2020 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Universität Bielefeld
Deadline: July 30, 2019

3.2. Call for Papers: Teaching Human-Animal Studies Symposium, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, January 23-25, 2020
Deadline: August 26, 2019

3.3. Call for Papers: UdS American Studies Graduate Forum „Liquid Trajectories: Flight, Mobility, and Migration,“ November 29-30, 2019, Universität des Saarlandes, Graduate Center C 9 3
Deadline: September 1, 2019

3.4. Call for Proposals: “Hip Hop Ecologies” – A Workshop at the University of Konstanz, June 26-28, 2020
Deadline: September 30, 2019

3.5. Call for Contributions: Semiotics in Cultural Studies/Semiotiken in den Kulturwissenschaften
Deadline: October 15, 2019

3.6. Call for Papers: aspeers, graduate-level peer-reviewed American studies journal
Deadline: October 27, 2019

3.7. Call for Papers: Heidelberg Center for American Studies 17th Annual Spring Academy Conference, Heidelberg, Germany, 23–27 March, 2020
Deadline: November 15, 2019

3.8. Call for Submissions: Anglia Book Series:

3.9. Call for Submissions: Anglia – Journal of English Philology

 

**************************

1. DGfA

1.1. Call for Workshop Proposals, 67th Annual Conference of the German Association for American Studies (GAAS/DGfA): “Participation in American Culture and Society,” Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA), Heidelberg University, June 4-6, 2020

Deadline: October 1, 2019

Local Organizers: Manfred Berg (History), Ulrike Gerhard (Geography), Günter Leypoldt (Literature and Culture), Margit Peterfy (Literature and Culture), Jan Stievermann (Religious History), Martin Thunert (Political Science), Welf Werner (Economics)

Participation is a core value of American citizenship and at the same time one of the nation’s most ambivalent concepts. In colonial America, a larger share of white males had the right to vote than in any other society in the world. The Federal Constitution of 1787 was a milestone in the history of political participation because it tied political power to national elections. In the nineteenth century, universal white manhood suffrage gave rise to the first electoral mass democracy worldwide. The struggle of women, racial and ethnic minorities, and immigrants for full participatory rights has been a major theme in U.S. history and remains a challenge today and into the future. This challenge reaches far beyond the realm of politics and encompasses full and equal access for groups and individuals to participate in a wide variety of social, cultural, religious, and economic activities. Exclusion from participation based on class, race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is indeed part and parcel of the nation’s heritage. In recent years, fears of a backlash against participation and inclusion are mounting as economic inequality is growing and American society is becoming more segmented and polarized. Ironically, social media, once believed to usher in a brave new world of easy and universal participation, drive the emergence of parallel worlds and echo chambers. At the political level, attempts to undermine the right of minorities and the poor to vote are reminiscent of racist disfranchisement during the age of Jim Crow.

Thus, our conference theme is an important and timely topic that also speaks to the full range of disciplines represented in the GAAS. We invite scholars of American Studies to explore the manifold expressions of and obstacles to participation in American culture and society, including but of course not limited to
- Manifestations of participation and exclusion in literary works and cultural production
- Literature and art as vehicles for articulating claims to inclusion and participation
- Access to literary publishing and cultural production
- Social media and participation
- Participation in social movements, religious communities, voluntary associations
- Political participation from the Colonial Era to the present
- Social capital and social participation
- Women’s suffrage and minority voting rights
- Urban planning and citizen participation
- Income, inequality, labor market participation and the welfare state

Proposals for workshops need to include two speakers who have been contacted in advance. In addition, proposals should allow for two to three more speakers to apply after the proposal has been accepted by the Advisory Board of the German Association for American Studies.
Please remember that workshops can only be organized by members of the German Association for American Studies (DGfA). Similarly, except for North American speakers, all speakers in these workshops have to be members of the DGfA, or its sister organizations such as the European Association of American Studies (EAAS) by the time of the convention.

Please send workshop proposals to executive_director@dgfa.de.

The deadline is October 1, 2019.

