CFP Animals in the American Popular Imagination | Virtual conference

Animals in the American Popular Imagination

Virtual conference 12-16 September 2022

In his book Animals on Television (2017), Brett Mills states that "representations of animals often function to highlight cultural understandings about what it is to be human." Nonhuman animals have been unwilling objects of the human gaze: humans have been exploiting animals (real and imagined) on the basis, and the attendant continued perpetuation, of self-assigned human superiority and centrality. This anthropocentrism is also why humans primarily define animals, their agency, their intelligence, their emotional lifeworlds, etc. by projecting onto them human ideas and discourses. Innumerable popular culture artifacts and performances revolve around nonhuman animals, from reality TV shows on Animal Planet and iconic characters such as Lassie to animals as parts of wrestler gimmicks and animals in sports team names. These and other popular culture artifacts touch on animal-related matters of all kinds, from narratives in which heroic pets seem to take center stage to meat preparation and consumption. All of these figurations of animals allow us to explore how we treat and discursively construct animals.

This international conference will focus on the representation of animals and human-animal relations in American popular culture, in all its forms, across media, past and present. While we list a few thematic clusters below, proposals that do not fall into these will, of course, also be considered.

Currently confirmed keynotes: Brett Mills, Christy Tidwell. More TBA.

The program is organized and hosted by the PopMeC Association for US Popular Culture Studies and the Austrian Association for Cultural Studies, Cultural History, and Popular Culture.

  

Thematic Clusters

• Representations of animals in popular culture 

Nonhuman animals have been a fixture in film, TV series, comics and graphic novels, music videos, reality TV shows, documentary films and series. These representations tend to establish and perpetuate (or appropriate) shared beliefs about, and stereotypes of, specific species. Anthropomorphic animals roam Disney movies (and other popular culture artifacts), while zoomorphism renders human characters and actors animal-like (see also below). Crucially, animal representations in popular culture do (purportedly) not only target human audiences. For example, the official DOGTV website hails its programming as “the only technology created for dogs with sights and sounds scientifically designed to enrich their environment.” Dogs can watch other dogs sleeping or running around. And the broadcaster’s YouTube channel is filled with content that highlights that “dogs love to watch DOGTV.”

 

• From animality to bestiality: the human as nonhuman animal

Animality and bestiality have been used as symbolic tools to exclude selected subjects from the select group of “human” on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, etc. Asymmetric power structures and purposeful discrimination have been connected to specific discourses and representations, often relying on zoological metaphors and constructions, as well as the creation of human-animal hybrid monsters transgressing established social mores. At the same time, though, animal symbolism often endows humans (and human characters) with superhuman strength, agility, etc., which is why animal representations (next to Indigenous peoples) are frequently used as sports team names and sports mascots.

 

• Commodification of non-human animals: zooculture, pet industry, agribusiness

Animals are integrated into a world ecology that, according to Jason Moore, relies on the “cheapening of nature,” which allows humans to shamelessly exploit nonhuman animals. While discussions of, for example, zoo animals and animals in theme parks are long-established by now, the exploitation of animals has taken different dimensions in recent years that warrant closer examination, such as the exploitation of pets and their keepers’ feelings by the pet industry. Likewise, documentaries such as The Conservation Game have shown how not only the trade in “exotic” animals is booming in the US but how media figures that purportedly publicly represent animal welfare, in fact, profit off animal exploitation.

 

• Animal science: research, experimentation, and animal-assisted therapy

Nonhuman animals have been objects of scientific interest for a variety of reasons and aims, often raising ethical concerns and controversies. Besides their zoological study, animals have been used as research commodities and test subjects in processes that range from drug and beauty product testing to the creation of human-animal hybrids (e.g. xenotransplantation). Animals have also been increasingly used in therapeutic contexts, giving rise to debates on the effectiveness of the practice. 

 

• Animals in popular discourse

We might be witnessing the first stages of the sixth mass extinction. And while plants, fungi, and other lifeforms also vanish at an alarming rate, popular discourse focuses on the disappearance of animals from Earth. This is just one example of how animals figure in a variety of popular discourses and practices including, but not limited to, wildlife protection vs. agricultural interests, wildlife vs. recreation (e.g. black bears killing hikers and mountain lions snatching mountain bikers off their bikes), domestic cats as invasive species, the Asian “murder hornet” invasion, de-extinction science, animals and climate change, re-wilding, and public science (e.g. photographing sharks to identify them).

