[JFKI-News] WG: Newsletter May 2020

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

Von: Catrin Gersdorf <executive_director@dgfa.de>
Gesendet: Dienstag, 26. Mai 2020 15:13
An: jfki@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Betreff: Newsletter May 2020

 

Liebe DGfA-Mitglieder,

anbei der Newsletter für den Monat Mai. Ich hoffe, es geht Ihnen allen nach wie vor gut, auch wenn das Online-Semester für uns alle, Lehrende und Studierende, eine ganz besondere Herausforderung darstellt.

Mit herzlichen Grüßen aus Würzburg
Ihre
Catrin Gersdorf

 

1. DGfA

1.1. DASI Brownbag @ Home on June 4, 4-6pm and Newsletter Subscription

1.2. Spendenaufruf: Du Bois Plakette an der Humboldt Universität

 

2. Ausschreibungen

2.1. Ausschreibung: Stipendien im Promotionsprogramm „Gestalten der Zukunft: Transformation der Gegenwart durch Szenarien der Digitalisierung“, Carl con Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg,
Deadline: June 22, 2020

2.2. Call for Applications: U.S. Embassy Stipend to attend Salzburg Global American Studies Program Oct. 11-15, 2020
Deadline: June 30, 2020

2.3. Call for Applications: EAAS Postgraduate Travel Grants
Deadline: August 1, 2020

2.4. Position Available: Salzburg Global Seminar – Program Director, American Studies Program, Location: Salzburg, AT or Washington, DC
Applications: reviewed on a rolling basis




3. Veranstaltungen und Call for Papers

3.1. Announcement: Lecture series, Universität Bonn, North American Studies Program – Current Issues in North American Studies and Cultural Studies "The White House Embattled? The U.S. Election 2020"
Date: April 28-July 7, 2020

3.2. Call for Contributions: Essay Series ‘Spaces of Empire’
Deadline: June 1, 2020

3.3. Call for Papers for an International Symposium in Innsbruck / Austria: The American Short Story: Old and New, 15-17 October 2020
Deadline: June 15, 2020

3.4. Call for Papers: Rethinking Relations - Michel Serres and the Environmental Humanities An interdisciplinary conference at the University of Konstanz, November 11-13, 2021
Deadline: June 30, 2020

3.5. Call for Papers: The Modelling of Energy Transition – Cultures | Visions | Narratives, International LMET Conference funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, 23.25.11.2020 Münster
Deadline: June 30, 2020

3.6. Call for Papers: Doing Southern Studies Today (Humboldt University Berlin, tentative date: 14-15 January 2021)
Deadline: August 1, 2020

3.7. Call for Papers: COPAS Thematic Issue 21.2 – Embracing the Loss of Nature: Searching for Responsibility in an Age of Crisis
Deadline: October 15, 2020

3.8. Call for Papers: Edited Collection on “New York City in Song”
Deadline: October 31, 2020

3.9. Call for Papers: Reviewers for new academic journal AmLit – American Literatures

3.10. Call for Contributions: The United States in Times of Corona (The HCA Graduate Blog)

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

1. DGfA

1.1. DASI Brownbag @ Home on June 4, 4-6pm and Newsletter Subscription

The GAAS Annual Convention in Heidelberg, like many other conferences, will not take place this year due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In the meantime, the pandemic has started to profoundly and perhaps lastingly impact how we do American studies, not least by pushing us to embrace digital technologies to an extent unimaginable just a few weeks ago.
The Digital American Studies Initiative (DASI) wants to invite all interested American studies scholars to share their experiences with this sudden wave of digitization and to help the American studies community reflect on the opportunities and challenges of these developments.

If you are interested in this conversation, please join us for a Zoom Video Conference on
June 4, 4-6pm
by clicking on the following link: https://zoom.us/j/94338901746?pwd=RVI4UVcwZjNjZ2czQ1IyT2VHaEx4Zz09.
In order to be able to accommodate everyone, we kindly ask you to let us know that you will be attending by clicking on the following link: https://doodle.com/poll/7y4dp8q8kapv9gk9
Please enter your NAME (requested) and E-MAIL address (optional).

DASI has been running a monthly newsletter since the end of September 2019, which provides information about national and international conferences, publications, and current developments at the interface of American Studies and the Digital Humanities. If you haven’t already done so, we would be delighted if you subscribe to the newsletter at https://lists.uni-leipzig.de/mailman/listinfo/dasi. Alternatively, you can write an email to dasi-request@lists.uni-leipzig.de and we will add you to the list.
Information about DASI: https://dgfa.de/about-the-dgfa-front/digital-american-studies-initative-dasi/ and http://das.americanstudies.de

 

1.2. Spendenaufruf: Du Bois Plakette an der Humboldt Universität

Auf Anregung der Abteilung Amerikanistik der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin wird zurzeit die Gestaltung und Anbringung einer Gedenk-Plakette zu Ehren von W.E.B. Du Bois im Hauptgebäude der Universität vorbereitet. Du Bois war von 1892 bis 1894 Austauschstudent an der damaligen Friedrich-Wilhelms- Universität. Im Jahr 1958 erhielt er dort die Ehrendoktorwürde. Im oder am Gebäude werden bisher die Brüder Humboldt, Theodor Mommsen, Hermann von Helmholtz, Max Planck, Lise Meitner und andere geehrt. Mit Du Bois kommt nun erstmals ein ehemaliger Student der Universität, Amerikaner, Aktivist und person of color dazu. Für die Plakette, die der international renommierte Künstler Jean-Ulrick Désert entwirft, haben wir schon erhebliche Mittel eingeworben, sind aber immer noch auf Spenden angewiesen. Wir freuen uns über Unterstützung von Seiten der Mitglieder der DGfA.

Informationen und Entwürfe sind auf der folgenden Internetseite verfügbar – oder direkt bei Dr. Dorothea Löbbermann, dorothea.loebbermann@hu-berlin.de. Spendenkonto: Deutsche Bank PGK AG, Konto Inhaber: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, IBAN: DE95 1007 0848 0512 6206 01, BIC/SWIFT: DEUTDEDB110, VAT ID no.: DE 137176824, Verwendungszweck: 5250150102 Du Bois [Ihr Name]
https://www.angl.hu-berlin.de/department/duboismemorial

 

 

2. Ausschreibungen

2.1. Ausschreibung: Stipendien im Promotionsprogramm „Gestalten der Zukunft: Transformation der Gegenwart durch Szenarien der Digitalisierung“, Carl con Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg,

Deadline: June 22, 2020

Das interdisziplinäre Promotionsprogramm „Gestalten der Zukunft: Transformation der Gegenwart durch Szenarien der Digitalisierung“ wird von der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg in Kooperation mit der Jade Hochschule Wilhelmshaven-Oldenburg-Elsfleth sowie dem Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst durchgeführt und vom Niedersächsischen Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur gefördert. Angesiedelt am Wissenschaftlichen Zentrum „Genealogie der Gegenwart“ der Universität Oldenburg bietet es einen hervorragenden Rahmen für theoretisch und empirisch ausgerichtete Promotionsvorhaben, die sich aus kultur- und gesellschaftswissenschaftlichen Perspektiven mit der digitalen Transformation auseinandersetzen. Das Promotionsprogramm geht davon aus, dass gegenwärtiges Handeln nicht nur von der Vergangenheit, sondern auch von Zukunftsentwürfen informiert und beeinflusst wird. Vor diesem Hintergrund sollen die Dissertationen das komplexe Wechselspiel zwischen – utopischen oder dystopischen, euphorischen oder skeptischen – Zukunftsszenarien der Digitalisierung einerseits und (wirtschaftspolitischen, bildungspolitischen, technologischen) Maßnahmen, Praktiken und Entwicklungen andererseits erforschen, die bereits im Hier und Jetzt auf diese Zukunftsszenarien reagieren. Folgende Leitfragen können als eine Orientierungsgrundlage dienen: 1. Wie, unter welchen Bedingungen und in welchen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen (Politik, Bildung, Wirtschaft, Gesundheitswesen usw.) werden welche Bilder einer digitalen Zukunft entworfen? 2. Wie und in welchen Genres, Medien und Institutionen (Parteiprogramme, wissenschaftliche Expertisen, Zukunftsforschungen, Science Fiction, politische, technische etc. Schaltzentralen wie z. B. Ministerien, usw.) erlangen diese Zukunftsentwürfe eine sinnlich fassbare Gestalt? 3. Welche Szenarien setzen sich wo und wann gegen andere Szenarien durch und üben bereits heute eine Gestaltungsmacht z. B. in Prozessen politischer Entscheidungsfindung, in Bildungsinitiativen oder in Maßnahmen zur Abwehr gegenwartsdiagnostisch festgestellter Krisen aus?

Am Programm beteiligt sind folgende Disziplinen: Amerikanistik, Betriebswirtschaft, Bildungswissenschaften, Erziehungswissenschaft, Germanistik, Geschichtswissenschaft, Kommunikationswissenschaft, Kulturwissenschaft, Musikpädagogik, Musikwissenschaft, Philosophie, Soziologie, Sportwissenschaft und Wirtschaftsinformatik.

