Welcome to the Fall 2004 edition of NewsNotes

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

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Updated April 2005
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Gary Storhoff, Understanding Charles Johnson (University of South Carolina Press, 2005).

From the description: "Understanding Charles Johnson offers a critical introduction to the fiction of one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary writers and the first African American male since Ralph Ellison to win the National Book Award, which Johnson received in 1990 for Middle Passage. In addition to providing a biographical sketch, Gary Storhoff analyzes Johnson's four novels and two volumes of short stories. Describing his body of work as unique in American fiction, Storhoff explains how philosophical and religious orientations differentiate Johnson's writings and challenge his readers."

5 x 7, 272 pages
cloth, ISBN 1-57003-562-8, $34.95s
Understanding Contemporary American Literature
Matthew J. Bruccoli, series editor

Gary Storhoff is an associate professor of English at the Stamford Campus of the University of Connecticut. He has published widely on American and African American literature in such journals as the African American Review, Style, MELUS, and the Faulkner Journal. Storhoff lives in Danbury, Connecticut.

Rajini Srikanth, The World Next Door: South Asian American Literature and the Idea of America (Temple University Press, 2004).

From the description: "This book grows out of the question, "What is South Asian American writing and what insights can it offer us about living in the world at this particular moment of tense geopolitics and inter-linked economies?" South Asian American literature, with its focus on the multiple geographies and histories of the global dispersal of South Asians, pulls back from a close-up view of the United States to reveal a wider landscape of many nations and peoples."

To read more about this title and to place an order go to: http://www.temple.edu/tempress/titles/1706_reg.html

Rajini Srikanth, Associate Professor, English, Asian American Studies Program Affiliated Faculty, Campus Center 1414, University of Massachusetts Boston, 100 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston, MA 02125-3393, 617-287-5520

Marco Portales, Latino Sun, Rising: Our Spanish-speaking U.S. World (Texas A&M University Press, 2005).

Deadline August 1, 2005

From Richard Yarborough, yarborou@humnet.ucla.edu
Stanford University's Program in American Studies announces Paul Laurence Dunbar: A Centennial Conference at Stanford University March 9-11, 2006

This conference will celebrate the centennial of Dunbar's death by exploring new critical perspectives on the full range of his career as a poet, novelist, lyricist, dramatist, and journalist. The conference organizers will edit a selection of the papers for a special issue of African American Review.

We welcome papers exploring Dunbar as an individual challenged by complex psychological, esthetic, social, and political pressures. We seek lectures that place h! im in the context of historical phenomena such as slavery and the Civil War, Reconstruction, lynching, race riots, and landmark Jim Crow legislation such as Plessy v. Ferguson. We want to consider Dunbar as a regional, national, and international writer, and as a stylistic innovator of the highest order. We also invite papers on his relationship to his literary predecessors, contemporaries, and successors--writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Whitcomb Riley, William Dean Howells, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Mark Twain, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Charles Chesnutt, James Weldon Johnson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Langston Hughes, and more recent poets. We also hope to explore Dunbar's engagement with the musical theater, popular song, minstrelsy, spoken-word poetry, and reading-speaking tours; with visual culture, such as the Hampton Camera Club; and with notable cultural events, such as the World's Columbian Exposition.

Sponsored by the American Studies Program at Stanford University, this conference is organized by the director of the program, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Gavin Jones (Stanford), Meta DuEwa Jones (George Washington), Arnold Rampersad (Stanford), and Richard Yarborough (UCLA). Co-sponsors include the Office of the President of Stanford University; Office of the Dean of Humanities & Sciences; Department of English; Department of History; Stanford Continuing Studies; Program in African and African American Studies; Stanford Humanities Center; and the Central Region Humanities Center.

If you are interested in presenting a paper, or in attending the conference, please let us know at once at the email address below. Note that August 1 is the deadline for receiving paper proposals. To propose a paper, please send an abstract of about 600 words in length by August 1, 2005, along with a one-page c.v. and contact information to: DunbarConference@stanford.edu The conference will be free to all registrants. In addition, we expect to provide travel and lodging support for all presenters.

Deadline December 1, 2005

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES OF TURKEY FOCUSING ON CHICANA AND CHICANO LITERATURE AND CULTURE

GUEST EDITOR: PROFESSOR MARIA HERRERA-SOBEK, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA

Guest Editor for a Special Issue on Chicana and Chicano Literature and Culture for the Journal of American Studies of Turkey, Professor María Herrera-Sobek from the University of California, Santa Barbara, is pleased to announce a call for papers for this special volume. The Guest Editor welcomes submissions of material for consideration as an article or as a review focusing on Chicano/a literature or culture. The articles should be approximately 3,000 to 5,000 words in length (12-20 double-spaced typed pages, the reviews should not exceed 500 words (two double-spaced typed pages). The article should be consistent with the objectives and scope of the Journal of American Studies of Turkey. All articles are subject to stylistic editing.

