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Welcome to the Fall 2003 edition of NewsNotes

Text Only Version

In this issue:

A Note from the MELUS President, Fred Gardaphe

The MELUS Homepage has moved to http://english.boisestate.edu/melus/ Please change your bookmarks!

 

NewsNotes accepts submissions year-round and will post updated information as soon as possible after our submission deadlines: usually in September, December, and March/April.  If you have ideas for ways to enlarge our Table of Contents, send suggestions to:

Dr. Katharine Rodier
Associate Professor of English & Director of Graduate Studies
Marshall University
1 John Marshall Drive
Huntington WV 25755-2646
 rodier@marshall.edu

Detailed submission information is available on our Calls for Submissions link. Monica García Brooks, our Technical Editor, has outlined subscription information for future issues. If you would prefer to receive NewsNotes in print copy or in another format, please let us know.

Notes from the President, Fred Gardaphe

I want to thank everyone who has made it possible for me to accept this honor to serve as President of an organization that has been instrumental in developing first a safe place for the nurturance of a sense of Multi-ethnicity of U.S. Literature, an atmosphere of acceptance of the multi-ethnic literatures of the United States, and finally a place from which multi-ethnic literature could be launched into wider venues.  MELUS is also a place that has helped the careers of all of its members.  I thought this first communication would give you a sense of how I came to MELUS and where I believe MELUS is headed.

I remember finding out about MELUS through an item in some newsletter back in the 1980s, and I wanted to get to the first conference in California, but like most graduate students, didn’t have the funds.  The next conference was in Amherst; I was able to scratch up the funds and when I arrived I acted as I did when I used to hitchhike into a new town: I walked around cautiously looking for a way to connect to something. 

At that first conference I made two presentations: the first was a rambling paper on Italian American writers that eventually made its way into the first MELUS issue dedicated to Italian American literature—after much work and guidance from editor Joe Skerrett.  The second was a fiction reading:  As I did my reading two people walked in; I thought they were going to reprimand me for being so loud.  Doris Davenport and Jim Miller took seats.  Later over drinks late Doris said, “We heard you all the way out in the hall and had to go see if this really was a white guy.”  We connected immediately and from there it I knew MELUS was not a place, but people.  From that moment on MELUS became as comfortable as home.

At that same conference Katharine Newman met me in an elevator and introduced her self.  When I told her great I thought MELUS was, she said, “Don’t forget, MELUS is you.” 

Over the years I would bump into her from time to time and conferences after that, and I was always amazed that she remembered my not just my name, but the work I was doing.  This was especially important to me because early in my career I was in the middle of dealing with academics and bureaucrats who had heard my name more times than she and they never seemed to remember it.  She was special.

Well that’s how I came to be here.  So where do we go from here.  If MELUS is US, then what are we?

We are the gathering of people with interests that are varied yet connected in some very basic ways.  We are a community of students, teachers, scholars, writers, cultural workers and more who believe in the creation and consumption of arts, especially the literary arts.  We express our ideas through writing published in our journal, through oral presentations at our annual conference, and through other work that we are able to do when we have the time.

Where we are headed depends on the questions we pose:

Are we reaching the members? 

Are we providing what we need?

And who is to do that providing?

Much has depended on the members of the executive committee, and rightly so, but without participation from members this work can get pretty tough and meaningless.  I want to take this time to remind you of the MELUS standing committees and to encourage you to join one.

Conference Committee

Purpose: To oversee and assist in the developmental stages of the MELUS annual conference according to the “Guidelines for Hosting a MELUS Conference” document.  This committee works as a liaison between the local conference committee (host institution) and the Executive Committee. 

Charge: Obtain a copy of  “Guidelines for Hosting a MELUS Conference”(from MELUS President).  Review the document and design a plan for working with each year’s local committee.   

Development & Publicity Committee

Purpose: To develop and implement activities that will support and enhance  MELUS. This includes locating and applying for appropriate grants to support projects that fulfill the organization’s mission.  This committee is also charged with publicizing the Society (assisting the Membership Chair in recruitment efforts, etc.).

Charge: Devise a plan of action (with short- and long-term goals) that supports the Society’s mission of cross-cultural, pan-national outreach (e.g., applying for grants, publicizing upcoming events, establishing a MELUS job fair, promoting projects such as the MELUS Cookbook, developing other MELUS-related publications). 

Governance Committee

Purpose: To revise and update the MELUS Constitution and By-laws, and to present these revised documents to the MELUS membership for deliberation and ratification.