 

Deadline for submission: April 24, 2022

 

We accept abstract proposals for individual presentations (≈ 300 words) or full panels (3-4 presenters, ≈ 250-word description of panel plus abstracts of all papers—these abstracts may be shorter than abstracts for individual presentations). Please, email your proposal to popmec.animals@gmail.com as a single attachment (.doc, .docx, .odt) including name, affiliation (if any), and contact email.

Update: In response to popular demand, we also welcome proposals for video essays. We will feature video essays on the website and participants will be able to comment on the videos. You can submit a proposal as indicated above (for either one individual submission or a cluster of videos), specifying that it is a video essay; if you’d like to discuss your video essay live, please just mention it in your email so that we can organize the video essay session in the best way possible. Please note that video essays are not pre-recorded presentations.

If you have any doubt or inquiry, feel welcome to drop a line at popmec.animals@gmail.com

 

The conference will take place virtually, tentatively on 12-16 September 2022. Since we expect that presenters from all across the globe will participate in the conference, real-time presentations will take place between c. 4 and 9PM Central European Summer Time. A series of virtual keynote events will precede the conference. 

Participation fees will be between 10 and 20€ (free for PopMeC and AACCP members).

The organizers may decide to pursue a publication project based on the conference.

  

Organizers: Michael Fuchs and Anna Marta Marini

Assistant organizer: Dina Pedro

Advisory committee: Trang Dang, Ester Díaz, Mónica Fernández Jiménez, Dolores Resano, Alejandro Rivero Vadillo

Contact Info:   Anna Marta Marini (organizer) and Dina Pedro (organizing assistant)

Contact Email:  popmec.animals@gmail.com

URL: https://popular-animals.com

International conference: A Europe of migrations: family, childhood and clandestinity during the 'Trente Glorieuses' – from October 5–7, 2022 – University of Neuchâtel/CH

 Call for Papers

International conference, from October 5–7, 2022, University of Neuchâtel/CH

 

A Europe of migrations: family, childhood and clandestinity during the 'Trente Glorieuses

 

Labour migration has had a profound impact on European societies after World War II. In the context of an insatiable thirst for labour in the service of economic reconstruction, the mobility of workers from the countries of the South to the industrialised countries of the North constituted a “new intra-European migration regime” (Dirk Hoerder) which, until the 1970s, mobilised about 15 million people from the (Euro-)Mediterranean region (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Tunisia, Greece, (former) Yugoslavia, etc.) to the industrial centres of Northern Europe. Despite the end of an active recruitment policy after the oil crisis in 1973, the “guestworker-system” continued to exist/endured until the end of the 1980s.

While some elements of what Peter Gatrell has called «The unsettling of Europe» have been studied for various and specific contexts, the social situations of the workers, and particularly their family life, have long been neglected by migration history. The limited historiography stands in contrast to an abundant sociology of the “Guestworker” since the 1970s. This reticence can be explained, among other things, by a lack of sources. The challenge is even greater when it comes to research on unauthorised family reunifications and other strategies by which the persons concerned tried to maintain family relations. Official records are silent on the placement of children in orphanages or the deportation of children without legal status (sometimes accompanied by their mothers, sometimes raised by relatives in the home country). The archives are also silent on children who lived, sometimes for years, clandestinely and sometimes even hidden in the host country. However, a set of more (or less) recent tools makes it possible to explore this history, notably oral history, the sociology of mobilisations, the socio-history of migrations, gender approaches or the notion of “transnationalism” (Green/Waldinger).

By inviting contributions from various disciplines, the conference “A Europe of Migrations” aims to shed light on the links between family, childhood and clandestinity in the context of labour migration between the Second World War and the end of the Cold War (which, in turn, resulted in other types of labour migration that are not at the centre of this conference). Against the backdrop of our own research on the Swiss case, we aim to build a network of researchers who study diverse (trans)national contexts in the spirit of a critical perspective on the ‘Trente Glorieuse’, ‘miracle years’, ‘Wirtschaftswunder’, bringing together multiple disciplinary perspectives and developing a sensitivity for transnational and even comparative perspectives.

We are planning to publish an edited volume following the conference. The papers may thus also have the character of a “work in progress” in view of a future publication in 2023 (deadline for authors: 31 December 2022). Preference will be given to unpublished contributions.