 

1.2. Call for Papers: 2020 EAAS Conference “20/20 Vision: Citizenship, Space, Renewal,” Warsaw, May 1–3, 2020

Deadline: November 30, 2019

The EAAS 2020 Conference coincides with the 400th anniversary of the establishment of the Plymouth Plantation. Falling on the quadricentennial, EAAS 2020 invites broader contemplations of American history, politics, and culture. The conference seeks to underscore questions of optics, distance, and acuity. The concept of “20/20 vision,” an optical term denoting “normal” visual clarity and sharpness of sight, invites a reflection on historical distance, focal points, visibility and invisibility of socio-historical, cultural, and literary aspects of American citizenship, space, and renewal until today.

Citizenship

The first thematic scope of “20/20 Vision” is citizenship. We thus welcome papers targeting the idea of citizenship from various historical, political, ethical, and aesthetic perspectives, and addressing questions about the archaic, residual or emergent forms, styles and norms of being a citizen. Papers and pre-formed panels may focus on the following problem points:
• the evolution or devolution of the idea of a democratic citizen in American politics
• legal fiction, the citizen, and citizenship in history and literature
• the problems of citizenship and agency in the days of the early Republic
• the relation between citizenship and economy
• citizenship and mobility
• citizenship and migration
• citizenship and slavery
• citizenship and disability
• citizenship and the changing idea of freedom
• citizenship and community
• civil rights
• limits of responsibility
• limits of engagement

Space

The second theme “20/20 Vision” addresses is space, a general umbrella term for the issues related to the environment:
• land exploration and exploitation in the US
• American history of land property
• US borderland issues
• US problem of natural resources
• climate change and the US policy
• climate change and the American landscape
• pollution and toxic waste
• ecological disasters
• space exploration

The theme of space also relates issues connected with spatiality on a different dimension such as the issues of
• private vs public space
• social media and internet space
• architecture, mortgage problem
• rural vs. urban space
• utopias in American history, politics and literature
• dystopias in American history, politics and literature
• American heterotopias

Renewal

The last focus area of “20/20 Vision” is perhaps the broadest of the three: the idea of renewal. While strongly related to the issues of citizenship and space, where it may also serve as a reflective angle, the theme of renewal on its own relates to a strong appeal in the American culture of the discourse of rebirth, reawakening, and revolution. Long before “make it new” became the slogan of the modernist artists on both sides of the Atlantic, making things new and resetting the parameters had always been part of the American life ethos. We welcome individual papers as well as pre-formed panels.

Submissions
We welcome abstracts and proposals in a range of formats, including individual papers; complete three-paper sessions (do note that a proposed session cannot feature scholars from the same institution and the same country); roundtables; and workshops. Individual paper abstracts should be no longer than 350 words (excluding bibliography, if you choose to have one). Session proposals must include a short description of the session as well as the title and abstracts of all three papers.
Deadline for abstracts: November 30, 2019
Acceptance notifications: December 15, 2019

Mail: eaas.warsaw@gmail.com
American Studies Center & American Literature Department
University of Warsaw
Al. Niepodleglosci 22
02-653 Warsaw
Poland
http://eaas2020.eu/

 

2. Ausschreibungen

 

2.1. Willi Paul Adams Award

Deadline: May 1, 2020

The Willi Paul Adams Award is given biennially by the Organization of American Historians to the author of the best book on American history published in a language other than English. The award (formerly the Foreign Language Book Prize) is named for Willi Paul Adams, who was an active member of OAH in Germany and a tireless advocate of the internationalization of American history.
The OAH defines both “history” and “American” broadly. To be eligible, a book should be concerned with the past (recent or distant) or with issues of continuity and change. It should also be substantially concerned with events or processes that began, developed, or ended in the American colonies and/or the United States. We welcome comparative and international studies that fall within these guidelines. Authors of eligible books are invited to nominate their work. We urge scholars who know of eligible publications written by others to inform those authors of the award. Since the purpose of the award is to expose Americanists to scholarship originally published in a language other than English—to overcome the language barrier that keeps scholars apart—this award is not open to books whose manuscripts were originally submitted for publication in English or by people for whom English is their first language.
Each entry must have been published during the period January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2020.
The award will be presented at the 2021 OAH Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois, April 15–18.
Submission Procedures
Please write a one- to two-page essay (in English, along with the title in English) explaining why the book is a significant and original contribution to our understanding of American history, and include a summary of the book's main argument.
The application should also include the following information:
• Name
• Mailing address
• Institutional affiliation
• Fax number
• E-mail address
• Language of submitted book
• Table of contents in English