Charge: Obtain a copy of the current Constitution and By-Laws (from MELUS President).  With input from the Executive Committee, review these documents and insert changes that are appropriate to the present and future needs of the Society.  Draft a new set of documents and submit these to the Executive Committee for review.  Present the final draft to the MELUS membership for ratification.

Other ongoing MELUS work includes the NewsNotes, edited by Katharine Rodier with technical support from Monica Brooks; the Electronic List, moderated by Stephen Souris, as well as the NewsNotes and MELUS-listservs, also coordinated by Monica Brooks; and the Web Site, run by web mistrix Marcy Newman.

My goal is to stabilize the good work done by the previous administration and to focus the leadership’s efforts on streamlining the work ahead. 

We are fighting some difficulties:

Energy deficit—there’s pressure on education to do more for less, especially at State institutions. Time crunch--who has time these days to volunteer to do work for organizations?  Apathy—Our last election posted 55 votes, less than 1/6th of the membership; that’s not much of a mandate for the new leaders.  We must find ways to overcome these difficulties and connect to new generations of scholars.

To that end I would like to see greater support of graduate students, especially in terms of enabling them to come to our conference.  I would like to see some mentoring going on between the seasoned pros and the newcomers.  Nothing formal, but some good interaction at conferences and perhaps through the website and Electronic lists.

We need to shape the organization to meet contemporary realities and to that end we have revised the constitution and bylaws to enable greater stability and development.  The proposed changes have been posted on this website and will soon be voted on.  Please read through them and get any suggestions back to the Governance Committee.  We need to sell the MELUS cookbook, so that we can support other projects from its proceeds.

We need to develop a plan for the future.  I would like to see future conference sites settled on 2-3 years in advance.   I would like to see us develop a strategic plan so that we are not simply reacting, but actively moving forward.

I look forward to working with the new leaders:

Program Chair, Wenying Wu

Secretary, Jesse Aleman

Treasurer, Kim Long

Membership Chair Derek Royal

And of course Katharine Rodier, editor of NewsNotes and Stephen Souris, editor of the MELUS L

Finally I want to thank past administrations for keeping MELUS alive and thriving, and I pledge my all to do the same.

Fred Gardaphe, President

Announcements

The Activist Impulse in Ethnic Studies: Safeguarding Rights in Eras of Insecurity
32nd Annual Conference
National Association for Ethnic Studies
April 1-3, 2004
Philadelphia, PA
For information: visit http://www.ethnicstudies.org

David Goldstein-Shirley, Ph.D.
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences
University of Washington, Bothell
Campus Box 358530
18115 Campus Way NE
Bothell, WA 98011-8246
 http://faculty.washington.edu/davidgs

Fulbright Announcement

Paula W. Shirley, Professor of Spanish at Columbia College of South Carolina, will be a Fulbright Lecturer at the American University in Bulgaria during the spring of 2004.  The Fulbright award is in American Studies, and she will teach multi-ethnic literature of the United States focusing on the question of identity, i.e., What do we mean when we say we are "American"?

Review

A Walk Around the Block: Literary Texts and Contexts. By Eugene Paul Nassar( Syracuse, NY, Ethnic Heritage Studies Center, Utica College of Syracuse University, 1999, 179 pp plus 6 drawings). Batya Weinbaum, First College, Cleveland State University

Nassar’s collection of essays illustrate the fears of the Lebanese immigrant to the US, that “the new country, with all its centrifugal forces, would crush the family and obliterate its past” (p. 162). He shows how through natural myth-making, metaphors become symbols, and the intensity charged feeling becomes the vehicle through which the ethics of an uprooted people keeps its spiritualized landscape alive in the poetization of life and language. Growing up in Utica, NY, he only visits Lebanon once, but has the immigrant-return “gestalt” of placing the context of the uprooted metaphors he had absorbed, circulating around him as a child. He tells of his early interest in cross-cultural comparative study of folklore. It was sparked when he recognized the similarity between the entertaining story told by the Sicilian grandfather of his Italian-American high school date as a teenager and the stories he had heard, as a Lebanese American, from his own neighbors and relatives. Other essays in the collection continue the cross cultural approach begun in his narrative of his personal initiation into the study of folklore and survey texts in numerous languages by authors in Spanish (Cervantes), English (Shakespeare, Chaucer), Italian (Dante), Greek (Homer), German (Mann), Russian (Tolstoy, Doestoevsky), Hebrew (The Old Testament).

