Announcements

With literature as a crossroads where many forms of knowledge meet--art, history, politics, science, religion--we will welcome proposals for papers and panels on all aspects of Native American literary studies. Topics to be covered can include tribal sovereignty, narrative strategies, cultural mediations, interdisciplinary arts, literature and history, cultural
contexts, art, music, politics, film, and individual authors. We are pleased to locate our symposium once again at a tribal venue and look forward to your spirited participation. PROPOSAL DEADLINE: October 25, 2003. All program queries and proposals should be sent to the Program Director:

Dr. Gwen Griffin
Native American Literature Symposium
230 Armstrong Hall
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Mankato, MN 56001
(507) 389-2117 gwen.griffin@mnsu.edu

PROPOSAL and REGISTRATION FORMS can be printed from the NALS web site: www.mnsu.edu/nativelit

SYMPOSIUM HOUSING INFORMATION:
Mystic Lake Casino Hotel
An Enterprise of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community
2400 Mystic Lake Boulevard
Prior Lake, MN 55372
Reservations: (952) 445-9000 or (800) 262-7799
www.mysticlake.com

The hotel will continue to accept reservations on a space available basis at current rates until March 15, 2004. Please identify yourself as participating in the Native American Literature Symposium. Minimum age to rent a room is 21.

TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS should be made into Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

ALCOHOL FREE POLICY: Mystic Lake Casino Hotel is an alcohol-free facility. Alcohol is not permitted in the casino, restaurants, hotel, meeting rooms, or anywhere in the facility. If alcohol is seen, it will be confiscated and/or you will be asked to leave. There are no exceptions to this policy.

Malea Powell
Associate Professor of Writing, Rhetoric & American Cultures
American Indian Studies Program
Michigan State University
Editor, SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literatures

The ASSESSING JAMES PURDY Conference will take place October 25, 2003 in Bartlett Hall of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. All Purdy enthusiasts are cordially invited, as are all fans of the best late twentieth century fiction. There will be no registration fee. Essays are also solicited for the volume of essays that will follow up the conference. The editor seeks essays on all aspects of Purdy's work, but is especially interested in essays on the later stories, the plays and the poetry. Send proposals for essays to Prof. Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., Department of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA 01003 or by email to: skerrett@english.umass.edu
The deadline for proposals is November 1, 2003, with completed essays due on March 1, 2004.

Remembering the Alamo: Foundational Fictions, Cultural Memories, and the Legacies of Manifest Destiny

Deadline: November 15, 2003
San Antonio, Texas
April 7-10, 2004

The area chair of Manifest Destiny invites papers or panel proposals that deal with the legacy of westward
expansion from the early nineteenth century to the present. Considering the conference locale, topics on
the Alamo as a historical space and cultural symbol are especially welcome. How does the Alamo embody
contested historical meanings? How does the Alamo figure in Anglo American and Chicano/a film? How do
representations of the Alamo utilize gender, race, or national identity?

Other topics on the Southwest might include: the cultural relations between Native, Mexican, and Anglo Americans; the history or literature of the Texas revolution, the U.S.-Mexico War, or the Spanish-American War; captivity narratives and gender relations; contemporary Southwestern literature and environmental, ethnic, gender, or regional studies; journals, diaries, and travel literature; the Civil War in the borderlands; food, literature, and the consumption of Southwestern ethnic identity. Individual paper proposals: send a 200-word abstract and a short CV. Panel Proposals: send a description of the panel, individual abstracts, and short CVs of each panelist. Deadline: November 15, 2003.

Send materials to:
Professor Jesse Aleman
University of New Mexico
Department of English
MSC03 2170
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
(505) 277-3209
jman@unm.edu
For more information, visit: http://www.h-net.org/~swpca

Conceptions of Citizenship in the United States and Canada: Comparative Perspectives

Keynote Address by Dr. Thomas Garden Barnes, Professor Emeritus of Law and History at the University of California, Berkeley, President of the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States

Conference Theme: An interdisciplinary consideration of citizenship from historical, political, sociological, and literary perspectives

The rise of global markets and the increase in cross-border trading and exchanging have called into some question the continuing value of the nation-state as the primary focus and vehicle of people’s desire for joint deliberation and concerted action. Moreover, the end of the Cold War would also seem to presage the decline of large, centralized political formations in favor of more locally and regionally sensitive communities of joint action, better suited to accommodate more finely grained political and social attitudes and needs. In exploring this possible reformation of individual and social identity, a number of possible alternative perspectives arise (new models of interaction and identity formation, or, even, revisions of older models). In addressing new conceptions of citizenship, the conference will be organized according to four panels that will address the topic from a variety of perspectives within the humanities and social sciences:

1. Conceptions of Citizenship and Identity in Canada and/or the United States from Multi-Ethnic Literary Perspectives

2. Questions of National Identity in Quebec and within the Federal System of Canada

3. Conceptions of Citizenship from the perspective of Indigenous people, especially the Ojibway or Anishinabe.

Submission: For the Literature Panel, please submit a 500 word abstract and c.v. by December 15, 2003 to Professor Nicholas Sloboda, Department of Language and Literature, University of Wisconsin–Superior, Belknap & Catlin, PO Box 2000, Superior, WI, 54880-4500. For further information contact nsloboda@uwsuper.edu