Copies of the book and essay will be reviewed by contributing editors of the Journal of American History who are proficient in the language of the submission as well as by referees (proficient in the language of the submitted book) who are experts on its subject matter.
Four copies of the essay and book, clearly labeled “2021 OAH Willi Paul Adams Award Entry,” must be mailed to the following address and postmarked by May 1, 2020:
Willi Paul Adams Award Committee
c/o Organization of American Historians
112 North Bryan Avenue
Bloomington IN 47408-4141

Bound page proofs may be used for books to be published after May 1, 2020 and before January 1, 2021. If bound page proofs are submitted, a bound copy of the book must be postmarked no later than January 7, 2021 and sent to the OAH address above.
Electronic page proofs also will be accepted as a placeholder only. Please e-mail the file to the OAH Committee Coordinator khamm@oah.org by midnight PST on May 1, 2020 and follow with bound copies as soon as they are available.
If a book carries a copyright date that is different from the publication date, but the actual publication date falls during the correct time frame making it eligible, please include a letter of explanation from the publisher with each copy of the book.
The final decision will be made by the Willi Paul Adams Award Committee by February 2021. The winner will be provided with details regarding the OAH Annual Meeting and awards presentation. By applying for this award, you are agreeing to OAH’s use of your data however it is needed in the normal course of business if selected as winner or honorable mention.

 

2.2. David Thelen Award

Deadline: May 1, 2021

Awarded biennially by the Organization of American Historians, the David Thelen Award honors the best article on American history written in a language other than English. Formerly the Foreign Language Article Prize, this award was renamed in appreciation of David Thelen, who edited the Journal of American History between 1985 and 1999. The winning article will be published in the Journal.
Articles published between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020, as well as previously unpublished articles, are eligible for consideration.
Submissions should be carefully argued and well written. They should offer an original perspective on colonial American and/or U.S. history. The competition is open to roundtables, keynote addresses, conference papers, and other genres of scholarship. Manuscripts should be framed for and addressed to readers outside the U.S. and written in a language other than English.
Technical requirements and submission process:
Length: Equivalent to approximately 5,000-15,000 words when translated into English.
Languages: Other than English.

Submissions must include a brief abstract (written in English) explaining how the manuscript meets the criteria stated above.
Submissions must be clearly labeled "2022 David Thelen Award Entry." An electronic version of the manuscript must be sent to jahms@oah.org. One hard copy must be mailed to the address below by May 1, 2021:
Benjamin H. Irvin, Chair, 2022 David Thelen Award Committee
Executive Editor, Journal of American History
1215 East Atwater Avenue
Bloomington IN 47401

The application should also include the following information:
• Author’s name
• Mailing address
• Institutional affiliation
• E-mail address
• Language of submitted article

Subject-matter experts, as well as readers proficient in relevant foreign languages, will review submissions.
The David Thelen Award Committee will make a final decision by February 2022. At the OAH Annual Meeting, the winner will receive a cash award to help defray the expense of translation. By applying for this award, authors grant permission for the OAH to use their data however necessary in the ordinary course of business.

 

 

3. Veranstaltungen und Call for Papers

3.1. Call for Papers: (Re-) Thinking Home: 21st-Century Caribbean Diaspora Cultures & Geopolitical Imaginaries in North America, July 01-03, 2020 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Universität Bielefeld

Deadline: July 30, 2019

Coordinators: Wilfried Raussert & Miriam Brandel
International conference of the DFG-funded project, “(Re-) Thinking Home: 21st-Century Caribbean Diaspora Writing and Geopolitical Imaginaries in North America”, in collaboration with the Black Americas Network and the Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS)
Various migration movements have led to new complex transnational and diaspora networks between the Caribbean and Canada, the Caribbean and the US, and between Canada and the US. This is reflected, for instance, in the vast range of im/migration literatures and other cultural products of the past decades. The latter part of the 20th and the 21st century, in particular, have witnessed a tremendous amount of cultural activity by Caribbean migrants/diasporas in North America (here: Anglo-Canada and the US). Therefore, Caribbean/Canadian and Caribbean/US cultural products can and should be read both together and separately, as rich texts that connect subjectivities with histories and cultures in their struggle to (re-)invent and (re-)negotiate home and belonging in a globalizing present. Home, as we understand it, is never unidimensional or closed but instead relational and multi-scalar, open yet (temporarily) (trans-)locatable, both material and imaginative. Thus, home as an idea, a concept, a construct, a place, is multiple, complex, and versatile – home becomes homes.