 

 

We invite contributions that are particularly interested in:

• The legal-political framework of labour migration and family reunification and its development from the end of the Second World War until the 1990s;
• The strategies of immigrant workers’ families to make family life work under the conditions imposed by a migration regime that aims to limit or even prevent family reunification;
• The experiences of migrant children (and their parents), especially from the point of view of clandestinity (clandestine border crossing, clandestine stay, but also frequent mobility to avoid clandestinity, threats, denunciation); the trajectories of children affected, at one time or another, by clandestinity; the multiple physical and psychological consequences of clandestinity;
• the schooling of migrant children, with a particular focus on clandestine children, who, in the case of Switzerland, obtained the right to go to school in the early 1990s. What was the situation in other countries?
• Gender relations under the conditions of migration, family reunification and clandestinity;
• Mobilisations in favour of the rights of immigrant workers and especially of children, carried out for example by trade unions, churches or migrant associations; the impact of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Please send a proposal of approximately 3,000 characters by 29 April 2022 to the following address: marie2.bouvier@unine.ch

You will receive a notification by 30 May 2022 at the latest.

Languages of the conference: English, French, German.

Language of the publication: English.

Information to be submitted with the proposal: First and last names, institutional affiliation; postal and email address; 5 keywords; research areas.

 

Contact Info: 

Organisation: Prof. Kristina Schulz, Dr. Sarah Kiani, Magali Michelet, Dr. Carole Villiger – University of Neuchâtel

Date of the Conference: October 5-7, 2022

Place: University of Neuchâtel/CH – Espace Tilo-Frey 1, 2000 Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Contact: Dr. Carole Villiger

Adress for the proposal: marie2.bouvier@unine.ch 

Funded by the Swiss National Science Fundation and the University of Neuchâtel

Contact Email: 

carole.villiger@unine.ch

URL: 

https://www.unine.ch/histoire/home/recherche-1/une-socio-histoire-des-gens-qui.html

CFP: Virtual Conference on Encountering Colonialism: Land, Lives, and Legacies :Dalhousie University Canada-March 18th-19th, 2022.

 International Conference 

on

 Encountering Colonialism: Land, Lives, and Legacies 

Dalhousie University Canada

March 18th-19th, 2022.

Call For Papers

The Dalhousie Graduate History Society is delighted to announce that graduate students from all disciplines within the Humanities and Social Sciences may now submit abstracts to Dalhousie University’s 23rd Annual History Across the Disciplines conference. This conference is entitled “Encountering Colonialism: Land, Lives, and Legacies,” and will be held virtually, on March 18th-19th, 2022.

The conference is an interdisciplinary gathering of researchers that aims to promote new ideas, discussions, and connections. It will embrace all scholarship that explores the dynamics of interaction between and within colonial and Indigenous powers and peoples. Of particular relevance are discussions of demographic, cultural, economic, religious, linguistic, legal, material, and gendered encounters.

Applicants should submit a 300-word abstract and a short personal biography to the conference committee no later than 11:59 p.m. AST on Friday, February 11th, 2022. Successful applicants will be notified within two weeks of February 11th. The best paper presented at this conference, as decided by a panel of students and faculty members, will win the John Flint Prize (a $250 honorarium). To be considered for this prize, applicants must provide the conference committee with a final paper by Monday, February 28th, 2022. Presentations may be up to twenty minutes in length, and will be held in English.

This will be an online event. However, following panel discussions on Saturday, presenters who are in the area are invited to experience local Halifax culture with us in an informal setting. Details to follow.

For more information, please feel free to contact the conference committee, at dalconference2022@gmail.com. We look forward to reviewing your abstracts!

Contact Info: 

Catherine Charlton, Dalhousie University Graduate History Society

Contact Email: 

dalconference2022@gmail.com

CFP: European Colloquium on Gender & Translation. University of Ferrara, Italy, 6-7 June 2022

 European Colloquium on Gender & Translation (5th edition) 

Gendering Agency and Activism in Translation and Interpreting 

University of Ferrara, Italy, 6-7 June 2022 

Call for Papers  

The main aim of this hybrid Colloquium (in person and online) – which has shifted venue from edition to edition since 2016 – is to periodically offer an overview of the latest trends in the research on translation and gender around the world, with special emphasis on its cross-pollination with a number of disciplines, including but not limited to Translation Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cultural and Media Studies, Sociology, Politics, Linguistics and Literary Criticism. Besides its overview of the growing diversity of research (both theoretical and practical) on translation and gender/sexuality/equality, the 5th edition of this Colloquium will have a thematic orientation focused on the role played by translation and interpreting as agents of resistance to and change of the dynamics between gender and power in society.

The alliance between feminism(s) and translation has fostered the development of studies centred around agency and performativity of the individual, the translator or the interpreter and their role in society. In the 21st century, both feminism(s) and translation have become privileged spaces of agency, activism and resistance, thus becoming central to the identification and analysis of the strategies of subordination used to exercise social, political and cultural power.

