CFP: Queertopia! 2.0 Graduate Student Conference, Northwestern University

Call For Papers
Queer Pride Graduate Student Association
Northwestern University

We invite graduate students and advanced undergrads in all academic
disciplines to present their original research at Queertopia! 2.0 Graduate Student Conference to be held at Center on Halsted on Saturday, May 2. While we welcome submissions on all aspects of queer studies, we are particularly interested in submissions related to this year’s theme of (Re)Imagining Communit(ies).

Queer scholars have long recognized that there is no single gay community, but rather multiple overlapping communities comprised of people with multiple identities. We want to move beyond that, to interrogate how we can use our theoretical knowledge to understand our communities and lived
experiences.

Possible questions may include: In a shifting political landscape that
focuses less on a splintering of identity and more on community, how does the queer community and identity politics fit in? How do our multiple individual identities affect our constructions of different communities in which we claim membership? Once we’ve identified as queer, how do redefine ourselves in other communities? How do social constructions of sexuality affect our constructions of a queer community? How are stereotypes used by others and by us to define a queer community?

Proposed panels include, but are not limited to: bridging academe and
activism in queer studies; law, community, and queer studies; and gender variance and political-economy in the global south.

We invite paper abstracts of 500 words or less. In addition to submitting abstracts of individual research, we also invite students to submit proposals for panels. Interested parties should submit a title for the panel, description of the panel, abstracts of 4-5 papers to be presented, and contact information for a panel moderator/respondent and all paper presenters.

Please send an abstract, along with your contact information (name,
university, email address, and phone number), to ,queertopia.nu@gmail.com. We will begin reviewing abstracts as submitted on a rolling basis, with a final submission deadline of March 6, 2009. We will inform submitters of panel placements by March 23, 2009. We may be able to offer travel scholarships to presenters. Preference will be given to presenters travelling farther and those who do not have access to department, or other funds.

Please circulate this announcement to all those who may be interested.

February 11th, 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | Category: Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Third Annual Graduate Conference in Comparative Studies-Ohio State University

*Third Annual Graduate Student Conference in Comparative Studies*

Hosted by the Department of Comparative Studies

http://comparativestudies.osu.edu

The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH USA

16 January 2009

*The Body in Pain and Pleasure*

As our lives are increasingly characterized by disembodied and mediated experiences, how is it that the individual comes to know pain and pleasure? For the person in pain, Elaine Scarry famously argues, “‘having pain’ may come to be thought of as the most vibrant example of what it is to ‘have
certainty,’ while … hearing about pain may exist as the primary model of what it is ‘to have doubt.’” In other words, she argues that certainty is contingent upon the experiential reality of the body. Though Scarry is specifically addressing pain in the context of torture here, this same logic might be extended to pleasure – that to ‘have certainty’ of pleasure necessitates embodied experience.  In terms of seeking certainty, Aristotle noted in *Nicomachean Ethics* “bodily pleasures are pursued by people who are incapable of experiencing other pleasures.”  In an age, however, when individuals are increasingly divorced from their bodies, how are pain and pleasure known or understood?

To this end, we are seeking graduate student papers that look to address the body in pain and pleasure from a variety of (inter)disciplinary perspectives. We welcome projects that consider the following topics or others, as they illuminate our inquiry:

·         Biopolitics and governmentality
·         History and historiography
·         Nation, state, and nation-state
·         Religion
·         Art, film, and literature
·         Theatre and dance
·         Popular culture
·         Pornography and erotica
·         Trauma
·         The family
·         Psychoanalysis
·         Gender and sexuality
·         Substance and substance abuse
·         Terror and terrorism
·         Crises and disasters
·         Performance
·         Philosophy and ethics
·         BDSM
·         Environmentalism
·         Technology
·         Race
·         Illness, medicine, and death
·         Justice and the law
·         Sport and exercise

Please send 250-word abstracts for individual 20-minute papers (or panels of 3-4 presenters) to compstudiesconference@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is November 10th, 2008.  Accepted applicants will be notified by November 30th.  In the body of the e-mail, please include the following information:

Presenter(s) name(s):
Institutional affiliation(s):
Level of graduate study:
Title of paper:
Contact information:

October 1st, 2008 | Tags: , , | Category: Graduate conferences | Leave a comment