Further, conceptualizing home on a meta-level from an inter-American perspective is a promising approach to shed light on the shifting geopolitical imaginaries of the Caribbean, Canada, and the US. In this regard, areas of conflict concerning real and imagined pasts and projected visions of the future, as well as convergent and divergent national contexts, transnational, and global relations take center stage.
With this conference, we hope to provide a platform for interdisciplinary dialogues between scholars, artists, and activists who think critically about questions of home and belonging. We wish to reflect on the ways in which literatures and other cultural products (re-)negotiate, challenge, and (de-)construct (established or normative) notions of home at the interstices of the historical, political, cultural, social, and geographical contexts of the Caribbean, Canada, and the US, as well as on the usefulness and (re-)conceptualization of home from a critical/theoretical angle not only in Cultural and Literary Studies but also in such fields as Critical Geopolitics, Sociology, and Geography, among others. 

The conference, to be held at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at Bielefeld University from July 01 to July 03, 2020, is committed to the conceptualization of a hemispheric perspective of American (diasporic) movements and cultures, a perspective which both problematizes and ventures beyond a reductive North-South divide. In this dialogue of multiple relations, which, in the case of our research project, starts but does not end with literary examples of experience, we hope to be able to reflect and formulate new ideas about home, as public and private place-making processes, as well as about geopolitical imaginaries and their role in home-making processes from inter-American perspectives.

As we strive to demarcate rigid separations between academic research and cultural (and political) activity, we accept proposals in English for papers in the traditional panel format (20 minutes talk plus discussion) as well as short performances (e.g. poetry, music).The participation of MA and doctoral students is strongly encouraged. Please note that a selection of papers is set to subsequently appear in a special edition of the online journal fiar (forum for inter-American research).

Possible topics/fields of inquiry include but are not limited to:
• Terminologies/concepts of home (and/vs. homeland, Heimat, etc.)
• Theories and practices of national, cultural, ethnic, communal, regional, and individual belonging and home
• Feminist and postcolonial thinking on home
• Homes as sites of oppression and resistance
• Transnational experiences and activities (transnational homes)
• Politics and experiences of exclusion (e.g. racism, sexism) and home
• Policies and practices of national and cultural identity (e.g. (official) multiculturalism)
• Migration and (un-)belonging
• Memory and home
• Intersectionality approaches (of identities and belonging)
• Home and belonging in literature, music, photography, painting, etc. (e.g. in Afro- and Indo-Caribbean diasporas)
• Life stories of home (e.g. memoirs, diaries, interviews)
• Urban Studies (e.g. ghettoization, housing projects, ethnic enclaves) and home
• Role of geopolitical imaginaries in policies, practices, and experiences of national and cultural identities, belonging, and home

Those interested in participating, should submit a 250-word abstract proposal for a paper or performance by July 30, 2019.

Please email your abstracts and any inquiries concerning the event to the following:
Wilfried Raussert (wilfried.raussert@uni-bielefeld.de) & Miriam Brandel (miriam.brandel@uni-bielefeld.de).

