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Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium with Adam Dahl

The Minnesota Political Colloquium will feature graduate student Adam Dahl's presentation. He will present his paper "Antinomies of a Founding: Constituting the U.S. Imperial Republic," on November 2nd from 1:30-3:00 PM in the Lippincott Room (Social Sciences Tower 1314).

Coffee will be served. All are welcome.
Dahl Theory Colloquium Paper pdf

New Books for Students and Staff

New Books at University Libraries: Nancy Herther has a list of new books that may be helpful for research or teaching.

For the complete list of new books, please click here: NewBooksList.o12-1.pdf

Monday, October 29, 2012

Workshop for faculty: "Supporting Graduate Student and Postdoc Career Planning"

Supporting Graduate Student and PostDoc Career Planning: A Workshop for Advisers and Mentors" will be held on Tuesday, November 6th from 12:00-1:30pm in 319 Akerman Hall. The presenters and participants in this workshop will focus on sharing information, strategies and resources related to academic and non-academic career planning processes and job search practices.

"Supporting Graduate Student and Postdoc Career Planning: A Workshop for Advisors and Mentor"
The panel will feature faculty who have served in the Graduate School or as Directors of Graduate Studies and will provide disciplinary and interdisciplinary examples from their experiences of working with graduate students and postdocs who have conducted academic and non-academic job searches. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Paul Ching, Center for Teaching and Learning.
Panelists
Jane Blocker, Professor, Art History, CLA
Doug Ernie, Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, CSE
Andrew Simons, Associate Professor, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, CFANS
Please note: This session is designed for faculty and staff working with graduate students and postdocs as advisors or mentors. Graduate students/postdocs themselves should not register for this session but consult other workshop sponsored by the Graduate School and/or the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Contact:
Name: Noro Andriamanalina
E-mail: andri002@umn.edu
Phone: 612-626-4546
Sponsored by: Graduate School
Reservation Information:
Click here to register.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Professor Richa Nagar "Storytelling and Co-authorship in Feminist Alliance Work"

Professor Richa Nagar, presents "Storytelling and Co-authorship in Feminist Alliance Work: Reflections From a Journey" on November 2nd, from 1:00-2:15 PM in 400 Ford Hall.

Click here for an event flyer: RichaNagarColloquium.pdf
or click here for more info.

Bridging the Gap: African Diaspora Studies, Area Studies and the Disciplines Symposium

Carleton College's Program in African and African American Studies is hosting a symposium, "Bridging the Gap: African Diaspora Studies Area Studies, and the Disciplines" scheduled for February 15th and 16th, 2013. Guest speakers will include Professors Jean Rahier, Bruce Whitehouse, and Marlon Bailey.

Bridging the Gap: Outline of Symposium:
African Diaspora Studies, Area Studies, and the Disciplines
A symposium to be held at the
African and African American Studies Program
Carleton College, Northfield MN
Feb 15-17, 2013
This past May, an African Diaspora conference entitled "Bridging the World" was held in Pretoria, South Africa, attempting to connect business and policy movers and shakers on the continent with members of overseas diaspora communities. We propose a scholarly symposium, "Bridging the Gap," to address the sometimes fruitful, sometimes uncomfortable tension in marriage of African and African American Studies. African Studies has long been thought of as an area studies field, defined in spatial terms. African American Studies, as conceived in the U.S. academic environment, is based on an ethnic studies logic, and yet still contains a spatial definition (variably within the U.S., North America, or the Americas). And yet we find increasing research, both on campus and in the broader scholarly community, on peoples of African descent in spaces that fall within other area studies fields--Latin America, East and South Asia, the Middle East, Europe. As part of our effort toward the revitalization of Carleton College's African and African American Studies Program, we invite a conversation among leading figures in the field of African Diaspora Studies to explore ways of bridging the gaps among the studies of people of African descent--on the African continent and elsewhere, in communities of varying historical depth.
Overarching Theme: How can African Diaspora Studies, which does not think of itself in terms of geographic borders, provide a conceptual bridge to studying the varieties of African experience within traditional area studies, disciplines, and in different historical eras?
Day One (Friday Feb. 15)--dinner and a lecture
Keynote speaker Prof. Jean Rahier, Florida International University: (to explain diaspora studies, its conceptualization and major theories, and define its potential and limitations)
Guiding Questions: What is "diaspora"? How do we conceptualize the African diaspora, or African diasporas? Why did the term, African diaspora, emerge only in the 1960s? What tensions exist in African Diaspora Studies?
Day Two (Saturday Feb. 16)--African Diaspora Studies meets Area Studies
Theme One: Conceptualizing African Diaspora Studies
Morning session I: A panel discussion on conceptualizing African Diaspora Studies and their relation to area studies, the disciplines, and other interdisciplinary fields
Speakers: Jean Rahier, Bruce Whitehouse, Marlon Bailey
Guiding Questions: What narratives undergird various approaches within African Diaspora Studies (e.g. a narrative of movement across space, of diasporic nostalgia and longing for a spatially-conceived homeland, or a narrative that moves away from spatial conceptions toward diasporic subjectivity)? Are these narratives opposed or complementary? How do they relate to more traditional ways of dividing up the scholarly and curricular world into disciplines and area studies? How do they relate to other interdisciplinary programs on campus (e.g. women's and gender studies, environmental studies, ethnomusicology)? Do they build a bridge among African Studies, African American Studies, and the study of peoples of African descent in other parts of the world?
Format: short position statements, respondent(s), and a broader, participatory discussion
Theme Two: African Diaspora Studies meets Area Studies
Purpose: The late morning and afternoon sessions would illustrate the relationship between ADS and select area or interdisciplinary studies.
Format: In each session we'd have one (or two) guest speakers to illustrate their work, followed by engaging Carleton faculty in thinking about what aspects of their own research and teaching can gain from--and give to--ADS. This may be best achieved through a paper-respondent-open discussion format.
Morning Session II: Overlooked Communities: African Diaspora Studies on the African Continent the Middle East
Speaker: Prof. Bruce Whitehouse, Lehigh University
Guiding Questions: What potential can we draw from African Diaspora Studies to bridge disciplinary and area studies frameworks in the study of often overlooked communities of peoples of African descent in the Middle East, within African domestic diasporas, and in diasporas resulting from contemporary movement across national borders on the African continent?
Afternoon Session I: Nos ancêtres les philosophes de négritude?: African Diaspora Studies in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe
Speaker: Prof. Jean Rahier, Florida International University
Guiding Questions: What communities of peoples of African descent have and do exist in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe? How might African Diaspora Studies help us find connections among the experiences of these diverse groups?
Afternoon Session II: Intersections across Interdisciplinarities: African Diaspora Studies and Gender/Sexuality Studies
Speaker: Prof. Marlon Bailey, Indiana University, Bloomington
Guiding Questions: African Diaspora Studies is not the only interdisciplinary field to straddle disciplinary and area studies divisions. What potentials for mutual enhancement exist between ADS and women, gender and sexuality studies? In what ways could this serve as a model for the relationship between ADS and other interdisciplinary fields?
Saturday evening--Dinner and a wrap up discussion
Guiding Questions: What can we draw from these discussions to strengthen Carleton's African and African American Studies Program, within the means that we have? What inspiration can we draw for our own scholarly pursuits? What bridges can we thus build among faculty (and students) in both scholarship and teaching?
(departure Sunday morning, February 17)
Click here to RSVP.

Benjamin Wiggins You Talkin' Revolution in Black Camera

Current graduate student Benjamin Wiggins published his article "You Talkin' Revolution, Sweetback': On Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and Revolutionary Filmmaking" in Black Camera. This essay analyzes the production, text, and reception of Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to consider the potential of revolutionary cinema.