As a comparative folklorist, there is no indication that he consulted the texts in the original languages themselves. Skipping across continents, centuries, he uses stories from his own life and the Stith Thomson index to ask ironically why some of the “tales” included in these “masterpieces” are not codified by Dorson, Thomson and Calvino as folklore tales along with the folktales told in Lebanese heritage. He mixes his literary criticism with his own memories and association of stories heard as a son of a millworker in an Italian/Lebanese immigrant neighborhood, and compares the stories his mother told him to stories told scholars in the field collecting lore, thus utilizing his personal experience. Interesting images emerge, such as that of the lettuce leaf as the soul, which he says ask us to recognize the primacy of the commonplace (p. 162) and he points to the sacramentalization of the commonplace, as immigrant groups turn to creation of poetry out of oral, spontaneous folklore.

He finds matriarchy in Lebanon, a feminization of the ancestral village of which female relatives seemed to him to be in charge, and throughout, uses stories of his mother to illustrate the importance of continuity, to link to the past, in any social system (p. 134). He explores how stories flow from one area to another, across continents and centuries, into Sudanese, Indonesian, Spanish, Italian, Lithuanian, and so on. He devotes considerable time to discussing the unusual motif of peasant as trickster, relying in secondary sources (the motif collector) as is common in the field, without the pretense of having read all the different versions in all the original languages.

Nonetheless, the book remains valuable for those who can read it for what it is, rather than for what it isn’t. What it is, is a document of how the folk create (and re-create) poetry. The text should be useful in poetry, folklore, and multicultural literature classes, as well as classes in memoir and in working class immigrant origins. The text also provides a grounded, humane historical perspective on one segment of the US population of Arab Americans, with interesting commentary on gender in traditional cultures woven in, if some what uncritical of its own assertions and assumptions in that regard.

MELUS at MLA 2003

Take note of the MELUS events that will be held during this year's MLA convention in San Diego, California. 

MONDAY, December 29,   12:00 noon–1:15 p.m.

Work and Play in the Multiethnic Literatures of the United States

Cunningham C, Manchester Grand Hyatt

Program arranged by MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States.

Presiding: Fred L. Gardaphe, State Univ. of New York, Stony Brook

  1. “Revising Women’s Work: Three Ethnic Women Writers,” Josephine Hendin, New York Univ.
  2. “Sacred Hoop Dreams: Basketball in Sherman Alexie’s Short Stories,”  David Goldstein-Shirley, Univ. of Washington, Bothell
  3. “The Work of Play in Charles Fuller’s A Soldier’s Play and August Wilson’s Fences,”  Reggie Young, Univ. of Louisana, Lafayette
  4. "The Spirit of Play in Contemporary Ethnic Literature,” Bonnie TuSmith, Northeastern Univ.
     

Monday, December 29
5:15 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Cash Bar
Ballroom H
Manchester Grand Hotel

At this event Professor Werner Sollors of Harvard University will be presented with the MELUS Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to Ethnic American Literary and Cultural Studies.

Please stop by to toast Professor Sollors and each other and help consume the complimentary appetizers.

MELUS 18th Annual Conference, 10-14 March 2004

Abstracts should be postmarked 1 December 2003

  • Conference Site: San Antonio, TX
  • Access the official conference web site:  http://colfa.utsa.edu/ecpc/meluconf.htm Host: The University of Texas at San Antonio
  • Conference Co-Chairs: Bill Mullen, Norma Cantu & Sonia Saldivar-Hull
  • Conference Committee: Sue Hum, Juanita Luna Lawhn, Luis Mendoza, Mona Narain, Ben Olguin, Moumin Quazi, & Michael Soto
  • Transfronterismo: Crossing Ethnic Borders in U.S. Literatures

We invite paper abstracts and complete panel, workshop, and roundtable proposals on all aspects of multiethnic literatures of the United States. We especially encourage those that engage in the conference theme. Transfronterismo highlights the theoretical, ideological, pragmatic practices and possibilities of hybridity, mestizaje, and diaspora in the formation of subjectivities, geopolitical coalitions, and literary cartographies. Transfronterismo serves as an alternative space that gives birth to distinct imaginaries, one with alternative mappings for the local, the global, and their shared/overlapping boundaries. What is it that we do when we affirm, deny, or transgress the border? We offer the following list as suggestions:

  • internal diasporas and subject positions
  • transnational and comparative approaches
  • borders of genre and frontiers of lived experience
  • reverse migration and cross cultural transnationalism
  • class boundaries and capitalist borders
  • patriotism and post-nationalist politics
  • interstices and aporias of ethnic identity
  • inter-racial and inter-ethnic encounters
  • hegemonic and geopolitics negotiations
  • gender and sexual crossings
  • literacy education and pedagogy

All proposal abstracts (250 words maximum) should be submitted in triplicate. We strongly encourage proposals of complete panels, roundtables, and workshops that should include a brief description and abstracts for individual speakers. Abstracts should be postmarked 1 December 2003, addressed to Professor Bill Mullen, Department of English, Classics, and Philosophy, The University of Texas at San Antonio, 6900 North Loop 1604 West, San Antonio, TX 78249-0643. Email inquiries Bill Mullen, bmullen@utsa.edu. [Fax and email for international submissions only: (210) 458 5366]

All presenters must be members of MELUS. For information about membership and renewal visit the MELUS website at: http://www.marshall.edu/melus/

Radisson Hotel, 502 W Durango Blvd, San Antonio, TX (phone 210-224-7155)  Rooms: $99 + 16.75% tax, up to 4 persons per room. Suites: $150 to $200 + 16.75% tax (please inquire with the hotel). [Note: You must mention MELUS]

 

Encyclopedia of Ethnic American Literature

Call for Contributors

Editor
Emmanuel S. Nelson
Department of English
SUNY-Cortland
Cortland, NY 13045
Ph: 607-753-2078
Fax: 607-753-5978
E-mail: nelsone@cortland.edu

Advisory Board
Ken Cerniglia (Cornish College
   of the Arts)
Guiyou Huang (Kutztown University)
Arnold Krupat (Sarah Lawrence College)
Paul Lauter (Trinity College)
Ann Shapiro (SUNY-Farmingdale)

Loretta Woodard (Marygrove College)

Roberta Fernandez (Univ of Georgia)

Contributors are sought for a multi-volume Encyclopedia of Ethnic American Literature scheduled for publication by Greenwood Press. Approximately one million words in length, the work will be published simultaneously in five volumes in 2005. Entries range in length from 500 to 4,000 words and cover a range of topics, authors, texts, genres, historical events, and stereotypes. Contributors may write several entries in their areas of expertise.

Remuneration for the contributors will be based on the total number of words assigned to their entries. Here are the guidelines:

500 to 3,000 words:   A copy of the five-volume Encyclopedia (tentatively priced at $500) at the time of publication;

3,250 to 5,000 words: A copy of the five-volume Encyclopedia and $100;

5,250 to 7,000 words: A copy of the five-volume Encyclopedia and $150;

7,250 to 9,000 words: A copy of the five-volume Encyclopedia and $200;

9,250 words and above: A copy of the five-volume Encyclopedia and $300.

All payments will be made at the time of publication of the Encyclopedia.

If you are interested in participating in this project, please contact the Editor--Emmanuel Nelson-- with the following information: a list of several entries that you are willing to write (your top choices may have already been assigned); your institutional affiliation and status;your day time phone number; and your preferred e-mail and snail mail addresses where you would like to receive all related correspondence. ( I should add that preference will be given to contributors who write at least a total of 2000 words for the Encyclopedia.) You will receive e-mail confirmation of your assignment, guidelines for manuscript preparation, sample entries. Shortly afterwards you will receive a formal contract to sign from Greenwood Press via snail mail. Completed manuscripts (hard copy and disk) are due by April 30, 2004.

List of Entries

Calls for Proposals or Papers

THE NATIVE AMERICAN LITERATURE SYMPOSIUM

Deadline: October 25, 2003

April 15-17, 2004
Mystic Lake Casino * Hotel
Minneapolis, Minnesota

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

273 Bessey Hall
East Lansing, MI   48824-1033
517-432-2577

Assessing James Purdy

Deadline: November 1, 2003

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

TWO MELUS SESSIONS

Deadline: December 1, 2003

American Literature Association Annual Conference May 27-30, 2004
Hyatt Regency San Francisco, 5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111

Please send a 250-500 word paper proposal and a paragraph of bio to be received (regular mail or email) by December 1, 2003.  Paper topics are purposely left open for MELUS members. In broad terms, we are interested in fresh perspectives on one or more ethnic American works-including papers with a cross-cultural or interdisciplinary focus. Whether theoretical or pedagogical, as long as the study reflects the mission of MELUS, we are willing to take a look. There are only 6 possible presentation slots, so give us your best. Participants must be MELUS members. The conference fee is $75 before April 15, 2004 ($25 for graduate students, independent scholars, high school faculty, retired faculty). Deadline for Proposals: December 1, 2003

Address for Proposals
Professor Wenying Xu
Department of English
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Email: wxu@fau.edu 
Information on the ALA and its activities can be found at: www.americanliterature.org

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

Deadline: December 15, 2003

April 29 - May 2, 2004, University of Wisconsin–Superior, Superior, WI

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.