 

3.2. Call for Papers: Teaching Human-Animal Studies Symposium, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, January 23-25, 2020

Deadline: August 26, 2019

>From January 23 to 25, 2020, the Institute of English Studies at Leuphana University Lüneburg will host a symposium on the teaching of human-animal studies.
Please send your abstract (in English or German) of no more than 300 words and a brief biography to teaching.has@leuphana.de by August 26, 2019.
For more information, click on https://www.leuphana.de/en/institutes/ies/north-american-studies/teaching-human-animal-studies-symposium.html

 

3.3. Call for Papers: UdS American Studies Graduate Forum „Liquid Trajectories: Flight, Mobility, and Migration,“ November 29-30, 2019, Universität des Saarlandes, Graduate Center C 9 3

Deadline: September 1, 2019

In cooperation with the German-American Institute Saarland, the Chair of North American Literary and Cultural Studies at Saarland University (UdS) will hold a 2-day American Studies Graduate Forum that invites advanced Master students, doctoral candidates, as well as junior and senior scholars to present their current work-in-progress in a workshop-style setting. The forum will offer participants a chance to discuss their research with peers as well as with more advanced scholars. This year, we invite submissions dealing with issues of mobility, migration, and the sea.
Historically, oceans have been spaces of movement, peopled by fishers, pirates, seafarers, tourists, offshore workers, scientific investigators, coast guards, castaways, and refugees. Under the pressure of current developments and global movements, oceans and the oceanic have received renewed attention. In an era marked by increased migration, oceans have become the site of intense media scrutiny and scholarly debate. The UdS American Studies Graduate Forum 2019 offers a setting in which a decidedly humanities-driven, cultural studies and literature studies approach to issues of flight, mobility and migration in relation to oceanic spaces will be discussed. Focusing on stories of flight, mobility, and migration, this workshop seeks to highlight the imaginaries of the seas and oceans in cultural representations.

Topics can include but are not limited to:
o Entangled histories of oceans with regard to the Black, Red and White Atlantic and Pacific
o Fugitive writings and refugee stories
o Oceans as sites of resistance
o Diverse forms of mobility across oceans
o Oceans as boundaries or as transcending boundaries
o Oceans as relational ecospaces
o Oceanic myth-making

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
Lynn Itagaki (U of Missouri), Massimiliano Demata (University of Turin), and Nicole Poppenhagen (U of Flensburg)

Presentations should be approximately 20 minutes in length and will be followed by a discussion and feedback round with all participants and experts. Saarland U will seek to offer assistance in travel funding to selected presenters; recipients of the funding will be selected based on their proposals.
In order to submit a proposal, please send an email, including a title, a 250-word abstract and a short biographical note to
amerikanistik@mx.uni-saarland.de by September 1, 2019.

Mehr Info: http://www.amerikanistik.uni-saarland.de/index.php?id=198

 

3.4. Call for Proposals: “Hip Hop Ecologies” – A Workshop at the University of Konstanz, June 26-28, 2020

Deadline: September 30, 2019

Hip hop is one of the globally most successful forms of cultural production today. Since its emergence in the African American and Latino neighborhoods of 1970s New York City, it has spread around the world and exerted a considerable impact not only on pop culture, but on societal debates around race, class, public safety, nationality, gender, and a range of other issues. The rapidly expanding field of hip hop studies has examined its artistic development and cultural significance from a variety of angles. What has remained almost entirely absent from scholarly debate is the relationship between hip hop and the environment.
 As a predominantly urban phenomenon, hip hop does not pursue an environ-mentalist agenda in any narrow sense. Its focus is on social rather than natural life, on the city rather than the country. Nevertheless, an environmental perspective on hip hop promises to enrich our understanding of the ways in which popular cultural forms shape and are shaped by environmental concerns. Such an approach can direct our attention to important dimensions of hip hop that have remained marginal to public and scholarly debate. Conversely, hip hop offers unconventional vistas that challenge narrow conceptions the environment and of the academic field of Environmental Studies.

 The workshop wants to provide a form for critical discussion and open-ended exploration of these issues. Contributions might draw on various elements of hip hop culture in any local or national setting to address the following aspects or others:
• depictions and negotiations of nature in hip hop
• environmental approaches to (urban) space in hip hop
• hip hop and urban ecology
• rural hip hop and its environmental dimensions
• material environments of hip hop production and reception
• environmentally aware or embedded hip hop cultures
• hip hop in/and environmental activism
• environmental framings in debates around hip hop
• hip hop and the posthuman
• hip hop and the natural sciences

While the workshop will be held in English, contributions on non-anglophone hip hop are expressly invited. If you would like to participate, please send a 250-word proposal and a short biographical note as pdf files to the organizer by September 30, 2019.