Abstract:

This essay analyzes the production, text, and reception of Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song to consider the potential of revolutionary cinema. It details the one-man band approach Van Peebles employed to make this radical picture outside the studio system and the unique conditions of production he cultivated to gain the autonomy of an auteur. Through an analysis of Sweetback's cinematic space that draws on the work of Stephen Heath and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari as well as an analysis of the film's dialogue that considers it in relation to the loquaciousness of Poitier and the silence of Eastwood, this essay argues that Van Peebles constructs a new ground on which blackness is signified. By exorcising what Roland Barthes refers to as semiotic "anchors," Sweetback forces spectators to confront the terror of uncertain signs, destabilizing Hollywood's typical representation of blackness. While Van Peebles's position as auteur allowed him to present an unreconciled, multifarious blackness with which blacks possessed mutable subjectivities and the agency to change over time, the film failed to fulfill the hopes of black power leaders. Instead, it birthed blaxploitation. Sweetback was revolutionary in its production, signification, and distribution, but Hollywood was able to poach from it because its traditional exhibition did little to educate its audience on how to interpret its complex signification. To see how this oversight could have been addressed, this article turns to discussions of viewership and education in Huey Newton, Theodor Adorno, and the theorist-filmmakers of the Third Cinema. Finally, it discusses the prospects for a revolutionary cinema that addresses the shortcomings of Sweetback and other revolutionary films such as The Hour of the Furnaces as the space of the cinema dies and social media reigns.
To download the full article, click here.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

David Noble Book Reading at The Bookhouse

Author and Professor Emeritus David Noble will be reading excerpts from his new book Debating the End of History: The Marketplace, Utopia, and Fragmentation of Intellectual Life at The Bookhouse in Dinkytown on Sunday, November 11th from 2:00-4:00pm.

Please join author and University of Minnesota Professor Emeritus David Noble at The Book House in Minneapolis in November for a book event for his new book, Debating the End of History: The Marketplace, Utopia, and the Fragmentation of Intellectual Life, just published this month by the University of Minnesota Press. Please feel free to share this information with anyone you think would be interested in attending.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
2:00-4:00 PM
The Book House
429 14th Avenue SE
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Books will be available for purchase and refreshments will be served
ABOUT THE BOOK:
David W. Noble explains that modern people assume there will be perpetual economic growth because such a utopian conviction is the necessary foundation for bourgeois culture. Noble exposes the cost of the segregation of the physical sciences from the humanities and social sciences, while demonstrating the required movement of the humanities toward the ecological vision of a single, interconnected world.
DEBATING THE END OF HISTORY: The Marketplace, Utopia, and the Fragmentation of Intellectual Life
by David W. Noble
Foreword by David R. Roediger
University of Minnesota Press | 224 pages | October 2012
ISBN 978-0-8166-8059-7 | Paperback | $25.00
For more information, including the table of contents, visit the book's webpage:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/debating-the-end-of-history
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
David W. Noble is professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of several books, including Death of a Nation: American Culture and the End of Exceptionalism (Minnesota, 2002) and The End of American History: Democracy, Capitalism, and the Metaphor of Two Worlds in Anglo-American Historical Writing, 1880-1980 (Minnesota, 1985).
PRAISE FOR DEBATING THE END OF HISTORY:
"An account of [Noble's] break not just with bourgeois economics but with the progressive mythology of humanity's forward march out of history into stable societies reliant on endless economic expansion." --Bookforum
"This is a major book by an important American studies scholar who takes a long view of U.S. and transnational history and culture while making important connections to significant contemporary ideas and movements such as neoliberalism and Tea Party politics. David W. Noble makes a compelling case for the continuing significance of the metaphor of two worlds for understanding the neoliberal disorder around us." --Shelley Streeby
Click here for an event flyer.

Monday, October 22, 2012

United States Capitol Fellowship

The United States Capitol Historical Society is now accepting applications for their Fellowship for Research on the Art and Architecture of the United States Capitol. Graduate students enrolled in a degree program in art/architectural history, American history or American studies may apply. Application deadline is March 15, 2013.

Click here for a link to the programs website.

Performing the Enlightenment in the Twenty-First Century Conference

The Department of Theatre and Dance is hosting "Performing the Enlightenment in the Twenty-First Century". The conference, scheduled for November 30 and December 1 at the Nolte Center, seeks to re-open discussion on the Enlightenment in times of today's economic crisis when the basic driver of the academe is the distribution of resources.


Michal Kobialka
Department of Theatre Arts & Dance

Performing the Enlightenment in the Twenty-First Century--
A Multidisciplinary Conference

The conference, scheduled for 11/30 (Friday) and 12/1 (Saturday), 2012, seeks to re-open a discussion on the Enlightenment in times of today's economic crisis when the basic driver of the academe is the distribution of resources.
The propensity to avoid moral considerations and to restrict ourselves to issues of profit and loss--economic questions in the narrowest sense--however, is not instinctive. It is an acquired taste as Adam Smith and Marquis de Condorcet noted already in the eighteenth century. This being the case, the conference intends to historicize this propensity by investigating the Enlightenment anew (and, by extension, our situation today). Thus, how did we today come to think in exclusively economic terms? The fascination with an etiolated economic vocabulary did not come out of nowhere. On the contrary, we live in the long shadow of the debates which were initiated in the eighteenth century.
By bringing together scholars in the field as well as the University of Minnesota students and faculty in the humanities and the arts/performance, this conference will create an open forum for the debate about the Enlightenment.
Rather than following a traditional format, this conference will be organized as a series of encounters and debates. Because of their expertise and critical work, the following guest speakers have been invited:
• The scholars working in the field of the Enlightenment/critical theory:
o Durba Gosh, Cornell University: "Was the Enlightenment the End of Revolutionary Political Violence? : the "Terror" and Anticolonial Terrorism Plotted in Historical Time"
o Esther Leslie, Birkbeck, University of London: "Liquidity, Crystallinity, Light, of Abstractions and Distractions"
o Mita Choudhury, Purdue University Calumet: "Riot: A Brief Archeology of Scripted, Unscripted, and Chaotic Performances"
o Crystal Bartolovich, Syracuse University: "Yes, Bruno, there is a Capitalism"
o Max Pensky, Binghamton University: "More Life!"
• The University of Minnesota faculty:
o Timothy Brenan, CSCL and English: "Green Misanthopy"
o Keya Ganguly, CSCL: "Playing with History: The Chess Players and Critical Reason"
o Tony C. Brown, English: "Negative Abstract Statelessness"
o Antonio Y. V√°zquez-Arroyo, Political Science: "A Singular Enlightenment: Realism and Utopia"
o J.B. Shank, History: moderator/roundtable discussion

Grad students wanted at ASA Puerto Rico

If you are or know a graduate student attending the ASA in Puerto Rico, they are still in need of volunteers to staff the registration/information booths and to run the continuous screening room. In exchange you can have your fee waived. Contact Matthew Frye Jacobson directly at matthew.jacobson@yale.edu

Call for Papers: New annual journal Manifest issue "Looking Forward"

Manifest, a new annual independent print journal on American architecture and urbanism, is requesting text, project, and photographic proposals for its first issue entitled, "Looking Inward." For this issue, MANIFEST encourages a range of narratives, from the panoramic to the miniature, so long as they recast our understanding of how America is artificial, peculiar, and intriguing. Submission deadline is Friday, December 14.


Dear friends and colleagues,
MANIFEST, a new annual independent print journal on American architecture and urbanism, is requesting text, project, and photographic proposals for its first issue entitled, "Looking Inward." Edited by Anthony Acciavatti, Justin Fowler, and Dan Handel, and supported in part by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, MANIFEST was founded to initiate a critical conversation about the state of American architecture, its cities, and its hinterland, tackling head-on what others have abandoned. While MANIFEST intends to question the assumptions behind singular constructions of America by tracing its origins and its global influence, the journal also strives to define the uniqueness of American forms of city-building and the distinct set of material and political parameters through which these forms are shaped.
The theme of our first issue, "Looking Inward," is broadly construed as an interrogation of a "New World" taken for granted. Rather than abandoning this new world for a newer world to the east or or circling the wagons here at home, this issue of MANIFEST speaks less to a continual rehearsal of the initial American experiment in favor of a prompt toward the active shaping of its evolution. "Looking Inward" asks how can we take the reigns of a process once deemed to be a function of destiny. Why does America merit scrutiny? Assuming America deserves scrutiny, what parts have been overlooked and are deserving of attention? Of the areas that have received attention, how can they be amended, broadened, or rendered new and unfamiliar? What are the projects of America? For this issue, MANIFEST encourages a range of narratives, from the panoramic to the miniature, so long as they recast our understanding of how America is artificial, peculiar, and intriguing.
While one measure of the issue will be to articulate the necessity of the American project (the "why", "when", "where", and "why now?"), we also hope to jump right into the "how" by suggesting approaches through which to re-ignite the formal, political, economic, and perhaps even the poetic efficacy of the American built environment. The publication will act as a forum--though not a disinterested one--and in this effort, no ideological or methodological precept will be taken for granted. As withdrawal and engagement are never acceptable as ends in themselves, we ask that claims of autonomy, revolution, pragmatism, continuity, advocacy, and/or activism offer compelling narratives of the ends that inspire their means.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
-- For essays, please submit an abstract of 500-750 words + images, along with a brief bio or CV.
-- For columns (op-eds or historical vignettes), please submit an abstract of 250-500 words + images, along with a brief bio or CV.
-- For projects, speculations, graphic narratives, or photo essays, please submit relevant drawings and images, along with 250-500 words of text. Please also include a firm profile, bio/CV.
-- For reviews, please submit a 250-500 word description of the project, exhibition, or book under consideration and the critical approach to be explored. Please also include a bio or CV.
We encourage abstracts and proposals to provoke as much as describe and each should offer an insight into the narrative threads driving the work. Authorial tone can range from academic to irreverent and text lengths will vary (750-1500 words for columns and 3000-5000+ words for essays). The subject matter is wholly up to the discretion of the authors. MANIFEST encourages the submission of pieces of historical interest alongside more projective tracts and speculative arguments. Please submit all material in a single PDF (5MB maximum file size) to editors@manifestproject.org by Friday, 14 December 2012. Authors of selected proposals will be notified by late December and the editors will work with authors to develop their pieces. Final work will be due in April 2013.
Sincerely,
The Editors
Click here for a flyer detailing the guidelines.

Modern history graduate workshop

The Modern History graduate workshop this Friday, October 26 will feature Chantel Rodriguez who is presenting her dissertation chapter: "Making Claims to Health Citizenship: Railroad Braceros, Mexican Consuls and the Limits of State Sovereignty." The workshop will begin at 12:00 pm in 1229 Heller Hall.

Please join us Friday, October 26 at noon for the Graduate Workshop in Modern History. We will be meeting in Heller Hall 1229.
Chantel Rodriguez will present her dissertation chapter: "Making Claims to Health Citizenship: Railroad Braceros, Mexican Consuls and the Limits of State Sovereignty." Professor Jimmy Patiño of the Chicano Studies Department will be providing faculty comment.
Hard copies will be available in the history department main office in Heller Hall, and an electronic version is also available at the GWMH Moodle site (see below).
A light will be provided (the return of pizza!). We look forward to seeing you there.
TO ACCESS THE WORKSHOP WEBSITE:
Option 1: If you have a Moodle account and are logged in, go to https://moodle.umn.edu/course/view.php?id=17278 and enter the one-time enrollment key (password: modhist) when prompted.
Option 2: If you prefer to access the site anonymously, go to http://www.moodle.umn.edu and scroll down on the left-hand side to click on "Read-only access." Next, go to https://moodle.umn.edu/course/enrol.php?id=17278 (or search for "Graduate Workshop in Modern History") and enter the enrollment key (password: modhist) when prompted.
Please contact Emily Bruce (bruce088@umn.edu) with any problems accessing the paper.

Employment opportunity at Northwest Missouri State University

Northwest Missouri State University is currently seeking an Assistant Professor of History for the Humanities and Social Sciences department. It is a nine-month, tenure track position, beginning August 12, 2013. Deadline for application is Saturday, December 1.

Click here for more information and instructions on how to apply.

Javier Pérez Andújar spanish pulp fiction lecture

Spanish author and critic Javier Pérez Andújar will lecture on the history and development of one of the main literary expressions of mass culture in contemporary Spain: the "novela de quiosco" (similar to so-called "pulp fiction" in English). The lecture will be held in Spanish on Thursday, October 25 in room 116 of Folwell Hall. It is free and open to the public.


The Univ. of MN Department of Spanish & Portuguese Studies presents:

"Los hombres que dispararon en los quioscos:
los autores de la novela popular en España"

A talk in Spanish by Javier Pérez Andújar,
Spanish author and critic
COME LEARN ABOUT SPANISH PULP FICTION!

Thursday, October 25, 2012
1:30 - 2:30 p.m.
116 Folwell Hall
(9 Pleasant St. S.E., Univ. of MN, Minneapolis Campus)
Free and open to the public
Light refreshments served

In this talk, Javier Pérez Andújar will explain the history and development of one of the main literary expressions of mass culture in contemporary Spain: the "novela de quiosco" (similar to so-called "pulp fiction" in English).
Pérez Andújar will trace the relations of this kind of literature to broader cultural and social trends, highlighting the differences among its many sub-genres (such as westerns, war tales, science fiction, thrillers, and sentimental fiction), and their different ways of engaging with changing socio-historical realities over time.
Javier Pérez Andújar (Sant Adrià de Besòs, 1965) is the author of the novels Los principes valientes (2007), Todo lo que se llevó el diablo (2010) and Paseos con mi madre (2011). He has also written the non-fiction works Catalanes todos; las 15 visitas de Franco a Cataluña (2002) and Salvador Dalí: A la conquista de lo irracional (2003) and edited the anthologies of fantastic short stories Vosotros los que leéis aún estáis entre los vivos (2005) and La vida no vale nada (2008). He currently writes literary articles and short stories for the Catalan edition of El País and contributes to L'hora del lector, a Catalan television literary program.
Sponsored by: Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, Global Programs and Strategy Alliance
Click here to view a flyer for the event.

Friday, October 19, 2012

The 2012 Erickson Lecture on Legal History

The 2012 Erickson lecture on legal history featuring Harvard History Professor Nancy F. Cott will be held on Thursday, Oct. 25 at 4:00 pm in Room 25 of Mondale Hall. Professor Cott will present the lecture "Marriage in the Courts".



Please join us for the Ronald A. and Kristine S. Erickson Legal History Lecture:

"Marriage in the Courts"
Nancy F. Cott,

Jonathan Trumbull Professor of History, Harvard University

Opponents of marriage rights for couples of the same sex assert that "marriage" has always meant the same thing since time immemorial. But history shows that in the United States, marriage--a civil institution regulated by the individual states--has been altered repeatedly by courts and legislatures, in response to changes in family lives and work roles. What are the stakes in making a historical case for marriage rights for same-sex couples? "Marriage in the Courts" addresses that question based on Professor Cott's experience testifying and writing declarations, amicus briefs, and expert reports in marriage equality lawsuits in several states and constitutional cases in the federal courts, including Perry v. Schwarzenegger in California and several cases arguing the unconstitutionality of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.
When: Thursday, October 25, 2012, 4:00 p.m.
Where: Room 25 (Lockhart Hall), Mondale Hall
Note: To attend the reception following the lecture, please RSVP to lawevent@umn.edu
Questions? Contact Barbara Young Welke, Professor of History and Professor of Law, welke004@umn.edu
Click here for an event flier

October PCard receipts DUE

Please submit receipts for all October PCard purchases to Laura by Thursday, November 1st.
Click here for a generic coversheet.

Vang nominated for Advisory Committee

Chia Youyee Vang (PHD '06) has been nominated to serve a three year term on the American Studies Association-Japanese Association for American Studies Project Advisory Committee.
Click here for more info about the committee.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Hatmaker Awarded Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

Current grad student Susie Hatmaker has received a Dissertation Fieldwork Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation. During 2013, the award will support archival research at the Smithsonian Institute, at the National Archives in Atlanta, and at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill libraries. It will also fund her landscape-centered ethnographic fieldwork in Kingston, TN.

Ferguson's The Reorder of Things

Professor Roderick A. Ferguson published his book The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). He will be giving a talk about his research on Monday, October 22nd at 3:30pm in 105 Scott Hall as part of the Black Studies and American Studies at the Crossroads speaker series.

His book is now available through the University of Minnesota Press; Click here for more info.
Roderick Ferguson
The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference
Monday, Oct 22nd, 2012
3:30pm - 5pm, room 105 Scott Hall
Talk Description:
In this talk, Roderick A. Ferguson discusses his new book The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference. The talk will explore the origins of the book and its argument that state, capital, and academy found ways to learn from the social movements of the fifties and sixties, ways that would evolve a mode of power that came in the wake of liberation, a mode that would try to put forms of minority difference in the service of hegemony.
Bio:
Roderick A. Ferguson is professor of race and critical theory. He is the author of Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique (2004) and the co-editor with Grace Hong of Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization (2011). His new book The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference is forthcoming with the University of Minnesota Press in October of 2012.

Monday, October 15, 2012

ICGC Brown Bag "Developing a Theory of Urban Drought Resilience"

Professor Lawrence Baker presents "Developing a Theory of Urban Drought Resilience," as part of the ICGC Brown Bag series. This event is Friday, October 19th, 2012 from 12:00 noon in 537 Heller Hall.

ICGC Brown Bag
Friday, October 19, 2012 12:00 noon, 537 Heller Hall
"Developing a Theory of Urban Drought Resilience"
Presented by: Lawrence Baker
Professor, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering
Global changes are increasing the threat of devastating urban drought. Specifically, these drivers are global climate change, growing urban populations, and increasing per capita water demand. Surprisingly, very little research has been conducted to understand urban drought. Building on several workshops held by the ICGC water group, Lawrence Baker has been thinking about a research agenda built on the concept of ecosystem resilience, but applied to urban systems. Briefly, four hypotheses are: drought resilience depends upon (1) antecedent conditions; (2) appropriate scaling of governance in time and space; and (3) capacity to generate feedback; and (4) capacity to adapt. Developing and testing a theory of urban drought resilience would require a transdisciplinary approach - perhaps a challenge for ICGC? For the complete Fall 2012 ICGC brown bag schedule, go to ICGC.umn.edu
Click here for the attached flyer.Lawrence Baker-1.pdf

Friday, October 12, 2012

Professor Riv-Ellen Prell Presents Remaking the Concept of Youth in Postwar American Jewish Life: Shoah, Suburbs, and Subversions

Professor Riv-Ellen Prell presents "Remaking the Concept of Youth in Postwar American Jewish Life: Shoah, Suburbs, and Subversions." This lecture is the second event in the Childhood and Youth Studies Across the Disciplines Research Collaborative series and will be held on Thursday, October 18th from 1:30-3:30pm in 235 Nolte.

Click here for more info.

The Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium with Professor Mark Rifkin

Professor Mark Rifkin will be presenting his book chapter, "Loving Oneself Like a Nation: Sovereign Selfhood and the Autoerotics of Wilderness in Walden," as part of The Minnesota Political Colloquium Series. The talk will be held on Friday October 19th from 1:30-3:00pm in the Lippincott Room (Social Sciences Tower 1314).

--------------------------------------
Invitation to Meet with Mark Rifkin Before His Talk (this Friday 10/19)
Dear All,
Professor Mark Rifkin, whose work lies at the intersection of Native American Studies, Politics, English Literature, and Queer Theory, will be presenting a talk cosponsored with the Department of American Studies at the Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium next week. He is also hoping to meet with interested students on the morning of Friday, October 19th to discuss issues of professional development and navigating interdisciplinary work and to answer any questions students might have.
If you are interested in meeting with him in a small group setting at 10:30 am this Friday, 10/19, please email Michelle Toppino (topp0039@umn.edu). I've also attached a flyer which announces the talk and a copy of the paper he will be presenting.
Thank you!
Michelle Toppino
topp0039@umn.edu
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Talk Description:
The Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium partnering with the Department of American Studies, the Department of American Indian Studies, the Department of English, and the Institute for Advanced Study, is proud to present Professor Mark Rifkin of the University of North Carolina at Greensbor at this event. He will be presenting his book chapter, "Loving Oneself Like a Nation: Sovereign Selfhood and the Autoerotics of Wilderness in Walden."
The chapter and works cited for the book are attached below, as well as a flyer with further information about Professor Rifkin's work. The Colloquium will meet from 1:30-3:00 in the Lippincott Room (Social Sciences Tower 1314). Coffee will be served. All are welcome!
Rifkin chapter-1.doc
Rifkin works cited.doc
RIFKIN FLYER.pdf

Mellon-CES Dissertation Fellowship for European Studies

The Council for European Studies(CES) invites graduate students to apply for the 2013 Mellon-CES Dissertation Completion Fellowships. The fellowships are intended to facilitate the timely completion of the doctoral degree by late-stage graduate students focused on topics in European Studies and include a $25,000 stipend. Application deadline: February 4th, 2013.

Mellon-CES
Dissertation Completion Fellowships
Council for European Studies:
The Council for European Studies (CES) invites eligible graduate students to apply for the 2013 Mellon-CES Dissertation Completion Fellowships. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, each fellowship includes a $25,000 stipend as well as assistance in securing reimbursements or waivers for up to $3500 in eligible health insurance and candidacy fees.
Winners of the Mellon-CES Dissertation Completion Fellowships are also expected to participate in a number of professional development activities organized by the Council for European Studies for the benefit of its fellows and designed to support early career development. For more information consult our website:
www.councilforeuropeanstudies.org
Eligibility: Mellon-CES Dissertation Completion Fellowships are intended to facilitate the timely completion of the doctoral degree by late-stage graduate students focused on topics in European Studies. To be eligible for the fellowship each applicant:
• must be ABD and have no more than one full year of dissertation work remaining at
the start of the fellowship year as certified by his or her dissertation advisor;
• must have exhausted the dissertation completion funding normally provided by his or
her academic department or university;
• must be working on a topic within or substantially overlapping European Studies;
• must be enrolled in an institution that is a member of the CES Academic Consortium
must be enrolled in an institution that is a member of the CES Academic Consortium.
(A full list of Academic Consortium member institution is provided on our website.)
Deadlines: Application period opens September 3, 2012. Applications are due, along with all supporting materials, on or before February 4, 2013.
For more information consult our website:
www.councilforeuropeanstudies.org

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Comparative Ethnic Studies at the Univeristy of California Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley's Comparative Ethnic Studies Program seeks to fill a tenure-track Assistant Professor position with a social science background, beginning July 1st, 2013. Applicants must have a PhD or equivalent in an appropriate disciplinary or interdisciplinary field by the time of appointment. Applications deadline: November 5th, 2012.

The Comparative Ethnic Studies Program in the Department of Ethnic Studies, at the University of California, Berkeley, invites applications for an Assistant Professor with a social science background (#1752). We define Comparative Ethnic Studies broadly as work that theorizes race both particularly and generally; work on more than one distinct racialized group; or work on the intersection and/or co-constitution of race and other systems of difference. We are particularly interested in candidates who bring innovative Social Science theory and methods to bear on the study of race, and who use the study of race to contribute to social theory generally (articulating the difference that race makes in critically understanding history and society).Teaching duties include undergraduate and graduate courses, including a course on social science methods.
The department seeks candidates whose research, teaching, or service has prepared them to contribute to our commitment to diversity and inclusion in higher education, and who will have a Ph.D. or equivalent in an appropriate disciplinary or interdisciplinary field by the time of appointment. The University of California, Berkeley, is committed to addressing the family needs of faculty. Salary is commensurate with the level of appointment and based on University of California pay scales. Applications are due by Monday, November 5th, 2012, for a start date of July 1st, 2013. Applications should include a cover letter, CV, writing sample or publication, supporting evidence of teaching quality (if available) and three reference letters. The application website gives directions for self-registration, uploading of documents in PDF, and requesting letters of reference from letter writers. All letters will be treated as confidential per University of California policy and California state law. Please refer potential referees, including when letters are provided via a third party (i.e., dossier service or career center), to the UC Berkeley statement of confidentiality: http://apo.chance.berkeley.edu/evalltr.html.
Applications may be submitted to:
http://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/apply/JPF00053
The application website gives directions for self-registration, uploading of documents in PDF, and accessing URLs for individuals providing letters of reference. Letters of recommendation should be sent directly to the University as indicated at the website.
UCB is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action Employer. The University of California, Berkeley, is committed to addressing the family needs of faculty.

Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern California

The University of Southern California's English department seeks to fill a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Chicano and/or Latino literature for fall 2013. Applicants should have a PhD at the time of appointment. Application deadline: October 22nd, 2012.

Assistant Professor of English
The English Department in the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) intends to hire one tenure-track Assistant Professor in Chicano and/or Latino literature. The position is anticipated to begin fall 2013.
Applicants should have a Ph.D. at the time of appointment. Please submit a cover letter, CV, dissertation précis or book prospectus, and three letters of recommendation by October 22, 2012 to engsearch@dornsife.usc.edu. Please direct inquiries to Professor David Román, Chair of the Search Committee, at davidr@usc.edu
In order to be considered for this position, applicants are also required to submit an electronic USC application; follow this job link or paste in a browser: https://jobs.usc.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=66460. USC strongly values diversity and is committed to equal opportunity in employment. Women and men, and members of all racial and ethnic groups, are encouraged to apply.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Child Book Talk at Central Library 10/16

Brenda Child will read from the "Minneapolis" chapter of her book next week at the Minneapolis Central Public Library, in recognition of Ojibwe women activists who have been important to the American Indian community. The event will take place on Tuesday, October 16th from 7:00-9:00pm in Pohlad Hall at the Minneapolis Central Library. Click here for an event flier.

Prell's Article in Contemporary Jewry

Riv-Ellen Prell's article "Boundaries, Margins, and Norms: the Intellectual Stakes in the Study of American Jewish Culture(s)" appears in the journal Contemporary Jewry (Vol 32, July 2012). The article was based on the Sklare Lecture, delivered at the Association for Jewish Studies, where she was awarded the Marshal Sklare Award for distinguished scholarship in the Social Scientific Study of Jewry. The journal includes two responses to the article by Ari Kelman, an American Studies PhD now at Stanford, and Shaul Kelner, a sociologist at Vanderbilt. Continue reading for the article abstract.

Abstract: This paper lays out two research approaches to the study of American Jewry in order to examine the intellectual foundations of each approach. In the contrast between research focused on behavior and boundaries and research focused on subjectivity and sentiment, two different understanding of identity and culture are evident. The rethinking of Jewish life has rested on a greater focus on gender and sexuality as part of the dynamic view of identity and culture. However, this decentering of classical social science categories also raises other questions. What is the place of boundaries in the study of American Jews as well as other "identity" focused groups, and what are the most effective ways to study the reproduction of Judaism and Jewishness across generations?
This lecture, and then article, gave me the opportunity to reflect on issues I have taken up on in my writing for some time. I have been interested in the historically constituted notion of difference for Jews that put gender and class, as well as race, at the center of Jewish experience in the United States. My long association with non essentialist approaches to the culture and identity of Jews in the United States began to raise questions for me about how culture is constituted and transmitted. I was in part inspired by Herman Gray's book, Cultural Moves, in which he sought " a new Black cultural politics," and a "different logic for representation and politics." He called for "forms of belonging, association, and practice," that accounted for notions of "connectivity and identification" that changed over time. Like him, I am interested in practices that allow for counter memories and practices that reveal notions of subjects that challenge concepts of "nation, community, and belonging."
In this article I examine the underpinnings of debates about Jewish identity, whether it is primarily understood in classical ethnic/ religious terms as a matter of behavior, and coherent group membership, or whether a culture or even cultural politics can be constituted from "feeling." These approaches rarely acknowledge the intellectual roots of their positions, and the revolution in scholarship that asserted the centrality of race, gender, class and sexuality to social life that was so central to destabilizing the foundational concepts of the social sciences.
How, then, can scholars look to cultural/religious identities as wellsprings to opposition to a dominant culture? What are the sources for practices that draw on those traditions? This article does not answer that question. Its purpose is to lay out the central issues, and to argue for a more complex understanding of the shifting and historically constituted notion of culture and identity for American Jews.
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History Museum Fellows Program for Undergraduates

Undergraduate Students are invited to apply for the History Museum Fellows Program. Applications are due by November 15th, but priority is given to applications received by November 1st. Placement occurs by December 1st. The HMFP includes 3 distinct components: a semester-long, 3 credit course offered through American Studies; a paid summer internship at the Minnesota Historical Society; a museum-study trip to Washington DC. For more information, please click here.

Noble's Debating the End of History

Professor Emeritus David Noble published his book Debating the End of History: The Marketplace, Utopia, and the Fragmentation of Intellectual Life (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). Click here for more info.

Noble book.jpg

Castellanos's Co-edited Comparative Indigeneities of The Américas

Professor Bianet Castellanos, along with Lourdes Gutiérrez and Arturo Aldama, published their co-edited volume Comparative Indigeneities of the Américas: Toward a Hemispheric Approach (University of Arizona Press, 2012). It is the first book in their new series called Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies. Click here for more info.

Staffing Update

New student employees, Marissa Binsfeld and Julie Miller, began working for American Studies this week. Julie and Marissa will be splitting time at the front desk - please be sure to stop by and welcome them. Marissa is a junior majoring in communications and political science. Julie is a sophomore majoring in accounting and MIS.

Roderick A. Ferguson Lecture on 10/22/2012

Roderick A. Ferguson presents "The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference". This is the second lecture in the Black Studies and American Studies at the Crossroads series and will be held on Monday, October 22nd, 2012 at 3:30pm in room 105 Scott Hall. Please continue reading for an event flier and talk description.

Click here for an event flier.
Roderick Ferguson
The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference
Monday, Oct 22nd, 2012
3:30pm - 5pm, room 105 Scott Hall
Description:
In this talk, Roderick A. Ferguson discusses his new book The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference. The talk will explore the origins of the book and its argument that state, capital, and academy found ways to learn from the social movements of the fifties and sixties, ways that would evolve a mode of power that came in the wake of liberation, a mode that would try to put forms of minority difference in the service of hegemony.
Bio:
Roderick A. Ferguson is professor of race and critical theory. He is the author of Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique (2004) and the co-editor with Grace Hong of Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization (2011). His new book The Reorder of Things: The University and Its Pedagogies of Minority Difference is forthcoming with the University of Minnesota Press in October of 2012.

Book Orders for Spring 2013 DUE October 24th

Book orders for Spring 2013 courses are due to amstdy@umn.edu by Wednesday, October 24th. Please continue reading for the order form, bookstore ordering guidelines, and notes that help process your order and obtain desk copies.

Notes from staff:
-Please complete one book order form for each course, and email your order as an attachment to amstdy@umn.edu by October 24th, 2012.
-Let us know whether or not you need a personal desk copy. We will be requesting copies for your TAs.
- We submit a request to the publisher for desk copies after we receive your completed order form. It can take weeks to obtain desk copies, so the earlier we get the order, the earlier you and your TAs will have copies of the books. Desk copies cannot be guaranteed for faculty and instructors if the deadline for book orders is not met.
-If your course is cross-listed, include all department names on your order form so that all sections of the course will have books ordered.
- Include the ISBN of the edition you want . If the ISBN is incorrect, you may end up with a different edition of the book.
-If you are NOT ordering books or ordering a packet instead, be sure to let me know.
Bookstore guidelines:
-Submitting book orders before Fall 2012 Finals Week gives the bookstore the opportunity to pay students the best price for their books during buyback.
- If you delete or change books for your course after they have shipped from the publisher, your research account will be charged for return fees.
-If know you will be using a book in the future, please indicate when that is. This allows the bookstore to plan to purchase used copies, saving students money.
- Be sure to specify whether the book is Required (R) or Optional (O).
Please use this order form: Book Order Form.doc

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in WGSS at UMass, Amherst

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst's Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department announces a tenure-track Assistant Professor position. The Department is searching for a scholar whose work focuses on the African diaspora with a preference for Latin America and/or sexuality studies, but all qualifies applicants will be considered. Successful candidates must have a PhD, scholarly credentials, and some teaching experience in WGSS required. Priority deadline: October 19th, 2012.

Tenure Track Assistant Professor Position in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies
UMass, Amherst
The WGSS Department is searching for scholar whose work focuses on the African diaspora with a preference for Latin America and/or sexuality studies, but all qualified applicants will be considered. Successful candidate must have a Ph.D. Scholarly credentials and some teaching experience in Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies required. Field open, but preference to candidates whose work crosses traditional academic boundaries. Duties include: one required course and one elective course each semester, including large general education introductory course; undergraduate and graduate student advising; departmental and university wide service. Salary commensurate with qualifications and experience. Applicants must submit letter of application, CV, sample publications and relevant syllabi, and three letters of recommendations. Priority deadline is October 19, 2012. Applications will be reviewed until position is filled. Electronic applications preferred and should be in PDF format and sent to wgsssearch@wost.umass.edu (please put "Search R42043" in subject line).
Send paper applications to:
Chair of Search R42043
Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies Program
Bartlett 208
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
UMass/Amherst is a member of the Five College Consortium, along with Amherst, Smith, Hampshire and Mt. Holyoke Colleges. The University of Massachusetts is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. Members of minority groups are encouraged to apply.

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in WGSS at Gettysburg College

The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Gettysburg College invites applications for a tenure-track appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning August 2013. PhD is required at the time of appointment, and teaching experience is preferred. Application deadline: November 10th, 2012.

The Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Gettysburg College invites applications for a tenure-track appointment at the rank of Assistant Professor, beginning August 2013. We seek a scholar with graduate training in Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies whose primary specialization is LGBT, Queer, or Sexuality Studies, with a research focus that includes women. We are open to a variety of theoretical and disciplinary approaches to the area of specialization and have an interest in candidates prepared to teach a course in the psychology of gender. We also encourage candidates with expertise in global sexualities to apply. Candidates must be committed to undergraduate education and advising, engaged in a strong research program, and prepared to teach five courses yearly. Courses will include introductory, theoretical, and other required core courses for our major, as well as courses in the area of specialization. PhD is required at the time of the appointment, and teaching experience is preferred.
Gettysburg College is a highly selective liberal arts college located within 90 minutes of the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan area. Established in 1832, the College has a rich history and is situated on a 220-acre campus with an enrollment of over 2,600 students. The College assures equal employment opportunity and prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, and disability. Gettysburg College is committed to creating a more diverse community; as part of that process, the College encourages candidates from historically underrepresented groups to apply.
Please submit letter of application, curriculum vitae, teaching statement and research statement electronically to http://gettysburg.peopleadmin.com/postings/449. In addition, three letters of recommendation should be sent electronically to jsprague@gettysburg.edu with the subject
heading "WGS Search Committee".
Applications received by November 10 will be given fullest consideration.
For any additional information, contact Nathalie Lebon, Coordinator of WGS
Program nlebon@gettysburg.edu.

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Women and Gender Studies at ASU

Arizona State University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Women and Gender Studies. Applicants are required to have a PhD in Women and Gender Studies or related field by time of appointment (August 2013). Application deadline: October 29th, 2012.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF WOMEN AND GENDER STUDIES
Arizona State University (ASU) seeks applications for a tenure-track position in Women and Gender Studies. Applicants are required to have a PhD in Women and Gender Studies or related field by time of appointment (August 2013), a record of interdisciplinary research and teaching; and a focus on structural inequities (legal, social, political, economic, etc.) in any area of sexuality studies. We are particularly interested in candidates who look at LGBTQ issues of economic justice or human rights, sexual citizenship, indigenous sexualities and/or masculinity studies from a transnational and/or intersectional perspective. The successful candidate will be expected to teach core undergraduate and graduate courses as well as upper division courses related to their specialty area. Women and Gender Studies (WGS) at ASU is one of the largest, most vibrant undergraduate and PhD programs in the U.S. Located within the nation?s first School of Social Transformation (SST), a new transdisciplinary school unique to ASU that brings together interdisciplinary fields to integrate the study of gender, race, class, sexuality and nation. We are focused on transformational knowledge--new research approaches, themes and questions that are embedded in broader historical, social and cultural processes of change and are pursuing novel collaborative forms of teaching and knowledge creation to make discoveries, to create social innovations and to engage with others in changing the world.
To apply, e-mail a single PDF file containing 1) a letter of interest describing research and teaching background and interests as they relate to both WGS and SST and 2) a curriculum vita to:_Jane.Little@asu.edu_ . Applicants must make arrangements to have three letters of recommendation mailed directly from referees to:
Faculty Search, ATTN: Jane Little
Women and Gender Studies
School of Social Transformation
P.O. Box 876403
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-6403
Application deadline is October 29, 2012, if not filled every Monday thereafter until the search is closed. Background check is required for employment. Arizona State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer committed to excellence through diversity, Women and minorities are encouraged to apply: _https://www.asu.edu/titleIX/_

University of South Florida Postdoc in Social Sciences and Humanities

The University of South Florida is pleased to announce the fifth year of its Postdoctoral Scholars program in the Social Sciences and Humanities. The over-arching theme for this year's scholars is Global Change in Dynamic World. Atleast six, 12-month postdoctoral scholarships will be awarded with appointments beginning August 5th, 2013. Appointments are fulltime, $40,000 per year, and the University contributes to health insurance for the scholars and their dependents. Application deadline: December 7th, 2012.