Starting from the work by Rebecca Ruth Gould and Kayvan Tahmasebian, The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism (2017), we intend to develop further the notion of the translator/interpreter as activist, namely as champion of political change, advocate of gender equality, promoter of gender diversity, voice-giver and helper of minorities, migrants and refugees, and agent of change capable of putting “into words the perspectives and experiences of oppressed and silenced peoples”. Our reflection also follows in the footsteps of Olga Castro and Emek Ergun’s research on Feminist Translation Studies. Local and Transnational Perspectives (2017) in order to widen the discussion on the interplay between feminist translation, agency and activism as academic fields of enquiry.

The Colloquium aims at making visible the important role of interpreters and translators in: 1) promoting and enabling social, political and cultural change around the world; 2) promoting equality; 3) fighting discrimination; 4) supporting gender diversity; 5) supporting human rights; 6) empowering minorities; 7) challenging authority and injustice not only across European countries but all over the world; 8) facilitating network-building activities among activists and agents of change and 8) teaching feminist translation as a pedagogical act in support of social and gender equality.

We are aware that translation is a powerful tool capable of producing social, political and cultural transformation. Thus, the Colloquium wants to open a forum of discussion and reflection on the contribution offered by practitioners, stakeholders and scholars to the study of translation as activism and agent of change.

Abstracts (up to 250 words) are invited on any aspect of the interface between translation, agency and activism and particularly on (but not limited to) the following Topics:

Activism through translation and interpreting

The role of translators and interpreters in promoting gender equality

The role of translators and interpreters in fighting discrimination

The role of translators and interpreters as champions of gender diversity

Translation and interpreting as acts of resistance to and change of the dynamics between gender and power

The role of translators and interpreters as voice-givers to minorities

Translation and human rights

Translators’ and interpreters’ agency exercised across different media

Translation and interpreting as network-building activities among activists and agents of change

Feminism(s), translation and interpreting: common grounds, challenges, divergences

Implementing innovative (feminist) strategies of translation across media and cultures

Border-crossing and feminism(s): synergies in translation and interpreting projects

The importation of feminism(s) through translation and interpreting

Personal experience and the translation praxis: the importance of (feminist) translators’ agency

Teaching (feminist) translation as a pedagogical act in support of social and gender equality

Translating (feminist) texts from/into different languages and cultures

Practical arrangements

Colloquium format: in person (University of Ferrara) and online

Presentations: in the form of Papers (a 20-minute presentation + a 10-minute discussion)

Official languages: presentations will be in English and Spanish

Abstract evaluation: double-blind and peer-reviewed.

Abstracts should be sent (to translationfest2022@gmail.com) as MS-Word attachments and include:

- Name(s) of author(s)

- Author affiliation(s) – university or institution, e-mail

- Title

- Abstract (up to 250 words)

- 3-4 keywords to identify the subject matter of your presentation

Following the colloquium, presenters will be invited to contribute to a publication in English (volume of essays). More information will be circulated in due time.

Key dates

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 15 April 2022

Notification of acceptance: 30 April 2022

Confirmed plenary speakers

Eliana Maestri, University of Exeter

Lupe Romero, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

José Santaemilia, Universitat de València

Conference organisers

Università di Ferrara: Eleonora Federici, Giulia Giorgi, Luisa Marino and Marta Fabbri

University of Exeter: Eliana Maestri

Universitat de Valencia: José Santaemilia.

CFP:Translating and Analysing Charles Darwin and Darwinism in(to) European languages (1859-2022)Conference 2022 Mainz

 "Translating and Analyzing Charles Darwin and Darwinism in(to) European languages (1859-2022)":

If Charles Darwin is “perhaps the most discussed writer in English besides Shakespeare”, in George Levine’s words, he certainly is also one of the most debated authors in any language. Yet European readers outside Britain ‒ whether scientists or ordinary educated people ‒ have usually read and criticized his texts through translations into their own languages. Now language was a terrible problem for Darwin himself as he had to express revolutionary ideas using words that had been employed through centuries of Creationist thought, as was brilliantly shown by Gillian Beer in her seminal Darwin’s Plots (1983). It can be said that Darwin’s materialistic and un-teleological concepts had to be translated into an old Christian English language. The European translations of Darwin’s works in turn reflect the difficulty of coining new phrases for new ideas, but they also mirror the specificities of each different language and culture. In France for instance, Clémence Royer ‒ Darwin’s first French translator ‒ read The Origin of Species through Lamarckian lenses and produced a Lamarckian translation that was taken for Darwin’s actual views by thousands of readers for many years. Clémence Royer's translation was also found to convey a higher degree of certainty pertaining to the views expressed than Darwin's own original text. Heinrich Georg Bronn translated the Origin into German in 1860 and opted for ‘Entstehung’ rather than ‘Ursprung’ for ‘origin’ and ‘Kampf’ for ‘struggle’. With his cuts and terms he paved the way for strands of social Darwinism under the auspices of Ernst Haeckel. The reception of Darwinism in Europe was therefore highly influenced by the individual situation of each country in terms of translation, edition, readership and cultural market. This seminar aims at showing the diversity of the circulation and reception of Darwinism (Darwin himself but also such authors as T.H. Huxley, Wallace, Spencer, or many others) from the publication of The Origin in November 1859 to the present day in the various European countries and cultures.