4.  Questions of Citizenship from a Non-Western, Comparative Perspective

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

VIOLENCE - Call for Contributors

Deadline: December 15, 2003

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

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:

 - 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.

 
Adrienne McCormick, Ph.D.
Department of English
SUNY Fredonia
Fredonia NY 14063

Call for Essays

Deadline March 1, 2004

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

Position Announcements

Department of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

Deadline: November 1, 2003

The Department of American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin seeks an Assistant Professor specializing in American Literature.  A second field in Women's Studies is highly desirable.  The applicant must be prepared to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in areas of specialization as well as a introductory lecture class in American Studies.  The applicant will also be expected to play a role in the functioning and governance of the department.  The candidate must have either a completed doctorate or one finished by the end of the spring 2004 semester.  Preference will be given to candidates with a doctorate in American Studies as well as to those with teaching experience and publications.  Applications should include a letter of intent, a current vita, and three letters of recommendation (please send under separate cover).  Please mail to: Mark C. Smith, Chair; The University of Texas at Austin; Department of American Studies; 1 University Station B7100; Austin, TX 78712-7100.  The deadline for applications to be considered is November 1, 2003.  The University of Texas at Austin is an AA/EEO employer.

The Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

Deadline: November 1, 2003

The Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin is pleased to announce 2 Assistant Professor positions in Asian American Studies. The specific descriptions are as follows:

Area: Asian American Studies; discipline: American Studies; desired fields of specialization: immigration and population studies, labor studies, legal studies, and/or Southeast Asian American Studies. The College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for an Assistant Professor position in Asian American Studies. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in hand or a dissertation close to completion. Appointees are expected to engage in high quality research, be effective teachers at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and assist students in research projects, theses, and dissertations. Service (to the Center, Department, College, and University) is also expected. Salary is competitive and dependent on qualifications and experience. Applicants should provide a cover letter, vita, abstract, writing sample, 3 recommendation letters, and selected teaching evaluations. Applications should be postmarked by November 1st, 2003, and should be sent to James Lee, Associate Director, Center for Asian American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A2200, Austin, TX 78712-0135. AA/EEO employer.

Area: Asian American Studies; discipline: English; field of specialization: Asian American Literature. The College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin invites applications for an Assistant Professor position in Asian American Studies. Applicants should have a Ph.D. in hand or a dissertation close to completion. Appointees are expected to engage in high quality research, be effective teachers at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and assist students in research projects, theses, and dissertations. Service (to the Center, Department, College, and University) is also expected. Salary is competitive and dependent on qualifications and experience. Applicants should provide a cover letter, vita, abstract, writing sample, 3 recommendation letters, and selected teaching evaluations. Applications should be postmarked by November 1st, 2003, and should be sent to James Lee, Associate Director, Center for Asian American Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A2200, Austin, TX 78712-0135. AA/EEO employer. 

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Coordinator of American Indian Studies

Deadline; December 1, 2003

Pending budgetary approval, the College of Letters & Science of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee invites applications for the Coordinator of the American Indian Studies program.  The appointment will be at the associate or full level, with a tenure home in a departments within the College of Letters & Science.  A candidate for this position should have a Ph.D. degree in the humanities or the social sciences, scholarly background in American Indian Studies, administrative experience, and experience in writing and administering grants.  A history of involvement with, and commitment to, native communities is also desirable. Preference will be given to candidates with demonstrated knowledge of the history and culture of American Indians of the Great Lakes and Wisconsin, in particular.  Duties include teaching courses in the program, administering the interdisciplinary major in American Indian Studies, and grant writing in support of the expansion of curricular initiatives in American Indian Studies.  Salary is commensurate with experience.  A letter of application, cv, and the names, addresses and phone numbers of three references with knowledge of the applicant’s performance of the duties described should be sent to Dr. Eleanor M. Miller, Associate Dean for the Social Sciences, The College of Letters & Science, P.O. Box 413, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI  53201.  Applications must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2003.  The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer.

 

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