Call for Papers University of North Georgia 2016 Arts and Letters Conference
February 26-28, 2016
The 2016 University of North Georgia Arts and Letters Conference will explore the intersection of culture and place. Place is more than location—it is people, it is material, it is climate, it is culture. Places are made through human practices and institutions and are specifically designed and constructed to evoke memories, trigger identities, and embody histories in material form. Thus, the creation of place assigns meaning and helps to define who we are, and often, who we are not. We must ask not just how places come to be, but how and why they are important for social processes, cultural practices, and historical change. How do these connections play out? Are culture and place best understood as two separate entities, or as two dynamically related processes that are best understood through each other?
This interdisciplinary conference will take up these questions and others concerning culture and place. We welcome proposals from all disciplines on a wide range of topics. Possible themes include (but are not limited to):
How have climate, topography, etc., intersected with culture to shape political movements and/or the histories of states?
How have culture and place intersected to produce or perpetuate forms of (intersecting) oppression?
In what ways do culture and place intersect to produce conceptions of “natural” and “normal”?
How do the intersections of culture and place affect or produce notions of objectivity and subjectivity?
What is there to discover in the intersections of culture and place in music, literature, art, science, mathematics, history, philosophy, etc.?
How do places and material forms intersect with social practices, social structures, norms, values, power and inequality?
How does material culture shape and reflect place?
What is the relationship between travel, culture, and place?
How are places made and shaped through cultural practices and cultural forms (such as tourism, development, popular culture, material culture, the environment, etc.)?
How are race, history, power, politics, memory, and culture emplaced?
A CFP will go out at a later time for an edited volume on the conference theme. Faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars are welcome.
Please submit the following
1. An abstract of 300-400 words
2. Five key words
3. A brief biography
to: http://digitalcommons.northgeorgia.edu/alconf/
by October 9th, 2015.
Contact Sara Mason Sara.Mason@ung.edu or George Wrisley George.Wrisley@ung.edu with questions.