Race and Displacement: Call for Papers

The thirty-third University of Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature, entitled this year, "Race and Displacement,” is scheduled for 1-3 October, 2009. The symposium focuses on the concept of racial diaspora—removals, migrations, colonial and post-colonial geographies, and transnational identities, both individual and collective. What is the relationship between race and place in the various senses of those terms? What does race have to do historically with place? What is the place of a given race, "its" place geographically, historically, in terms of social, educational, economic, and political traditions, hierarchies, power relations, etc.? What is the “place” of a person in relation to race, as well as in regard to other forms of difference—gender, sexuality, ethnicity; class, labor, ideology.

This symposium will be unique in that, in addition to presentations by one or two well-known academic and/or creative keynoters, conference papers will be the work of graduate students, chosen through competitive submission. A keynote lecture will be given by a prominent figure in critical race studies, Houston A. Baker, Jr. of Vanderbilt University. A creative presentation will feature Queen Quet, chieftess and spokesperson of the Gullah/Geechee Nation. Writers who have recently appeared in the series include Alice Walker and the late August Wilson. Graduate students selected as academic presenters would receive travel and lodging expenses. There is the possibility that the proceedings would also be published by Palgrave MacMillan, sponsors of the Signs of Race series, with the series editor having agreed to consider the volume. Our selection committee will begin reading submissions—completed essays, of 30-40 min. reading time, with brief cover letter—immediately. The deadline for submissions is May 15; selections should be announced by mid-May at the latest, so that participants can make fall travel plans. For paper submissions and further conference information, please contact Philip D. Beidler, Department of English, University of Alabama, Box 870244, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487. E-mail: pbeidler@english.as.ua.edu Phone: 205 348-8508