Aus der Perspektive der amerikanistischen Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft interessiert es sich für die Geschichte, die Formen und die Funktionspotentiale von Repräsentationen einer digitalen Zukunft in unterschiedlichen Medien und Genres im nordamerikanischen Kontext (bspw. literarische Texte, Filme, Streaming-Angebote, populäre Musik, Gaming, sog. ‚Neue Medien‘, Graphic Novels). Denkbar sind also u.a. Projekte, die sich mit den (medientechnologischen, politischen, sozioökonomischen,…) Voraussetzungen solcher Zukunftsentwürfe in unterschiedlichen historischen Kontexten beschäftigen; die nach deren medien- und genrespezifischen Verfahren und Muster der Darstellung fragen und bspw. intertextuelle/-mediale Referenzen solcher Entwürfe aufeinander bzw. auf klassische Modi der Zukunftserzählung (Utopie/Dystopie) in den Blick nehmen; oder Projekte, die die Effekte solcher Entwürfe auf die Wahrnehmung und Deutung einer bestimmten (durch diese Zukunftsentwürfe hergestellte und diese Entwürfe ebenso informierende) Gegenwart in unterschiedlichen historischen und regionalen Kontexten fokussieren.Das Land Niedersachsen fördert das Promotionsprogramm mit insgesamt 15 Georg-Christoph- Lichtenberg-Stipendien (mtl. 1.400 Euro Grundbetrag zzgl. 100 Euro Sachkostenbeitrag und ggf. Kinderpauschale, Laufzeit 3 Jahre).

Zum 1. Oktober 2020 sollen davon bis zu 10 Stipendien vergeben werden. Das Promotionsprogramm bietet Promovierenden ein ideales Umfeld durch interdisziplinäre Tandembetreuung und Angebote zur fachlichen Vertiefung, ein Forum für interdisziplinäre Dialoge und das Knüpfen (über-)fachlicher Netzwerke sowie Angebote zur Erlangung wissenschafts- und arbeitsmarktorientierter Schlüsselqualifikationen. Die Arbeitssprache im Kolleg ist Deutsch. Bewerbungen bzw. Projekte in englischer Sprache sind dennoch möglich. Passive Deutschkenntnisse, die die Wissenschaftskommunikation ermöglichen, werden vorausgesetzt.

Weitere Informationen zur thematischen Ausrichtung, zu zentralen Fragestellungen, zu Beispielprojekten und zu den beteiligten Hochschullehrer/innen finden sich auf: https://uol.de/wizegg/promotionsprogramm

Von den Bewerber/innen wird ein überdurchschnittlicher, zur Promotion befähigender universitärer Hochschulabschluss in einem der beteiligten Fächer oder einem benachbarten Fach erwartet. Zudem sollen die Bewerber/innen zum Zeitpunkt ihrer Bewerbung bereits eine konkrete Idee für ein interdisziplinär anschlussfähiges Promotionsprojekt mit Bezug zur Thematik des Programms entwickelt haben. Bewerbungen sollen (bitte in dieser Reihenfolge) umfassen: 1. ein Anschreiben inkl. einer Stellungnahme zur eigenen fachlichen Verortung (insgesamt max. eine Seite); 2. ein etwa 1000 Zeichen umfassendes Abstract des geplanten Promotionsvorhabens, das auch die Anknüpfung an Gegenstand und Fragestellungen des Promotionskollegs deutlich macht; 3. eine max. fünfseitige Skizze des Promotionsvorhabens (exklusive Literaturverzeichnis, das nicht länger als zwei Seiten sein sollte); 4. einen Lebenslauf; 5. Zeugnisse; 6. ein Empfehlungsschreiben einer Hochschullehrerin/eines Hochschullehrers.
Bewerbungen sind bis zum 22.06.2020 in elektronischer Form (als ein einziges pdf-Dokument) an die Sprecher des Promotionsprogramms, Prof. Dr. Thomas Alkemeyer und Prof. Dr. Martin Butler, zu richten: gestaltenderzukunft@uni-oldenburg.de.

 

2.2. Call for Applications: U.S. Embassy Stipend to attend Salzburg Global American Studies Program Oct. 11-15, 2020

Deadline: June 30, 2020

For a number of years, the U.S. Embassy has been supporting the participation of a German graduate student or junior faculty in the Salzburg Global American Studies Program with a stipend (room and board plus travel).
This year’s conference is (still) scheduled to take place in Salzburg from October 11-15, 2020.

The conference on “What Future for Democracy? Polarization, Culture and Resilience in America and the World”, will be part one of a three-part interdisciplinary series.
Interested graduate students should apply by June 30 with
- a motivational letter outlining why they would like to participate, in what way the conference topic is relevant to their work, and what they could contribute to the discussion;
- a c.v.
Please send your application or questions to Dr. Martina Kohl, U.S. Embassy Berlin/ advisory board member of the Salzburg Global American Studies Program:  KohlM@state.gov

 

2.3. Call for Applications: EAAS Postgraduate Travel Grants

Deadline: August 1, 2020

Postgraduate students in the Humanities and Social Sciences who are registered for a higher research degree at any European university, and are members of an American Studies association belonging to EAAS may apply. Two kinds of grants are available: the Transatlantic Grant and the Intra-European Grant. The maximum single award granted may amount to EUR 2,000.
The Transatlantic Grant will permit the holder to conduct research which illuminates a particular area of American Studies in a designated university, independent research organization or archive in the United States.
The term of the grant will be between three weeks (minimum) and eight weeks (maximum). Successful applicants will receive a grant intended to cover round trip travel and some of the living expenses. Only students registered for a Ph.D. are eligible to apply for the Transatlantic Grants.

