Conference Office
Sitzungsraum des Dekanats / Conference Room of the Dean’s Office
Philosophicum
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Office Hours
Friday thru Saturday (June 1-2)
08:00 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Contact
E-mail: dgfa2012@uni-mainz.de
Fon: +49 6131 39-27201
Call for papers
From its beginning American culture has shaped the formation of the American self. In the course of its evolution, religious, historical, literary, cultural and political discourses have developed various models of self-realization as the basis for living and recollecting American lives. The general topic of the 2012 GAAS Convention in Mainz lends itself to a discussion of all aspects of the presentation and representation of individual and/or collective lives in the United States and Americans abroad from a national and transnational perspective. All disciplines in the American Studies community analyze, interpret and resort to forms of life writing, their uses and abuses, for their research: biography, autobiography, diary, journal, biographical and or autobiographical works, performance, photography, music, film or electronic media: blogs, e-lives, chat-rooms, as well as forms of personal narratives (conversion, captivity, slave narratives). The keynote speakers chosen for the conference: Sidonie Smith (U of Michigan), Craig Howes (U of Hawaii) and Thomas Bender (NYU), experts in the field of life writing, will address these areas from the fields of literature, culture, history and politics.The annual convention 2012 coincides with the 60-year anniversary of Mainz American Studies. Hence the conference topic reflects a special focus on life writing at Mainz and a more recent concern with the interaction of life writing and life science. The concluding forum will bring together scholars from the American Studies, medical humanities and natural sciences, including the life writing author Siri Hustvedt. The newly developed centers of research in Early American Studies and Comparative Native and Indigenous Studies would welcome contributions in these areas. Birgit Daewes (Mainz) will give an additional keynote on American lives and indigenous studies.
Please send workshop proposals to executive_director@dgfa.de
Deadline: 15 October 2011
Please remember that workshops can only be organized by members of the German Association for American Studies. Similarly, all speakers in these workshops have to be members of the DGfA by the time of the convention. (Siehe unter: Mitgliedschaft und Mitglied werden).