Other queries or submissions, please contact the Conference Coordinator, Professor George Wright (Dept. of Political Science, University of Wisconsin–Superior) at gwright@uwsuper.edu

Seeking 500 - 600 word proposals for essays in an anthology tentatively titled RESISTANCE AND RAGE: WOMEN OF COLOR RESPOND TO VIOLENCE. This local/global collection of work collection seeks to explore topics such as the dialectical approaches to the relationship between individual action, selfhood and collective identity; women's rights and feminist struggle as articulated by women of color; traditions of resistance; legal discursive formulations of rape and self-defense as applied to cases involving women of color.Submissions that address global and/or local perspectives are encouraged. Submit proposals by 15 December 2003. Attachments should be in MS Word or RTF. Send proposals and one page c.v., as well as inquiries and other correspondences electronically to both editors: Maria Ochoa (mochoa@email.sjsu.edu) and Barbara K. Ige bige@college.ucla.edu.

MESEA

The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas

Deadline: December 20, 2003

Fourth MESEA Conference
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
May 27 - 30, 2004
Ethnic Communities in Democratic Societies

Proposals for workshops and papers may engage the following topics, among others:

Negotiation of culture, language, religion within (non-)territorial communities / Parochialism and globalization / Community and fragmentation in global cities / Communitarianism vs. rights / Literary and artistic productions within transnational democracies / Aesthetic concerns of ethnic subjects in democratic societies / How literature reflects democratic concerns / Negotiating ethnic exceptionalism and participation in a larger collectivity / Nation states and imagined communities / Nationalism and transnational loyalties / Nativism and racism in democratic contexts / Ethnic Press and transnationalism / Ethnic community vs. local law / (Il)legal immigration / Transnational identities / Fragmented identities / Political agency, political choices / Balkanization of mentality / Bastions of ethnic tolerance / Citizenship and ethnopolitics / Civis and civility / Ethnic anxieties / Ethnic discrimination and affirmative actions / Ethnogenesis and ethnostasis / From Confrontation to Cooperation / Internal colonialisms / Mythologized nationalisms / Xenophobia/xenophilia.

- Deadline for proposals: December 20, 2003. Send a one-page proposal and a one-paragraph bio on the same page as e-mail submission to:

raphael-hernandez@mesea.org
Dr. Heike Raphael-Hernandez
University of Maryland in Europe
Im Bosseldorn 30
69126 Heidelberg
Germany

- Only members of MESEA may present papers at this conference. For membership information please check: www.mesea.org

The Vagina Monologues

Final papers due: January 1, 2004

Papers are solicited for a collection of critical essays on Eve Ensler’s play, and the V-Day movement. The volume will examine the distinctive nature of the play/movement, specifically the indissoluble relationship between 1) the text of The Vagina Monologues, 2) the event of various performances of the play, and 3) the larger context of the V-Day movement (the V-Day College Campaign and the World Wide V-Day Campaign). Among a variety of possible focuses, the anthology seeks essays that address the following in particular: the way this three-fold relationship at work in The Vagina Monologues impacts the standard connections between sites of cultural production (national, political, sexual, racial, etc.); the introduction of “male monologues” to the play in the performances of 2003, and the way in which the presence of “male” identities affects the play’s critical engagement with traditional conceptions of gender and the political status of women; the effectiveness of the play/movement (the degree of its tangible activism, as well as its limitations); the play’s persuasiveness in different cultural contexts across the globe (“Third World” performances as opposed to “first world,” “east” as opposed to “west,” “north” as opposed to “south”); the “usefulness” of the play in terms of the proceeds it generates, and the distribution of proceeds (10% going to RAWA in 2002, 10% going to the “Indian Country Project” in 2003); and the position of The Vagina Monologues in the discipline of feminism (i.e., is the play/movement an “essentialist” or a “constructionist” feminist text? or both?). Final papers (20-25 pp, in MLA format) are due 1 January 2004. Send inquiries to Adrienne McCormick (adrienne.mccormick@fredonia.edu) and Robert Marzec (marzec@fredonia.edu), English Department, SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia NY 14063.

Dr. Jim Williams is editing a volume of essays for Locust Hill Press about the present state and future of African-American literature. The topics are open, but some possibilities include:

--What should be the role of history and nonfiction in African-American novels?
--What distinguishes "African-American literature" in a multicultural society?
--Is there a "black" aesthetic?
--What is the responsibility of a white critic to African-American literature?
--Should African-American literature focus on race? Should it be more philosophical?
--Why is spirituality--Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist--important in African-American literature?

All essays must be unpublished and follow MLA style. Contributors will receive two copies of the published book. Please send an abstract (no more than 500 words) and a curriculum vitae by 1 March 2004 to:

Dr. Jim McWilliams
Associate Professor of English
Department of Language and Literature
Dickinson State University
Dickinson ND 58601
james.mcwilliams@dsu.nodak.edu

Calls for Proposals or Papers

Ethnic Communities in Democratic Societies