The Intra-European Grant will allow the recipient to conduct research for a period of up to four weeks in an American Studies Center or university library or archive in Europe. Graduate students who are registered either for a Ph. D. or a Master's degree by research are eligible to apply for Intra-European Grants.

Applications must be made on the official form and should include written confirmation from the host institution that the researcher will have access to the necessary resource materials, and a letter from the student's academic supervisor. Applicants will be required to supply a detailed estimate of the cost of their visit, including the cost of travel, subsistence, and incidentals. They should also state the minimum amount of money needed to make the trip possible. Applicants are encouraged to seek supporting or matching funding wherever possible.

Grant recipients will be responsible for making their own arrangements for travel and accommodation. Travel must be completed within twelve months of the grantee being notified of the award.
Grantees are required to submit a report to the EAAS within thirty days of returning from their research visit. Obviously the report should include the grantees' institution and destination. For technical reasons please limit the file to 1024 Ko.

The application deadline (receipt of the application) for the current round is Saturday, 1 August 2020 . You may download the Application Form as a PDF file: https://www.eaas.eu/eaas-grants/travel-grants
Please send the completed Travel Grant Application Form including:
an estimated budget,
a recommendation letter from academic supervisor,
a letter of confirmation from the host institution
to Dr. Zuzanna Ladyga-Michalskaat, Vice-President of the EAAS, by e-mail attachment to vice-president@eaas.eu

 

2.4. Position Available: Salzburg Global Seminar – Program Director, American Studies Program, Location: Salzburg, AT or Washington, DC

Applications: reviewed on a rolling basis

Full description of job posting: https://www.salzburgglobal.org/about/job-opportunities/careers/program-director-american-studies-program.html

Salzburg Global Seminar seeks to recruit a half-time Program Director to lead and expand its American Studies Program for maximum impact in a new decade. With a distinguished track record since 1947, the Salzburg Global American Studies Program fosters understanding and debate on shifting global dynamics and the changing roles and responsibilities of the United States in a multi-polar world. This highly-interdisciplinary Program has forged a unique and diverse network of Fellows across all continents who collaborate with leading policy, media, business and academic institutions to address critical questions shaping American politics, economics, law, culture and society. This exciting international opportunity will suit ambitious and entrepreneurial professionals who seek to leverage their experience and expertise to expand their reach and our program impact on issues related to America in today’s world.   

The start date of this position is late Quarter 1/early in Quarter 2 2020.

Please send a cover letter and a resume to Human Resources HR@SalzburgGlobal.org with the subject line “Program Director, American Studies Program”.

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis.

 

 

3. Veranstaltungen und Call for Papers



3.1. Announcement: Lecture Series, Universität Bonn, North American Studies Program – Current Issues in North American Studies and Cultural Studies "The White House Embattled? The U.S. Election 2020"

Date: April 28-July 7, 2020

Lecture Series in cooperation with the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) and AmerikaHaus e.V. NRW - Summer Semester 2020
Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, there will be no live events; all lectures will be streamed instead. In order to register for one of the online events, please send an email to lecturesbonn@gmail.com (registration open until day before each lecture, 3:00 pm). You will then receive an invitation to a Zoom meeting.
Follow the link for further information and the full program: https://www.nas.uni-bonn.de/Events

 

 

3.2.  Call for Contributions: Essay Series ‘Spaces of Empire’

Deadline: June 1, 2020

Few other concepts in US history have proven as impossible as ’empire’: the term continues to be tough to pin down with a clear-cut definition and tricky to use in reference to the nation’s history. Indeed, despite its currency in 21st century discourses that grapple with the many manifestations of US global power and its practices, mapping the spaces of US Empire in scholarship has been difficult. As the United States expanded first across the American continent and later overseas at the beginning of the 20th century, expounding an anti-imperialist rhetoric that rejected European models of colonialism, it nonetheless colonised minds, mines, and markets. Probing this history has proven to be one of the most challenging, yet enduring, intellectual endeavours of recent years.

In light of this vibrant scholarly environment, and following Arjun Appadurai’s take on the notion of ‘scapes,’ the proposed essay series Spaces of Empire re-visits the many sites of construction, negotiation, and negation that have given shape to our 21stcentury conceptions of the US Empire. By bringing together contributions that attend to the historical, literary, inter-medial, cultural, (meta-)geographical, and political practices and perceptions of empire, the series’ objective is to arrive at a fresh understanding of the fate and forms of American empire exercised over the course of almost three centuries. In so doing, the series invites scholarly contributions that examine the domestic and global spaces and agencies that have produced, promoted, refurbished, recorded, ludified, re-garbed, or revolted against the notion and practice of empire as well as its many and varied (meta-)geographic materializations.

