KEYNOTES Katlin Marisol Sweeney-Romero (UC Davis), S. Jonathon O’Donnell (Queen’s University Belfast), Matthew Carter (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Reprising its first edition, the conference will focus on how US American identities have been shaped, informed, configured, and challenged since the country’s foundation. It will look at the centrality of boundaries broadly intended and borderlands as geopolitical, sociocultural, metaphorical zones of liminality. Boundaries that have been deployed to construct (and deconstruct) the dominant national identity and its narratives. Just as it happens along geopolitical borders, the proximity of otherness—which dwells in the borderlands themselves—implies a more or less overt threat to the sovereignty and cultural integrity of the nation eliciting a variety of perceived dangers. Stereotypes are born and binaries are created to maintain such integrity, playing on the difference and opposition between inclusion / exclusion, civilization / savagery, correctness / incorrectness, insider / outsider, us / them. The conference invites reflections on the multimodal representations of the boundaries of US identity in popular culture and discourses, focusing on the diversity of identities, liminality, and disenfranchised experiences of US Americanness, as well as the construction of borders—both material and metaphorical—as means to define the US national imaginary.
The conference will result as well in the publication of a special issue of the European Journal of American Culture (https://www.intellectbooks.com/european-journal-of-american-culture), for which we will select papers upon the event. Please, let us know if you are interested in being considered for publication.
If you have any doubt or inquiry, feel welcome to drop us a line at popmec.frontiers@gmail.com
REGISTRATION CLOSED
FINAL PROGRAM (updated Nov 24)
Venue
Universidad de Alcalá
28801 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid ES
Powered by PopMeC in collaboration with Instituto Franklin-UAH, Universidad de Alcalá, American Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies Research Group (AMICUSS), Universidad de Valladolid.
Organizers
Laura Álvarez Trigo (Universidad de Valladolid / AMICUSS)
Anna Marta Marini (Instituto Franklin-UAH / AMICUSS)
Organizing Team Onsite
Ester Díaz Morillo (UNED)
J. Javier Torres-Fernández (Universidad de Almería)
Dina Pedro (Universidad de Valencia)
Amaia Soroa Bacaicoa (UPV/EHU)
Academic Committee
Jesús Benito Sánchez (Universidad de Valladolid)
Julio Cañero Serrano (Instituto Franklin-UAH / AMICUSS)
Luisa Juárez Hervás (Instituto Franklin-UAH)
Ana Lariño (Instituto Franklin-UAH)
Anne Magnussen (Center for American Studies, SDU)
Sofía Martinicorena (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
Isabel Oliveira (FCSH/NOVA)
Marek Paryż (University of Warsaw)
John Wills (University of Kent)
