CFP: Racial Mixture in the Americas (11/1/06; ACLA, 4/19/07-4/22/07)
American Comparative Literature Association (ACLA) Annual Meeting April
19-22, 2007 in Puebla, Mexico.
Seminars for the ACLA convention contain 9-12 papers and meet for 2-3
consecutive days. This seminar calls for papers dealing with racial mixture
in the Americas. Submissions should be sent through the ACLA webpage.
â€œInter-American Faces of Racial Mixtureâ€
Mestizaje, hybridity, transculturation, miscegenation, mestiÃ§agem,
creolization? The multifaceted topic of racial mixture has been a common
literary and cultural preoccupation throughout the American hemisphere from
the colonial period forward. Whether cast as an aberration, a social
problem, a personal identity crisis, a rationale for lynching, a step toward
a â€œcosmicâ€ future, or a nation-building tool, the theme of racial
mixture connects the literatures and cultures of the Americas from Canada to
the Caribbean and from Yoknapatawpha to Macondo. â€œInter-American Faces of
Racial Mixtureâ€ hopes to continue the discussion about race and racial
mixture in the Americas that began during a seminar at last yearâ€™s ACLA
convention entitled â€œMestizaje, MestiÃ§agem, and Miscegenation: Mixing
with the Other in the Americas.â€ Proposals are invited from previous and
new participants and may treat racial mixture in literature, law, political
rhetoric, film, music, the news, and/or other media.
Possible questions of interest include:
*What significance can we ascribe to the inter-American preoccupation(s)
with racial mixture?
*What subjective formations have emerged as the discourses and practices of
racial mixture have intersected with specific class and gender identities?
*How have local or national traditions of racial mixture, such as
miscegenation and mestizaje, interfaced and influenced one another?
*To what extent have the various national discourses of racial mixture in
the Americas changed from the colonial period through the twenty-first
*How did territorial expansion affect attitudes toward racial mixture
throughout the American hemisphere?
*When/how does much of the discussion around racial mixture in the Americas
shift away from a biological or â€œbloodâ€ discourse toward a discussion of
Emron Esplin, Michigan State University
Brian Roberts, The University of Virginia
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or write Jennifer Higginbotham: higginbj_at_english.upenn.edu
Received on Thu Oct 05 2006 - 01:55:26 EDT