Possible sites to examine include, though are not limited to, the following:
- American homes and churches
- schools and university campuses
- US military bases
- digital gameworlds
- periodical press and social media
- cartography workshops
- the entertainment industry
- US overseas colonies, quasi-colonised spaces, and inland internment camps
- incarceration sites and border walls, and
- historical archives as well as works of fiction

Contributions (essays and book reviews), 1500 words excluding bibliography, should be submitted as Word documents to usso@baas.ac.uk by June 01, 2020. Each contribution should be accompanied by the author’s short academic bio (ca. 150 words). For any inquiries, please contact the series’ editor, Mahshid Mayar [she/her], at mahshid.mayar@uni-bielefeld.de.

 

3.3. Call for Papers for an International Symposium in Innsbruck / Austria: The American Short Story: Old and New, 15-17 October 2020

Deadline: June 15, 2020

Conference Directors:

Gudrun M. Grabher, University of Innsbruck / Austria
James Nagel, University of Georgia / USA

The Department of American Studies at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, and the Society for the Study of the American Short Story (SSASS) invite proposals for papers and presentations at an international symposium to be held in Innsbruck, Austria, October 15-17, 2020. The venue is the Humanities Building of the University of Innsbruck at Innrain 52. Various hotels in Innsbruck within walking distance from the conference venue will offer special conference rates at around € 125,-- for double rooms. Breakfast is included in the price. The conference fee is € 160, and it includes two lunches and two receptions. All attendees must register for the conference by August 1, 2020. The deadline for proposals is June 15, 2020.

For more information and registration, please go to the conference website: https://www.uibk.ac.at/amerikastudien/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/the-american-short-story-old-and-new.html

 

 

3.4. Call for Papers: Rethinking Relations - Michel Serres and the Environmental Humanities An interdisciplinary conference at the University of Konstanz, November 11-13, 2021

Deadline: June 30, 2020

Organizers:
Moritz Ingwersen, American Studies (moritz.ingwersen@uni-konstanz.de)
Beate Ochsner, Media Studies (beate.ochsner@uni-konstanz.de)

“So forget the word environment, commonly used in this context.”
--Serres, The Natural Contract--

Few contemporary thinkers have explored the passages between the sciences and the humanities as poetically and vigorously as Michel Serres. Spanning from 1968 to 2019, his work presents an evocative cartography of the interstitial spaces that connect mathematics, philosophy, physics, myth, history, religion, literature, technology, media, ecology, and art. The baseline of his thinking is an appreciation of complexity, of the ways in which contingency generates newness and form emerges as a function of unforeseen translations, ruptures, and linkages. With a penchant for the poietic processes of the natural world, he derives epistemological insight from the dynamics of oceans, mountains, clouds, storms, whirlpools, and tectonic plates—objects that are “multiple in space and mobile in time, unstable and fluctuating” (Genesis). Bridging the two cultures for him entails a ceaseless journey from “us to the world” (Hermes V), from the human to an environment that is never reified as an ontological outside. He recognizes that the production of knowledge is “always linked to an observer submerged in a system or in its proximity,” an observer who “is structured exactly like what he observes” (Hermes). Perceiving the communication flows among human and nonhumans as reciprocal and turbulent, his work describes how “[l]iving things and inert things bounce off each other unceasingly; [how] there would be no world without this interlinking web of relations, a billion times interwoven” (Angels). Thus understanding the world as “a confluence not a system, a mobile confluence of fluxes” (Conversations), Michel Serres leaves a legacy that marks him as trailblazer of the environmental humanities.

Serres speaks of his own work as the composition of an “assembly of relations” (Conversations). The modalities of connection in his work are rarely unilateral or linear; rather, they subscribe to the logic of spatial as much as temporal bifurcations, percolations, and morphisms. Recognizing relationality as a key concept of the environmental humanities, how may his writings be put in dialogue with contemporary ecological theory and science studies? What types of exchanges could be envisioned with relational onto-epistemologies and frameworks of more-than-human entanglements? How does his work lend itself to a consideration of art as a source of ecological insight? What are the rapports between his ecopoetics and the role of environments in the literary tradition from naturalism to climate fiction?

With the aim of facilitating interdisciplinary exchanges, this conference invites scholars to “think with Serres” and mobilize his work in relation to contemporary formations in the environmental humanities. We envision contributions that explicitly attend to the ecological paradigms that inform both his polyphonic prose and hybrid subject matter, tracing his “philosophy of prepositions” (Conversations) in the prominence of material communication channels and the multiplication of relational operators like Hermes, parasite, or the instructed third. Whether with respect to his promotion of a “global model of fluid mechanics [that] makes us recognise how nature functions, and how we ourselves function as nature in nature” (Birth of Physics) or his proposal of a natural contract that dislocates anthropocentric distributions of agency and envisions Earth as a political actor, we encourage engagements that follow his circuitous pathways between the local and the global, “nature” and “culture,” archipelagos of order and oceanic noise.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers:
William Paulson (University of Michigan)
Jeffrey J. Cohen (Arizona State University)
Julian Yates (Monash University)
Laura Dassow Walls (University of Notre Dame)
Stephanie Posthumus (McGill University)
Jussi Parikka (University of Southampton)
Paul Carter (RMIT, Melbourne)
Petra Gehring (TU Darmstadt)
We invite proposals for presentations that examine the productivity of Michel Serres’s work for
the environmental humanities, drawing on fields and topics that may include but are not limited
to:
- environmental literature and art as epistemological media
- environmental media and media ecology
- infrastructural media and environments
- materialist ecocriticism and ecopoetics
- elemental thinking and ecocriticism
- relationality and media technologies of relations in ecological theory
- revisions of time and space in the Anthropocene
- environmental dynamics in literature, art, and music
- metaphors and articulations of meteorology and fluidity
- politics and ethics of relationality and the nonhuman
- ecologies of knowledge
- histories of science, “nature,” and ecology
- quasi-objects and quasi-subjects
- deconstructions of “nature,” “environment,” “culture,” “science,” “the human”

Please direct proposal of 300 words and a brief biographical note (100 words) to
moritz.ingwersen@uni-konstanz.de. Submission deadline: June 30, 2020.
Please note that the conference is contingent on a successful funding application, which will be submitted together with the final list of speakers in July 2020.

 

 

3.5. Call for Papers: The Modelling of Energy Transition – Cultures | Visions | Narratives, International LMET Conference funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, 23.25.11.2020 Münster

Deadline: June 30, 2020

A SOCIAL MISSION
Energy transition is a social mission striving to correct a social failure: the effects of climate change. It operates within a zone of conflicts, of political uncertainty and ecological awareness, yet is eager to establish a zone of consent. Fifty years from its initial set-up by the Club of Rome, this wake-up call revealing the entanglement of economics, old and new technology and the environment has turned into a global movement. Stake-holders and public discourse, mainstream culture, grassroot movements and the academia have come, it seems, to an agreement on the subject matter: Energy transition must not fail. And yet the ways in which this strange alliance would achieve their common goal are still highly contentious.

This intersectional conference will offer a deep probe of the variety of technical and social layers pertinent to energy transition and technology assessment alike. It will investigate their modelling of narratives, transmedial representations, distribution concepts and communicative strategies. To reach this aim, the conference will bring together experts from a multitude of disciplines who are engaged with or can contribute to facing the intriguing challenges of energy transition in technology and economics, sociology and politics, but also from the point of view of cultural and literary studies, theory of science, and philosophy. In doing so, the conference will offer its participants an opportunity to lay aside, for once, professional or disciplinary restrictions and exchange their views in a cross-over context that, ideally, creates a new collaboration profile for the sciences and the humanities.

KEYNOTE:
Professor Baas van Fraassen, Princeton University Emeritus
POSSIBLE SECTIONS
Sections and panels serve as suggestions for possible topics.
I. TECHNOLOGIES: Disruptive Technologies // panel proposals: scaling, regulation &
control, critical infrastructures, safety & security, energy systems design, biofuels,
sector integration
II. MODELS: Model Theory, Model Criticism, Model Communication // panel
proposals: models & simulations; modelling agencies, models & media, models &
literary forms, models & modality
III. RISKS: Environment, Economy, Law, Finance // panel proposals: consumer, prosumer,
flexumer; storage & usage; fusion & confusion (energy mix)
IV. PROJECTIONS: Administration & Technology Assessment // panel proposals: energy
politics; energy markets design; generation, transmission, conversion; sector
integration & mobility
V. REPRESENTATIONS: Imaging, Rhetorics, Visions // panel proposals: sign systems;
augmented reality; simulation; gaming & serious games; emergence and immersion
VI. PLOTS: Myths, Emplotments, Genres // panel proposals: topoi & archetypes;
transparency & opacity; smartness; autarky; control; cellularity vs centralisation;
popular science; tragedy/comedy/idyll
VII. FUTURES: Utopian & Dystopian Settings, Esotericism & Alternative Science // panel
proposals: unity & totality; essence; authenticity & immediacy; naturromantik &
kulturkritik
VIII. INTERPRETATION: Psychology, Sociology, Art // panel proposals: hermeneutics;
ecocriticism; deconstruction; gender
IX. COMMUNICATION: Education, Pedagogy, Didactics // panel proposals: eco politics;
marketing; presentation techniques; textbook; gamification
X. CONSULTING: Collaboration, Distribution, Support // panel proposals: Club of Rome;
Digital Humanities projects; knowledge transfer; systems analysis
PAPER OR PANEL PROPOSAL, PROPOSAL FOR ROUND TABLE DISCUSSIONS

The conference schedule will provide an opportunity for the respective sections to interact in intersectional round table and panel discussions. Please specify if you would like to provide a section or a panel proposal or/and a panel contribution. Please send your abstract(s) of 500 words by 30/06/2020 to: erdbeer@uni-muenster.de