No material will be considered for publication if it is currently under consideration by another journal or press or if it has been published or is soon to be published elsewhere. The JAST is a peer reviewed journal and the articles submitted will be peer reviewed by scholars in the field.

Manuscripts should be arranged in the format of articles printed in the JAST (see website: http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~jast/). Notes, limited to explanatory ones, should be included only when absolutely necessary, and preferably in parenthetical form. The MLA author-page style of documentation should be strictly observed.

Book reviews should include a brief description of the subjects covered in the book, an evaluation of the book’s strength and weaknesses, and the kinds of audiences to whom the book might appeal. The heading of the review should include the following information:

a. Title.

b. Author(s) or editor(s) name(s).

c. Publications.

d. Number of pages.

e. Price of book and postage and handling charges (if known).

f. Name and address of publisher.

Manuscripts should be prepared on a word processor and printed double-spaced (including notes and works cited) with wide margins, on one side of the paper only. They should be sent in hard copy (making sure you retain one for your files), along with MS-Word (DOC) files on a 3.5 inch HD diskette in IBM-compatible format, or by attachment of these files to e-mail.

The copyright of all material published will be vested in the Journal of American Studies of Turkey unless otherwise specifically agreed. This copyright covers exclusive rights of publication on printed or electronic media, including the World Wide Web.

All correspondence for this Special Issue of the JAST should be addressed to: Professor María Herrera-Sobek, Cheadle Hall Room 5105, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California 93106-2035, e-mail: maria.sobek@evc.ucsb.edu, telephone: 805-893-5114, fax: 805-893-7712

Deadline January 15, 2006

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE

Teaching In Translation

“Teaching in Translation“ refers to pedagogies that cross boundaries--language, nationality, culture, class, race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality--as well as teaching that questions traditional disciplinary and hierarchical limits. “Translation” raises questions of authenticity, authority, legitimization, subjectivity, and objectivity. How can we theorize translation so that it serves as a tool to present "experience” with respect for the integrity of the other? What is the relationship between the different subjects involved in the process of translation? What is the role of translation in the validation of the narratives of marginalized communities and indigenous cultures? What are the ethics of translation? What does the process of translation teach us about power and inequality?

The editors of Transformations seek articles (3,000–8,000 words) and media reviews (books, film, video, performance, art, music, etc. – 1,000 to 3,000 words) examining approaches to teaching translation as a broadly understood concept in a variety of contexts: creative writing (for example, multilingual texts), literature, women’s and gender studies, anthropology, history, psychology, sociology, art, photography, geography, religion, philosophy, working-class studies, ethnic studies, cultural studies, science, and others. Multidisciplinary approaches that focus on--or include--discussions of non-western cultures are especially encouraged. Autobiographical criticism, narrative scholarship, photo-essays, and experimental work are welcome.

Topics might include, but are not limited to:

§ Explorations of the translation process at all levels of education, from K-12 to universities.

§ Hybrid genres and hybrid languages.

§ The politics of bilingual education

§ Immigration, assimilation, nationalism, and transnationalism.

§ Teaching “non-traditional” students, in “non-traditional” setting and/or teaching as “non-traditional faculty.

§ How teaching in translation can be relevant to progressive education.

§ How to formulate and incorporate translation theories into pedagogical practice.

§ Teaching ethical research methodologies (in sociology, anthropology, the sciences, etc).

Transformations relies on blind peer review. Send two hard copies in MLA format (6^th ed.) to: Jacqueline Ellis and Edvige Giunta, Editors, Transformations, New Jersey City University, Grossnickle Hall Room 303, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, NJ 07305 OR email inquiries and submissions (attachments in MS Word or Rich Text) to: transformations@njcu.edu. For submission guidelines go to www.njcu.edu/assoc/transformations.

From Darcy Zabel, dzabel@friends.edu

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS TO:

Arabs in the Americas: An Interdisciplinary Collection of Essays on the Arabian Diaspora, edited by Dr. Darcy A. Zabel.

Volume to be published in paperback, approximately 200+ pages (15 essays of approximately 12 -15 pages each). Already scheduled for publication by Peter Lang Publishers in April 2006.

The major challenge when creating a collection of interdisciplinary scholarly essays about the Arab American experience in the Americas is to avoid simply replacing one stereotype of "the" typical Arab-American with another. Instead, I seek to advance a definition of "America" and "American-ness" that celebrates a fusion of identities.

