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Atlantic World Literacies: Before and After Contact

Atlantic World Literacies: Before and After Contact

Publié le par Marion Moreau (Source : Prof. Cybelle McFADDEN)

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Call for Papers—DEADLINE EXTENDED TO APRIL 2

Atlantic World Literacies:Before and After Contact

An International, Interdisciplinary Conference

Sponsored by the Atlantic World Research Network

October 7-9, 2010

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (U.S.A.)

Elliott University Center

Featured Speakers:

LaurentDuBois, Professor of French and History, Duke University

Susan Manning, Professor ofEnglish, University of Edinburgh

Peter Mark, Professor of Art History andAfrican-American Studies,

WesleyanUniversity

Julio Ortega, Professor of Hispanic Studies,Brown University

When Christopher Columbus departedfrom Palos in 1492 and set sail into the Ocean Sea, probably the most powerfulsubstance that he carried—besides gunpowder and European bacteria—was ink. In sailingwest to the East, Columbus was following what was written—in royal contractsand decrees, in codes of law, in the Bible. Yet he was going beyond what waswritten—off the map, outside the limits of Ptolemaic geography, over theuncharted sea. In the centuries before and after transatlantic contact, how didliteracy spread and change? How did overseas travel help to transform the rareand elite skill of the scribe into a common condition of citizenship, and amarker of social, economic, and political advantage? How did Europeans,Africans, and Americans read each others' cultures, societies, and religions? Howdid they compose new cultural and economic forms within the emerging crucible ofcircumatlantic power relations?

Our conference will explore how different kinds of literacy, broadly defined, developedall around the Atlantic Rim before the Columbian era; consider the roles of writing,communication, and sign systems in the era of discovery, colonization, andconquest; and examine how transatlantic encounters and collisions birthed newliteracies and literatures, and transformed existing ones. We will consider auraland visual communication, along with varied metaphorical, cultural, andtechnological “literacies.” How have oral traditions and “orature” interactedwith written history and literature? How did unlettered peoples invent, adopt, expand,and sometimes resist or refuse literacy? How has literacy created and definedsomething called “illiteracy,” and even stirred critiques of “graphocentrism”? Andhow are new worlds—continents, races, classes, cultures, deities, sexes, sciences,technologies, even individual bodies—inscribed and read, seen and spoken?

Four famed Atlantic Worldscholars whose research covers the breadth of the Atlanticexperience have accepted our invitation to join us as plenary speakers (seeabove and below).

We invite proposals for papers and full panels in avariety of disciplines, including (but not necessarily limited to): history,classical and modern languages and literatures, anthropology, ethnography, art,religion, rhetoric, communications, musicology, broadcast and cinema, and mediastudies. Interdisciplinary panel proposals and papers with interdisciplinaryfocus or potential are particularly welcome.

Proposals mustbe submitted via e-mail. For 15-20-minute papers, send a 250-word titledabstract; for a complete 3-4-person panel, send an overall title and individual250-word titled abstracts for each paper.  Please indicate AWL2010 in your subject line and include a 1-page CV giving an e-mail and a regular mailaddress at which you can be reached; and indicate any expected audio-visualneeds (including special software needs).

Sendsubmissions for AWL 2010to: awrn@uncg.edu
Extended due date for submissions: April 2, 2010

About our Speakers:

--Laurent DuBois,Professor of French and History at Duke University, expert on Caribbeancreolization, Atlantic Enlightenments, and the Black Atlantic;

--Susan Manning,Professor of English at the University of Edinburgh, expert on thetransatlantic Enlightenment and co-founder of STAR, Scotland's Transatlantic Relations;

--Peter Mark,Professor of Art History and African-American Studies at Wesleyan University,expert in African art and historian of Luso-African identity and cross-culturalliteracy;

--Julio Ortega, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Brown University, Directorof the Transatlantic Project at Brown dedicated to exploring the culturalhistory of exchange and hybridity between Spain and Latin American culture andliterature.

--Atlantic World Literacies will be presented by theAtlantic World Research Network and sponsored by University Provost DavidPerrin and by Tim Johnston, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

--The conference will meet in the Elliott University Center,a state-of-the-art facility on the UNCG campus in the heart of Greensboro, anhistoric city which has witnessed the Revolutionary Battle of GuilfordCourthouse in 1781, the collapse of the Confederate cabinet in 1865, and thebirth of the Sit-In Movement in 1960.

--Blocks of roomshave been reserved at the Proximity,America's leading green hotel, and at the Marriott Downtown Hotel, both near the UNCG campus. For details beginning inApril 2010, see http://www.uncg.edu/eng/awrn/Conferences2010Atlantic%20World%20Literacies.pdf