A leading peer-reviewed journal of Environmental Studies has expressed interest in publishing the results of the workshop as a special issue. Submissions are invited from both workshop participants and outside contributors; the deadline will be in the fall of 2020. There will be travel bursaries for workshop participants who submit an essay for the special issue. Feel free to inquire if you are interested in this option.

Organizer:
Prof. Dr. Timo Müller
American Studies
University of Konstanz, Germany
timo.mueller@uni-konstanz.de

 

3.5. Call for Contributions: Semiotics in Cultural Studies/Semiotiken in den Kulturwissenschaften

Deadline: October 15, 2019

The collection Semiotiken in den Kulturwissenschaften/Semiotics in Cultural Studies opens a comparative and transdisciplinary discussion on the uses and critical methodology of semiotics in cultural studies. Histories of cultural studies (Assmann 2017 [2006]; Bachmann-Medick 2016 [2006]; During 2005; During ed. 2001 [1993]; Fauser 2011 [2003]; Marchart 2018 [2008]; Musner ed. 2001; Nünning and Nünning eds. 2008 [2003]; Takahashi 2004; Kittler 2000; and many others) have usually not addressed the provenances of the semiotics employed in diverse cultural-studies approaches or have done so peripherally only. While poststructuralist influ-ences are frequent and noted in cultural studies and imply a recourse to the history of structuralist semiotics of some kind, for example, the semiotic theories and models informing various schools and traditions of cultural studies are hardly critically discussed in terms of the role semiotics take in informing and shaping cultural studies methodologies. When cultural studies are understood as media studies, as they must be from a contemporary semiotic perspective, the need for coherent explications of semiotic assumptions and methodologies in diverse scholarly approaches to cultural products becomes even more felt. While histories and systematics of semiotics address areas of cultural-studies interest (Posner/Robering/Sebeok 1997–2004), a comprehensive cultural-studies review of semiotics has not yet been developed. This collection is meant to offer a first stepping stone towards a systematic and critically methodological comparison of the diversity of applications of semiotics in cultural studies by providing, as incentives for a wider discussion, treatments of individual traditions and problematics of semiotics in cultural studies.

Including the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, there have been and are a variety of explicitly semiotic approaches in cultural studies since the late nineteenth century, for example from Ferdinand de Saussure and structuralism to semiotics of culture by Roland Barthes, or from poststructuralism to representationalism (Birmingham School) and the plurality of methods in so-called cultural semiotics (www.kultursemiotik.com). The investigation of visual signs after early iconology (Aby Warburg, Erwin Panofsky) or the diagrams and orders of signs developed for the notation of phenomena in myth studies and early anthropology (George Frazer) also employ diverse semiotic conceptions and methods that have been extended to and are referenced in these days. How do tenets of Saussurian semiology inform structural anthropology? When such methods are critically and comparatively studied, the position of discourse analysis after Michel Foucault on the spectrum also has to be investigated: what is historical semantics (Dietrich Busse) in relation to discourse analysis and cultural semiotics? How is the agency of actors, for example after actor network theory (Bruno Latour), integrated in models of signification and what is the semiotics of actor network theory? The models of signification and of actants are as diverse as are the semiotics and semiologies, even if individual areas of application of semiotics prefer specific models like the notorious use of the differentiation of icon, index and symbol after Peirce in theories of documentary film and photography.
Contemporarily and continuingly, materiality and deixis appear to be important concepts in theories of signs, and the relation of semiotics and media studies is of particular interest in times of a phenomenologization of media studies as in approaches to a “semiotic phenomenology” (Malin Wahlberg) in film studies as well as in new materialism or posthumanism. Elaborations of deconstruction and grammatology, for example in image studies (Sigrid Weigel), call for conceptualizations of principal relationality and differantiality beyond identificatory reductions of signs to referents. Where is the connection of a materialist semiotics in diagrammatics (Matthias Bauer und Christoph Ernst), intermateriality (Andrea Seier) and the materialism of posthumanism (Cary Wolfe)?

We welcome comparative methodological, theoretical and historical discussions of semiotics, investigations of specific problems in semiotics of cultural studies as well as sample applications of methodologically reflected semiotic approaches in cultural studies. Possible contributions may address or include, among others, the fields of

semiotics and cultural studies, approaches and examples since the 1880s:
anthropology from James Frazer to Bronislaw Malinowski and Claude Lévi-Strauss; iconology and its extension to image studies, visual culture studies and semiotics of the image; semiotics after Charles Sanders Peirce: pragmatism; semiology after Ferdinand de Saussure: structuralism; …

semiotics and cultural studies, approaches and examples since the 1950s:
discourse analysis and dispositives after Michel Foucault, historical epistemology, cultures of knowledge; semiotics of culture after Roland Barthes; grammatology after Jacques Derrida; …

schools and methods of cultural studies and their semiotics:
Frankfurt school (is there a semiotics of the Frankfurt School?); Birmingham school; postcolonialism; pragmatism; mixed methods and grounded theory; cultural concepts of the body; cultural memory, memory studies; trauma studies; Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis; actor network theory; posthumanism; relationalism; Linienwissen, Liniendenken; diagrammatics; new materialism; posthermeneutics; …

transdisciplinary semiotics in cultural studies:
history and theory of art and architecture; media theory, media philosophy, media ecology; design theory; aesthetics of reception; neurobiology and cognitive science; neuronal networks and artificial intelligence; theater studies, theories of ritual and performance studies; film studies; queer theory; comparative literature; narratology, narrative environments; translation studies; archaeology; historiography; auto/biography and automediality studies; social semiotics; approaches to multimodality; communication studies; numerology; sound studies; media archaeologies; theory of technics and technology; …

The collection is intended as a bilingual volume, and we accept original contributions in English or German. The collection is scheduled to appear with transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, Germany, in a new series on cultural studies under the general editorship of Kulturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft (KWG).

Please send proposals (about 400 words) in English or German plus a short academic biography to the volume editors by October 15, 2019: nadja.gernalzick@univie.ac.at and thomasmetten@me.com.
Prof. Dr. Nadja Gernalzick
Visiting Professor
Department of English and American Studies
Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät
Universität Wien

Dr. Thomas Metten
Transferzentrum
Universität Passau

with the assistance of

Nora Benterbusch M.A.
Fachrichtung Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaft
Europäische Medienkomparatistik
Universität des Saarlandes

Dipl.-Biol. Filip Niemann
Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie III
Sektion Neuropsychologie und funktionelle Bildgebung
Universitätsklinikum Ulm

 

3.6. Call for Papers: aspeers, graduate-level peer-reviewed American studies journal

Deadline: October 27, 2019

aspeers, the first and currently only European graduate-level peer-reviewed journal for American studies, calls for papers for its thirteenth issue by October 27, 2019.
As in previous years, aspeers calls for general submissions of excellent academic work by MA-level students, as well as for work specifically focused on this year's topic of "Pride and Shame in America."
For more information, please refer to the following URLs:
* General Submissions:
http://www.aspeers.com/sites/default/files/cfp_2020_general.pdf
* Submissions on "Pride and Shame in America":
http://www.aspeers.com/sites/default/files/cfp_2020_topical.pdf
We kindly ask all American studies faculty to forward these two calls to their MA-level students and to keep an eye out for outstanding MA-level work when grading seminar papers this summer.
aspeers is a unique opportunity for students to get published early on in their career and to gain experience with the process of publishing academic work. The deadline for all submissions is October 27, 2019. If you have any questions, please consult http://www.aspeers.com/2020 or get in touch with us directly via editors@aspeers.com. Thank you very much for your help!

 

3.7. Call for Papers: Heidelberg Center for American Studies 17th Annual Spring Academy Conference, Heidelberg, Germany, 23–27 March, 2020

Deadline: November 15, 2019

The seventeenth HCA Spring Academy on American Culture, Economics, Geography, History, Literature, Politics, and Religion will be held from March 23-27, 2020. The Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) invites applications for this annual one-week conference that provides twenty international Ph.D. students with the opportunity to present and discuss their Ph.D. projects.

The HCA Spring Academy will also offer participants the chance to work closely with experts in their respective fields of study. For this purpose, workshops held by visiting scholars will take place during this week.