University of South Florida Postdoctoral Scholars
Social Sciences and Humanities, 2013-14
Global Change in a Dynamic World
The University of South Florida has embarked on an ambitious program to enhance its rising stature as a pre-eminent research university with state, national and global impact, and position itself for membership in the Association of American Universities through: (1) Expanding world-class interdisciplinary research, creative and scholarly endeavors; (2) promoting globally competitive programs in teaching and research; (3) expanding local and global engagement initiatives to strengthen sustainable and healthy communities; and (4) enhancing revenue through external support. Details are available in the USF Strategic Plan (http://www.ods.usf.edu/plans/strategic/).
As part of this initiative, the University of South Florida is pleased to announce the fifth year of its Postdoctoral Scholars program in the Social Sciences and Humanities. The over-arching theme for this year's scholars is Global Change in a Dynamic World. Potential themes include (but are not limited to) sustainability; sustainable development; hazard and disaster management; climate change; population changes; technology and information issues; communication and language development; cultural diasporas; ethnicity, gender, and aging issues; cultural heritage and histories; citizenship; identity; health, economic, education, and environmental disparities; political economy; ethics; human rights; animal rights; peace and conflict studies; injury and violence; security and surveillance issues. Specific research and geographical areas are open, and applicants may consider both past and contemporary perspectives.
Postdoctoral Scholars will: (i) contribute to one or more of the priority goals of the strategic plan; (ii) work closely with distinguished faculty; (iii) participate in interdisciplinary and programmatic seminar series; (iv) teach two courses over a twelve-month period; and (v) continue to build an independent research record and engage in publishing refereed articles and creative scholarship.
Postdoctoral Scholars
At least six twelve-month postdoctoral scholarships will be awarded in Spring 2013 with appointments beginning August 5th, 2013. Appointments are for full time employment (40 hours per week) and will be continued for a maximum of 2 years contingent upon satisfactory performance. The salary is $40,000 per year and the University contributes to a health insurance program for postdoctoral scholars and their dependents (up to $6,000). Support for travel to academic conferences will also be available. Scholars will be responsible for relocation and housing expenses. Please refer to the link: http://www.grad.usf.edu/provostinitiative2013.php for additional information about eligibility and the applicant process.

USC Postdoctoral Program in the Humanities

The University of Southern California announces that the Provost's Postdoctoral Program in the Humanities will be accepting applications for the fall 2013 cohort. Candidates must have received the PhD no earlier than July 1, 2009 and must have the degree in hand by July 1, 2013. The Provost expects to make six postdoctoral awards per year. Application deadline: November 15th, 2012 at noon (PST). Click here for more info.

CFP: Radical History Review issue "Queering Archives"

The Radical History Review seeks submissions for the issue "Queering Archives," scheduled to appear in Fall 2014. This issue of Radical History Review reflects on the notion of the "archive" that has been radically opened up by activists, archivists, and scholars. Proposals due: February 1, 2013. Click here for more info.

CFP: Women's and Gender History Symposium at Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Submissions are invited for the Women's and Gender History Symposium at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign February 28-March 2, 2013. They seek papers that engage the concept of exploitation broadly across time period, genders, sexualities, across and beyond the nation-state borders. Submission deadline: November 15, 2012.

More than two decades have passed since a rich body of literature made Women's and Gender History a vital field with exploitation as a key theme. Today, exploitation remains an important idea in Women's and Gender History. But, African American feminist Patricia Hill-Collins told us that exploitation "cannot be reduced to one fundamental type" and that these multiple forms of exploitation are organized in a "matrix of domination." Exploitation is multidimensional and nuanced. It transgresses time and space. It moves across bodies, borders, and genders. It shapes social relationships. Exploitation, then, should be approached from a multifaceted angle using a transdisciplinary lens.
However, we must not reinscribe intellectual imperialism, assuming that gender is a synonym for women. For example, gender, like race and class, is a historically situated, constructed social category that changes meaning at different historical moments. Yet women and gendered subjects have been exploited by these categories, depending on the space, time, and political condition before them. They have never been passive, but active agents in resisting exploitation.
We seek papers that engage the concept of exploitation broadly across time period, across genders, across sexualities, across and beyond the nation-state borders. While we value essays that take a historical approach, they need not be historical. We strongly encourage papers that use a transdisciplinary approach to understand various aspects of Women's and Gender History/Studies. We especially encourage submissions that focus on traditionally under-studied topics within the larger field of Women's and Gender History/Studies, and among them, indigenous women and queer indigenous subjects. Submissions with a focus on transnational exploitation are also strongly encouraged. Again, we would like to reiterate that we are not only interested in how subjects in Women's and Gender History/Studies have been exploited, but also the various methods they have used to resist exploitation.
Possible Topics May Include (but certainly not limited to):
-Media and exploitation
-Transnationalism and Women's and Gender Studies
-Transnational sexuality
-Exploitation of bodies
-Settler Colonialism and Exploitation
-The law and exploitation
Please submit your 300-500 word abstracts by November 15, 2012 to gendersymp@gmail.com.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Ford Predoctoral Fellowship Applications Due November 14, 2012

The Ford Predoctoral Fellowship Program is accepting applications for their 2013 Fellowships. Applications are invited from individuals enrolled in a research-based program leading to a PhD at a U.S. educational institution. The fellowships provide 3 years of support including an annual stipend of $20,000. Application deadline: November 14, 2012. Click here for a full guidelines and application: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/FordFellowships/PGA_047958

Ford Dissertation Fellowship Applications Due November 19, 2012

The Ford Dissertation Fellowship Program is accepting applications for their 2013 Fellowships. Applications are invited from PhD candidates studying in a research-based discipline at a U.S. educational institution. The dissertation fellowships provide one year of support including a $21,000 stipend. Application deadline: November 19, 2012. Click here for full guidelines and application: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/FordFellowships/PGA_047959

Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship Applications Due November 19, 2012

The Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship Program is accepting applications for their 2013 Fellowships. Applications are invited from individuals who have earned their PhD no earlier than November 30, 2005 and no later than November 19, 2012 in an eligible research-based field from a U.S. educational institution. The postdoctoral fellowships provide one year of support including a $40,000 stipend. Application deadline: November 19, 2012. Click here for full guidelines and application:
http://sites.nationalacademies.org/PGA/FordFellowships/PGA_047960

Contact Melanie if you plan to submit your Prelim Portfolio on the fall semester submission date of November 1st

3rd year students: The fall semester date on which Written Preliminary Portfolio Exam materials are accepted by the department is November 1st at 12:00 Noon. If you are planning to submit your portfolio exam materials for this semester, contact Melanie (stein196@umn.edu) regarding your intent to submit on November 1st and to confirm the members of your examination committee.

Community Fund Drive

Note from Laura: The University's Community Fund Drive began on October 1st and runs until October 31st, 2012. Look for a pamphlet in your mailbox or click here for more info. I am our Department's Community Fund Drive volunteer, so if you have questions, please feel free to contact me (domin047@umn.edu).

Open Rank Position in North American Religious History - Harvard Divinity School

HARVARD DIVINITY SCHOOL SEEKS to appoint one or two scholars of North American Religious History. Candidates may be specialists in any particular aspect of the field, in any religious tradition, and in any chronological period. This is an open rank search; the successful candidate(s) will be appointed to the rank or chair appropriate to their experience. Review of applications will begin November 9th, 2012 and will continue until the position(s) is filled. Click here for more info.

Assistant or Associate Professor in Public History - UNC

THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is conducting a national search for an Assistant Professor in Public History, possible to hire at the Associate level if a more senior person is chosen. Candidates must hold or anticipate a PhD in History, American Studies, African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Urban Studies, or a related field by August 1, 2013. Application deadline: November 9th, 2012. Click here for more info.

CFP for a Session at Assoc. of American Geographers Annual Meeting

SUBMISSIONS ARE INVITED FOR the session "Found in Translation: Performing Queer Injuries and Desires" at the 2013 Association of American Geographers meeting to be held in Los Angeles, CA. Organizers for this session are Begum Basas (Bilgi University, Turkey) or Lorena Munoz (University of Minnesota), and they aim to engage with the term "queer" and the perfromances of its translation while the term travels. Abstracts due to one of the organizers by October 8, 2012.

CFP for the 2013 Association of American Geographers in Los Angeles
Presentations invited for session titled: Found in Translation: Performing queer injuries and desires
Sponsored by the Geographic Perspectives on Women and the Sexuality and Space specialty groups
Sponsored by the Sexuality and Space specialty group
Organizers: Lorena Munoz Ph.D. (University of Minnesota) and Begum Basdas Ph.D. (Bilgi University, Turkey.)
This session aims to engage with the term "queer" and the performances of its translation while the term travels. While it is argued that "queer" is a difficult term to translate to different languages and acts, we are interested in finding how the performances of translation actually open up new possibilities of queering. However, such possibilities create spaces of both injuries and desires. Here, we refer to different understandings of the practice of "translation." First, we would like to engage with the literal translation of Anglo-American texts and acts to diverse languages. Second, we refer to works by academics, artists, film directors, and others, who tell stories of "other" ways of being queer. Third, and probably not the last, we refer to how different ways of being queer and queering are performed through translation in different histories and materialities. We hope to articulate "translation" as a more multi-way relationship, rather than a one-way street. If the term queer, as Butler argued, "will have to remain that which is in the present, never fully owned, but always and only redeployed, twisted, queered from a prior usage and in the direction of urgent and expanding political purposes," (1993: 228) how do we translate, write, and perform "other" ways of being/loving/fucking/playing/hurting (and more) without the limitations of the hegemonic binaries, such as the West/rest and hetero/homo?
We invite presentations in writing and as performance that deal with (but not limited to) the following:
• Queering the uses of the term "queer" that does not articulate the
West as the hegemonic language and depict the rest as the bounded,
particular resistances. (For detailed discussion see Cakirlar and
Delice, 2012)
• If queering involves possibilities of subverting heteronormative
(and homonormative) institutions through our sexualities, how can we
imagine alternative experiences of queering our relationships?
• Imagining different approaches to "queering," the subaltern.
• Engaging with how the term "queer" travels and performs reciprocal
practices of translation and within those spaces how we may find
"other" ways of being queer embodied in desires, pleasures, and
injuries.
Please submit abstracts to Begum Basdas bbasdas@gmail.com or Lorena
Munoz lmunoz@umn.edu. Please contact us for questions and/or
additional information. Deadline for submitting abstracts is October 8, 2011.

Belkin Talk "Is Military Masculinity Masculine?" October 12th at 3:30pm

AARON BELKIN, San Francisco State University, will be presenting his talk "Is Military Masculinity Masculine?" on Friday, October 12th from 3:30 - 5:30pm in room 105 Scott Hall. Drawing from his new book, Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898-2001 (Columbia, 2012), Professor Belkin will discuss how the campaign to repeal "don't ask don't tell" succeeded in expanding the rights of gay lesbian troops at the same time that it smoothed over filth-related contradictions that structure both warrior masculinity and empire thus rendering militarism more difficult to disable.

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"Is Military Masculinity Masculine?"
Aaron Belkin, San Francisco State University
Friday, October 12, 2012
3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
105 Scott Hall
Drawing from his new book, Bring Me Men: Military Masculinity and the Benign Façade of American Empire, 1898-2001 (Columbia, 2012), Professor Belkin will discuss how the campaign to repeal "don't ask don't tell" succeeded in expanding the rights of gay and lesbian troops at the same time that it smoothed over filth-related contradictions that structure both warrior masculinity and empire, thus rendering militarism more difficult to disable.
This talk is co-sponsored by the Department of American Studies, the Department of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies, and the Workshop on the Comparative History of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
Aaron Belkin is a scholar, author, and activist. He has written and edited more than twenty five scholarly publications. Since 1999, Belkin has served as founding director of the Palm Center, which the Advocate named as one of the most effective gay rights organizations in the nation. He designed and implemented much of the public education campaign that eroded popular support for military anti-gay discrimination. Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley said of Belkin that, "Probably no single person deserves more credit for the repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell.'" Belkin earned his B.A. in international relations at Brown University in 1988 and his Ph.D in political science at the University of California, Berkeley in 1998, and is currently a professor at San Francisco State University

PhD Student Research Position University of Groningen, Netherlands

The University of Groningen, Netherlands invites applications for a PhD-student research position at the Graduate School for the Humanities, Literary and Cultural Studies. Candidates should plan to study the processes of colonization of North and/or South America, as well as the representation of those processes and their byproducts - captivity, conversion, and war - in texts from before 1800. The 0.9FTE appointment is temporary for 18 months but will possibly be for a specified period of four years. Application Deadline: October 15th, 2012.

http://www.rug.nl/corporate/vacatures/jobOpportunitiesRUG
PhD position American Studies (0,9 fte) (212209)
Organisation
The Faculty of Arts is a large, dynamic faculty in the heart of the city of Groningen. It has more than 5000 students and 700 staff members, who are working at the frontiers of knowledge every day. The Faculty offers a wide range of degree programmes: 19 Bachelor's programmes and over 35 Master's programmes. Our research, which is internationally widely acclaimed, covers the following fields: Archaeology, Cultural Studies, History, International Relations, Journalism, Language and Literary Studies, and Linguistics.
Job description
Specialty areas: Early American Culture, Colonial & Imperial Identities
Job description
Applications are invited for one PhD-student position at the Graduate School for the Humanities, Literary and Cultural Studies. Applicants are encouraged to develop their own research plans and should submit a 500-1000 word proposal dealing with early American literature and history. Candidates should plan to study the processes of colonization in North and/or South America, as well as the representation of those processes and their byproducts--captivity, conversion, and war--in texts from before 1800. Appropriate case studies could include Barlaeus's praise of Johan Maurits in Brasil, poetic accounts from the Arauco War, and reworkings of the myth of Pocahontas first propagated by John Smith. Research questions might be how New World knowledge changed the ideological justifications for empire; how intercultural contact shaped emerging ideas of race; and whether the Christianization of Indians came to condone (cultural) violence. The above case studies and questions are merely examples: candidates should come up with their own ideas. Projects should aim to answer such large questions through smaller, specific case studies. Interdisciplinary and comparative proposals,combining, for example, literary, historical, and ethnographical methods, as well as those considering two or more languages are especially encouraged. The PhD student should be highly self-motivated, but will be supervised by and collaborate with more senior scholars.
Qualifications
· MA degree in a relevant area (English, Spanish, History, American Studies)
· a good knowledge of early American literature and history
· preferably one or more of the following skills: reading competence in early modern English, Dutch, French, and/or Spanish
· publication skills and desire to publish
· academic ambition.
Conditions of employment
The University of Groningen offers a salary of € 2,042 gross per month in the first year to € 2,612 gross per month in the fourth year (figures based on full employment). The 0.9 fte appointment is temporary for a specified period of four years. You will first be appointed for 18 months. After the first year there will be an assessment of the candidate's results and the progress of the project to decide whether the employment will be continued.
Appointments will be effective from 1 January 2013.
Affiliation
The PhD candidates will be enrolled in the Graduate School for the Humanities and affiliated with the Institute for the Study of Culture Groningen (ICOG).
Application
Applications should be in English and will contain the following:
· a letter of application
· a 500-1000 word research proposal
· curriculum vitae
· a copy of your diploma with a list of grades
· your MA thesis or MA dissertation
· the names and email addresses of two (academic) referees.
The interviews will probably take place in between 7 and 21 November 2012.
You may apply for this position until 15 October 2012 via
http://www.rug.nl/corporate/vacatures/jobOpportunitiesRUG
For information you can contact: Ms. Dr Joanne van der Woude, Joanne.van.der.Woude@rug.nl

2012 Roetzel Family Lecture in Religious Studies

The 2012 Roetzel Family Lecture in Religious Studies will be presented by Professor John Butler. The lecture, "God in Gotham?: Spiritual Terror in the Capital of American Secularism," will be held on Friday, October 12th at 4:30pm in room 155 Nicholson Hall. Click here for an event flier.

James Wright Prize for Poetry

Entries are welcome for the 2012 James Wright Prize for Poetry. This contest is open to undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Minnesota, and this year's judge will be Garrison Keillor. Winner will receive $100. Click here for more info.