Proposals for papers in the domains of translation and comparative studies, reception studies and linguistics are invited. Papers on linguistic research questions applied to both the original work and the translations of Darwin’s work are welcome; linguistic topics and traditions which may be addressed include (but are not limited to) modality and epistemic stance, Appraisal Theory and Systemic Functional Linguistics, semantic relations (e.g. causality or similar semantic relations), and metaphor theory.

We also welcome proposals that probe into textual aspects of the discursive relation, for example reader response theory within a Christian framework as well as an emerging atheist stance, literary appropriations of Darwin’s work and reactions of contemporary readers in the twenty-first century, Systemic Functional analyses of the textual function, etc.

Submissions:
Titles and abstracts of the proposed papers for this seminar with a very short biography of their authors should be submitted directly to the convenors of the seminar:
Professor Michel Prum (Société des Anglicistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur)
Professor Felix Sprang (Deutscher Anglistenverband)
Professor Heidi Verplaetse (Belgian Association of Anglicists in Higher Education)

prum.michel@wanadoo.fr; felix.sprang@uni-siegen.de; heidi.verplaetse@kuleuven.be

Important dates:
28 February 2022                :       Extended deadline for submissions of paper proposals
20 March 2022                    :       Notification of acceptance       
March 2022                         :       Opening conference registrations
29 August - 2 September 2022 :  ESSE conference
 

For More Details: https://esse2022.uni-mainz.de/ 

CFP:American Historical Association Panel, "Working for the State in Peace and War: Gender, Race, and Labor in the 20th Century, Philadelphia, Jan 2023

 Working for the State in Peace and War: Gender, Race, and Labor in the 20th Century-Philadelphia, Jan 2023

What can centering the experiences of workers for the state tell us about the growth of the state; the impact of war on societies; and relationships between citizen and state? Who did the often undervalued and unrecognized labor that enabled large military and civil efforts?

Our proposed panel for the 2023 American Historical Association Conference (Philadelphia, PA, January 5-8, 2023) will cohere around an intersectional consideration of gender and race among government and military employees in the long twentieth century.

Thus far, presentations include a consideration of working men in the British Army Army Service Corps between 1914 and 1918; a consideration of Solomon Islander workers and the battle of Guadalcanal; and a consideration of cleaning women at the US Treasury Department at the turn of the twentieth century. We seek another paper considering non-military laborers in the long twentieth century and a scholar who can act as commentator. We are open regarding geographic focus, but we do have a strong preference for a paper that is located in the twentieth century. If interested, please send an email introducing yourself and your research interests to Hannah Alms and Tommy Stephens at halms@iu.edu and tstephe@iu.edu by January 31.

Contact Info: 

Tommy Stephens and Hannah Alms 

tstephe@iu.edu and halms@iu.edu

Ph.D. Candidates, History Department

Indiana University

Contact Email: 

halms@iu.edu

CFP: Online Conference on "Their story": An Online Conference on American LGBTQIA+ Scholarship and Activism

 “Theirstory”: An Online Conference on American LGBTQIA+ Scholarship and Activism

Monday February 28th, 2022

Call for Papers Deadline: February 7th, 2022 at 5pm

Hosted by Queen’s University Belfast’s American Studies Association (ASA). The month of February has long been connected to the concept of love. ASA want to provide a platform for American LGBTQIA+ scholars and activists to share their work with the wider community. “Theirstory” will be an online and international conference. CfPs are open to all; students, academics, activists, independent researchers, etc. Speakers can choose their own topic as long as it relates to American LGBTQIA+ scholarship and/or activism.

Please email americanstudies@qub.ac.uk with a paper abstract and a CV by February 7th at 5pm to apply. 

Contact Info: 

Event hosted by Queen's University Belfast's American Studies Association. Email: americanstudies@qub.ac.uk 

Contact Email: 

americanstudies@qub.ac.uk