We encourage applications that range broadly across the arts, humanities, and social sciences and pursue an interdisciplinary approach. Papers can be presented on any subject relating to the study of the United States of America. Possible topics include American identity, issues of ethnicity, gender, transatlantic relations, U.S. domestic and foreign policy, economics, as well as various aspects of American history, literature, religion, geography, law, musicology, and culture.

Participants are requested to prepare a 20-minute presentation of their research project, which will be followed by a 40-minute discussion. Proposals should include a preliminary title and run to no more than 300 words. These will be arranged into ten panel groups.
In addition to cross-disciplinary and international discussions during the panel sessions, the Spring Academy aims at creating a pleasant collegial atmosphere for further scholarly exchange and contact.
Accommodation will be provided by the Heidelberg Center for American Studies.

Thanks to a small travel fund, the Spring Academy is able to subsidize travel expenses for participants registered and residing in developing and soft-currency countries. Scholarship applicants will need to document the necessity for financial aid and explain how they plan to cover any potentially remaining expenses. In addition, a letter of recommendation from their doctoral advisor is required.
START OF APPLICATION PROCESS: August 15, 2019
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS: November 15, 2019
SELECTIONS WILL BE MADE BY: January 2020
PLEASE USE OUR ONLINE APPLICATION SYSTEM: www.hca-springacademy.de
MORE INFORMATION: www.hca.uni-heidelberg.de
FOR FURTHER QUESTIONS: ibahmann@hca.uni-heidelberg.de

3.8. Call for Submissions: Anglia Book Series
The Anglia Book Series, edited by Lucia Kornexl, Ursula Lenker, Martin Middeke, Gabriele Rippl, and Daniel Stein and published by De Gruyter (Berlin/New York: https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/36292), is inviting submissions. The series publishes book-length studies and essay collections on English language and linguistics, on English and American literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on New Literatures in English, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory. Inquiries or book proposals may be sent to Prof. Dr. Daniel Stein (Siegen): stein@anglistik.uni-siegen.de or Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl (Bern): gabriele.rippl@ens.unibe.ch.

 

3.9. Call for Submissions: Anglia – Journal of English Philology
Anglia: Journal of English Philology, Germany’s leading academic journal on English and American literature and linguistics, edited by Lucia Kornexl, Ursula Lenker, Martin Middeke, Gabriele Rippl, and Daniel Stein and published by De Gruyter (Berlin/New York: https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/angl), is inviting submissions. Anglia is the longest running journal of English studies. As an academic quarterly, Anglia publishes articles on English language and linguistics, on English literature and culture from the Middle Ages to the present, on American literature and culture, on New Literatures in English, as well as on general and comparative literary studies, including aspects of cultural and literary theory. Inquiries or manuscripts may be sent to Prof. Dr. Daniel Stein (Siegen): stein@anglistik.uni-siegen.de or Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl (Bern): gabriele.rippl@ens.unibe.ch.

 

 

**************************

Impressum – Datenschutz

Wenn Sie den Newsletter der DGfA abbestellen möchten, senden Sie bitte eine Nachricht an die Geschäftsführung executive_director@dgfa.de.
Wenn Sie eine Bekanntmachung über den DGfA-Verteiler verbreiten möchten, halten Sie bitte die Nachricht MÖGLICHST KURZ und hängen Sie bitte keine Word- oder PDF-Dateien an, um die E-Mail-Sendungen möglichst klein zu halten. Am einfachsten ist es, einen kurzen Fließtext in der E-Mail zu verschicken und die Internetadresse zu nennen, auf der die relevanten Informationen zu finden sind. Bitte schicken Sie Ihre Anfragen an die Geschäftsführung der DGfA. Bitte denken Sie daran, die Informationen zu Ihren Veranstaltungen frühzeitig zu verschicken und die Deadline deutlich sichtbar zu kennzeichnen, da ansonsten eine rechtzeitige Bekanntgabe nicht gewährleistet werden kann. Deadline für den Newsletter, der am Monatsende verschickt wird, ist jeweils der 20. eines jeden Monats.

 

Attachment: Newsletter_2019_07.pdf
Description: Newsletter_2019_07.pdf