Follow the link to find the full Call for papers: https://dgfa.de/wp-content/uploads/LMET-CfP_ConferenceEnergyTransition.pdf

 

 

3.6. Call for Papers: Doing Southern Studies Today (Humboldt University Berlin, tentative date: 14-15 January 2021)

Deadline: August 1, 2020

In the field of Southern Studies, the first twenty years of the 21st century were defined by attempts to formulate and visualize the future of Southern Studies. The “future,” most publications propose, lies beyond traditional narratives of Southern exceptionalism and sectionalism that promote a specific “sense of place” that cannot be found outside the South. A more dynamic and global understanding of the South needs to be implemented if Southern Studies wants to contribute to a critical engagement with current and past cultural and social developments, in and outside the U.S. Despite the expansion of the scope of Southern Studies though, the ‘old’ questions remain: What and where is “the South”? What is “southern”? While “sense-of-place”-regionalism, a rather essentialist and nativist approach to being “southern,” is outdated, the concern with the “place of ‘place’” in Southern Studies remains. This conference aims to bring together scholars who want to share their work on “the South” and “doing Southern Studies” in an uncommon place: Berlin – a place outside “the South.” We don’t expect definite answers to the ‘old’ questions (although we welcome them). We rather want to explore the trajectories of Southern Studies in and outside the U.S. We owe our title to Scott Romine and Jennifer Rae Greeson who claim that “[d]oing Southern Studies is unmasking and refusing the binary thinking – ‘North’/‘South,’ nation/South, First World/Third World, self/other,” it is “thinking geographically, thinking historically, thinking relationally, thinking about power, thinking about justice, thinking back” (2016: 4). We take their definitions as this conference’s objective and seek an exchange of these thoughts.
We are particularly interested in papers that tackle the South as a “multiplicity of communities” (Gray 2002: xxiii), factoring in race, gender, sexuality and ethnicity; the role (or rather the problematic exclusivity) of whiteness in Southern Studies; imaginations of “the South” in popular media; the Global South and the possible transnational routes of Southern Studies. Confirmed keynote speakers: Riché Richardson (Cornell University) and Martyn Richard Bone (University of Copenhagen).
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words and a short biographical info to conference organizers Evangelia Kindinger (Humboldt University Berlin) and Greta Kaisen (Humboldt University Berlin) at doingsouthernstudies@gmail.com. The deadline for paper proposals is 1 August 2020. Please note that the date of the conference is subject to change, considering the current state of pandemic and its developments.

 

 

3.7. Call for Papers: COPAS Thematic Issue 21.2 – Embracing the Loss of Nature: Searching for Responsibility in an Age of Crisis

Deadline: October 15, 2020

Please find the current CfP for the next thematic issue of  Current Objectives in Postgraduate American Studies (COPAS) on our website: https://copas.uni-regensburg.de/pages/view/cfp
With our guest editors Jaime Hyatt and Florian Wagner, we are looking for contributions on the topic of " Embracing the Loss of Nature: Searching for Responsibility in an Age of Crisis." As always, we are dedicated to publishing the work of early career researchers in American Studies in Germany and beyond and we are looking very much forward to your contributions to this forthcoming thematic issue.

We welcome scholarly articles as well as creative work. The deadline for all submissions is October 15, 2020. Please upload your work to https://copas.uni-regensburg.de. Articles should be about 5,000 to 8,000 words in length and will be peer-reviewed.
We kindly ask artists to include a brief statement (1,000-1,500 words) with their creative work. Open access publication is scheduled for April 2021. Please see the COPAS website for editorial policies and submission guidelines.
COPAS guest editors Jaime Hyatt and Florian Wagner and the COPAS editorial team 
We look forward to your submission!

 

3.8. Call for Papers: Edited Collection on “New York City in Song”

Deadline: October 31, 2020

New York City has one of the richest musical histories in all of the US, and has been the subject of an astonishing number of songs – something that has so far not been comprehensively addressed in academic works.
Thus, the proposed volume under the working title “New York City in Song” wants to analyze songs written about New York City, and engage with the depiction of the city within them, but also use it as a way to deal with several musical genres that the city has been home to, and was instrumental in developing. These include the vaudeville and musical theater scene on Broadway and beyond, but also hip hop, disco, punk, folk, jazz, swing, rock or pop music. It will therefore contribute to both the fields of urban studies and popular music studies, which have become well-developed areas of study over the recent years, but are still lacking specialized literature – especially such that considers their intersections.

We are seeking contributions from those with a cultural studies, media studies, music geography, cultural history or musicology background, making possible a far-ranging treatment of the interconnection of the city space and its musical history. We are looking for authors with an accessible writing style, while still having rigorous research standards. Our final line-up should reflect the varied musical history of New York, placing particular emphasis on marginalized histories.
Each chapter should focus on one song (potentially two if by the same artist or composer or if you can make a convincing argument for thematic or historic connection, such as cover versions) or a whole album (if possible to discuss it properly in one chapter), either from the following list or one of your choosing that you think reflects a specific imagery/myth of the city or a key element of New York’s music scene. It should put the musical pieces into its historical context at the time of writing, its relevance for the musical genre it belongs to, how it and its artist is connected to New York City, and what image of the city it depicts.

Intellect has expressed interest in the project and we (Dr. Veronika Keller, Dr. Sabrina Mittermeier and Maciej Smólka) expect to be contracted based on a convincing final table of contents. Please send us an abstract of 300 words plus a 150 word author bio by October 31, 2020 to newyorkinsong@gmail.com. Full first drafts of chapters of 3,000-5,000 words will be due by March 31, 2021, aiming for a publication of the book some time in 2022.
Find the full Call for Papers here: https://dgfa.de/wp-content/uploads/Call-for-Papers-for-an-Edited-Collection-on-%E2%80%9CNew-York-City-in-Song%E2%80%9D.pdf

 

3.9. Call for Papers – Reviewers for new academic journal AmLit – American Literatures

For a new journal dedicated to the study of American Literatures – AmLit – based at the University of Graz (https://amlit.eu/), with members on the General Board from universities all over Europe, we are looking for qualified scholars in American Studies interested in becoming reviewers for academic articles. If you are interested, you would be added to our pool of reviewers and be informed on a regular basis about essays in the blind reviewing process. The journal appears twice a year (March and October). Once in the reviewers’ board, you could, of course, still decline if your workload does not allow for reviewing or if the essay suggested to you does not fit into your research area.
AmLit is designed as a new academic venue for experienced as well as young and upcoming scholars to publish collections of cutting-edge articles on recent developments in American literature. We believe that literature from North, Central, and South America has been at the forefront of registering, tracing, and narrativizing complex cultural developments such as digitization, migration, globalization, trans- and interculturality as well as visuality and intermediality, imbuing them with recognizable aesthetic patterns of representation. We are eager to provide a publication forum for scholarly essays from the fields of U.S. American, Canadian, and Latin American literary studies that deal with fictional, non-fictional, and graphic texts as well as book reviews.
The methodological orientation of the journal encompasses all major branches of literary studies (African American & Ethnic Studies, Gender, Feminist & Queer Theory, Marxist Theory, New Historicism, Postcolonialism, Socio-Linguistics, Structuralism and Poststructuralism, Visuality, etc.). The target group for this publication is the academic community, with scholars from all European countries, but potentially also from the USA, Canada, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Central and South America. 

Please send your consent to become a reviewer for AmLit together with a short bio sketch, your affiliation and your expertise within the field of American Studies (naming up to four key areas of your research) to amlit-journal@uni-graz.at.
https://amlit.eu/ Contact: Stefan L. Brandt

 

3.10. Call for Contributions: The United States in Times of Corona (The HCA Graduate Blog)

The Heidelberg Center for American Studies Graduate Blog is currently welcoming contributions on all topics related to the coronavirus pandemic and American Studies. These may include, but are not limited to, the following aspects:

The United States in Times of Corona
On a micro level, the coronavirus pandemic has influenced the lives of millions of Americans. Unemployment, shortage of food and water supplies, limited individual freedom, or insecurity about the situation and how to deal with it are just some of the consequences Americans are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. Contributions might discuss questions such as:
- How is the coronavirus crisis discussed in public discourse?
- Which role do the new regular White House Press briefings play, and which impact do they have on individual citizens?
- How does this crisis relate to previous crises, such as the Spanish flu?
- How has art responded to the crisis (music, TV, literature)?
- Which role does religion play in dealing with and reacting to the crisis? 

Transatlantic Relations in Times of Corona
On a macro level, transatlantic relations have been affected as well. To manage the pandemic, countries need to coordinate measures on a global scale – without face-to-face diplomacy. Cooperation is more important than ever to prevent a further spread of the virus and to keep its death toll as low as possible. Contributions might discuss questions such as:
- How have transatlantic relations developed throughout the crisis?
- President Trump announced the end of US contributions to the WHO. What will the consequences be for the WHO, the international community, and the United States?
- How does news on the virus spread within and outside of the US?
- How does the crisis affect immigration to the United States as well as immigrants in the country?
- What influence does the pandemic have on wars, such as the war in Yemen?

American Studies in Times of Corona
The pandemic has also influenced the work of researchers in the field of American Studies. Travel bans, limited access to resources in archives or libraries, home office and the struggle to digitize classes for the next semester – these are some of the challenges scholars are facing these days. We welcome contributions on issues relating to the virus’s impact on researchers and how to overcome these challenges.
If you would like to contribute, send a short abstract of max. 200 words to the editors at: hcagrads@hca.uni-heidelberg.de. For more information on the blog and the author guidelines, see https://hcagrads.hypotheses.org/.

 

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