In particular, I am interested in essay about the Arab American immigrant experience in Mexico, Brazil, Honduras, Nicaragua, Argentina, Canada and the United States; and also, the experiences of those second and third generation Arab Americans born to these immigrants. Essays can address issues of race, religion, art, music, literature, folklore, history, politics, any topic, any approach, any discipline. Essays should be approximately 12 to 15 pages (conference paper length).

Please contact Dr. Darcy Zabel at dzabel@friends.edu to submit a paper proposal or for more information. Contributors will each receive one copy of the volume upon publication.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The editors of “Biancheria: Domestic Needlework in the Italian Diaspora” are still accepting submissions on the domestic needlework of women from the Italian diaspora.

We are especially looking for creative works and scholarly proposals from writers/artists and scholars outside the US.

This interdisciplinary anthology will include articles by scholars in the humanities and the social sciences (anthropology, art history, cultural studies, folkloristics, history) as well as creative work (memoir, poetry, fiction, photo-essays).

Embroidery and lace work were basic skills of Italian working women. Biancheria, the collection of bed coverings, tablecloths, towels, doilies, intimate apparel, and other hand-embroidered textiles, was a central element in a bride’s corredo (trousseau). Immigrant women brought this artistry with them, adapting and transforming it in new social contexts. In time, biancheria took on additional cultural significance and, as earlier practices faded, those heirlooms and memories became sources for renewed cultural production such as poetry and painting.

Despite this rich cultural legacy, little scholarly documentation exists on the domestic needlework of women of the Italian diaspora. This anthology is a corrective to this lack of written history.

The editors are especially interested in submissions that explore topics such as:

The place of needle work in the everyday lives of women and their families and communities.
The changing nature of the aesthetics and market value of needlework during immigration.
The role domestic needlework played in the creation of an Italian female proletariat.
Comparisons between domestic needlework and factory needlework.
The role of social elites and mediators in the service of the Arts and Craft movement.
Needlework’s symbolic power in the cultural memory of descendants of immigrants.
Rewritings of the stories around domestic needlework in creative media, including film, video, and photography.
Gendered perspectives that include men’s responses to and recollection of domestic needlework.
Domestic needlework as a cultural bridge with the immigrants’ culture of origin.
Comparisons between needlework and other forms of domestic work and material culture
Needlework and the sacred
Cross-cultural perspectives (for example, comparisons with African American women’s quilts or Italian American and Italian Australian needlework).
The preservation of needlework: from the home to the museum.

Five hundred-word proposals for scholarly articles and 200-word bio to Joseph Sciorra. Full texts of creative writing submissions should be sent to Edvige Giunta. Both hard copy and email submissions are accepted. Edvige Giunta, English Department, New Jersey City University, 2039 Kennedy Boulevard, Jersey City, New Jersey 07305, egiunta@njcu.edu. Joseph Sciorra, John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 25 West 43^rd Street, 17^th floor, New York, NY 10036, jsciorra@qc.edu.

5th MESEA Conference for the Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas

May 18–20, 2006
University of Navarra
Pamplona, Spain

Call for Papers, Deadline November 15, 2005

ETHNIC LIFE WRITING AND HISTORIES

We invite paper abstracts and complete panel proposals on all aspects of ethnic life writing and histories in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. We encourage interdisciplinary perspectives that highlight the intersections between life writing, history, sociology, and culture. Topics may include, but are not limited to: theoretical intersections between auto/biography and history; expanding the concepts of auto/biography and histories; theory as auto/bio-graphy; auto/ethnography as auto/biography; autobiographies and biographies; the cultural work of life writing texts; testimonio; genres of life writing in ethnic contexts; travel and travel writing: writing selves, writing histories; life writing as historical inscription; family memoirs; narrative perspectives in history and auto/biography; questions of ethics in life writing; autobiography, history and law; concepts of nationhood and history through life writing; voices in history, historical voices; alternative histories; auto/biographies by/about historians; creating cultural and/or collective memory through life writing; visualizing auto/biographies and histories; the media and virtuality: film as auto/biography and history; the Internet and blogs as forms of life writing; theater studies and autoperformance; hearing and speaking: aural and oral auto/biography and histories; the sociologies and economics of auto/biography and histories; different worlds, different auto/biographies, different histories – globalization and its (dis)contents.

Three hard copies of 300-word abstracts or full panel proposals (that include a description of the panel and specific abstracts) as well as an electronic copy must be submitted to MESEA’s Program Director, Yiorgos Kalogeras, Department of English, Aristotle University, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece (kalogera@enl.auth.gr) by November 15, 2005.

At this conference, MESEA is inaugurating its Young Scholars Research Awards. For more information: http://www.mesea.org

Welcome to the text only Spring 2005 edition of NewsNotes

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS