Professor Jaime Ginzburg on Brazilian Culture in Times of Violence

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese hosts the lecture "Brazilian Culture in Times of Violence" presented by Jaime Ginzburg, Associate Professor at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The lecture will be held on Friday, December 7th from 1:30-3:00pm in 112 Folwell Hall. Reception will follow.

The Department of Spanish & Portuguese presents:

Brazilian Culture in Times of Violence

Lecture by Jaime Ginzburg, University of S√£o Paulo, Brazil

Friday, December 7th
1:30 - 3:00 p.m.
112 Folwell Hall
Reception to follow

In Brazil, violence is a recurrent subject in cultural production. From the perspective of the Frankfurt School, the history of violence is related to literature, film, fine arts and music. This presentation will discuss images of the body in Brazilian culture in the XXth century, focusing on how those images can confront the historical impact of authoritarianism and violence.
Professor Jaime Ginzburg is Associate Professor of Brazilian Literature at the University of São Paulo, in Brazil, and is currently a Visiting Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, where he is teaching a graduate seminar on Violence and Democracy. His latest books include, Crítica em tempos de violência. São Paulo: Edusp / Fapesp 2012; Escritas da violência, co-edited with Márcio Seligmann-Silva and Francisco Foot Hardman (Rio de Janeiro: Sette Letras, 2012), Vols. I and II; and Walter Benjamin: rastro, aura e história, co-edited with Sabrina Sedlmayer. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 2012.
Click here for a lecture flyer.

Jack Kent Cooke Dissertation Fellowship Award

The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation is currently accepting applications for their Dissertation Fellowship Awards. They will award four, $25,000 fellowships in 2013. They look to support advanced doctoral candidates in a variety of fields, including education and the social sciences. Application deadline: February 4, 2013.

The Jack Kent Cooke Dissertation Fellowship Award
The Jack Kent Cooke Dissertation Fellowship Award supports advanced doctoral students who are completing dissertations that further the understanding of the educational pathways and experiences of high-achieving, low-income students. We seek to provide funding for doctoral candidates whose work informs and advances the following populations/aspects of our mission:
- high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds, and/or
- students who demonstrate the potential for achievement, and/or
- the conditions that promote high achievement (e.g., school settings, interventions, policies).
OVERVIEW
The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, through its scholarship and grant making programs, advances the education of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. Our work allows us to see first-hand how high-achieving students with financial need overcome obstacles and excel academically. Our research, however, has shown that many high-potential, low-income students are unable to successfully navigate these obstacles.
In The Achievement Trap (2007), we found that there is a significant drop off in the number of low-income students who are identified as high-achieving throughout the primary and secondary education system. These student experiences raise important questions about the factors and contexts that help some students with financial need overcome personal adversity, limited educational opportunities, and challenging socioeconomic circumstances to excel academically, and how a deeper understanding of such matters can be used to design programs and interventions that will help more low-income students identified as high achieving early in their primary and secondary school years to sustain their academic achievement levels through college and beyond.
In response to this gap in knowledge, the Foundation has created the Cooke Dissertation Fellowship for advanced doctoral students who are completing dissertations that further the understanding of the educational pathways and experiences of exceptionally promising students who have financial need. The fellowship is intended to focus more scholarly attention on the population of students the Foundation serves in order to enable practitioners, parents, schools and communities to better support such students in achieving their full potential.
Dissertation fellowships are intended to support the doctoral student for work done after the student's dissertation proposal has been successfully defended. Applications are encouraged from a variety of disciplines such as, but not limited to, education, sociology, economics, psychology, statistics, and psychometrics.
The fellowship is a one-time award of up to $25,000, which may be used for a period of not less than nine months and up to 18 months, beginning in June 2013. Award decisions are announced in May. See this link for 2013 timeline. We expect to offer four this year, with plans to increase the number in the coming years.
Eligible applicants must have completed all pre-dissertation requirements.
Requirements
Selected Fellows agree to comply with Foundation requirements and requests for the duration of the fellowship. Some key requirements and terms are:
- Fellows must be enrolled in a graduate degree program, and provide documentation of academic progress each term.
- Fellows must participate in Fellowship activities, including the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholars Weekend August 1-4, 2013. The Foundation will provide travel expenses, lodging, and meals.
- Fellows must be willing to present their research to Foundation staff and/or Scholars
HOW FUNDING MAY BE USED
The Cooke Dissertation Fellowship must be used to support a graduate student while writing his or her dissertation. How the funds are expended depends on each recipient's individual need. We determine need through the Cost of Attendance of each recipient's school; we do not provide fellowship money directly to the recipient. More information can be found on how the fellowship funds are disbursed in the FAQs and the Guidelines.
This fellowship does not provide funding for distance learning programs or for degrees heavily dependent on distance learning components. The fellowship does not cover overhead.
More information
Please visit the FAQs page and the Guidelines to learn more about the Fellowship.
If after reviewing the FAQs and Guidelines, you still have questions, please contact the Foundation at 703-723-8000 or through the email address fellows@jkcf.org.
Notification
The Foundation will notify recipients in May 2013.

CFP: Free Minds, Free People

The Education for Liberation Network national conference entitled Free Minds, Free People is inviting proposals to present work addressing a range of education justice issues. The conference will be held in Chicago from July 11th to the 14th in Chicago. Submission deadline is January 25, 2013.

The call for proposals for Free Minds, Free People 2013 is now available. Please visit: http://proposals.fmfp.org/
Free Minds, Free People is a national conference presented by the Education for Liberation Network that brings together teachers, high school and college students, researchers, parents and community-based activists/educators from across the country to build a movement to develop and promote education as a tool for liberation. Our 2011 conference in Providence, Rhode Island featured more than 60 activities, including workshops, panels and local community site visits, and 700 attendees in our biggest conference to date.
Our 2013 conference will be held in Chicago from July 11-14, 2013. Free Minds, Free People is an energizing and inspiring space that brings together groups that do not usually have an opportunity to interact so they can share experiences and build solutions together.
We invite you to submit proposals to present work addressing a range of education justice issues by January 25, 2013. There are several different types of activities that you can submit proposals for:
- Workshop: Practitioners will provide hands-on instruction and practical ideas and methods that participants can take back to their home communities.
- Panel Discussion: Several individuals with experience in similar topics will field questions and generate action-oriented dialogue with participants.
- Paper or Research Exploration: Authors/researchers will interactively explore papers on a similar topic and engage the audience in the issues and implications for youth and social change.
- Young Activists Workshop: Facilitators will lead a hands-on activity specifically for youth ages 7-12. Activities are designed to engage young minds in exploring issues relevant to their experiences and expressing their unique voices.
- Assembly: This is an exciting, new activity within Free Minds, Free People. We are inviting organizations and individuals working on a specific issue within education for liberation to organize a convening in which participants can build toward national connectedness and collective action on that issue. We envision these assemblies as collaborative movement building and strengthening spaces.
Please feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested in being part of this event. Proposals can be submitted at http://proposals.fmfp.org/ until January 25, 2013. We are excited to learn more about education for liberation happening across the nation.

Undergraduate Course ALL 3920: Topics in Asian Culture- Exploring India: Languages, Literatures, and Film

Undergraduate Course ALL 3920, "Topics in Asian Culture - Exploring India: Languages, Literatures, and Film" will be taught spring 2013 by Dr. Sungok Hong. This course will explore the languages of India from genealogical, linguistic, typological, historical and sociological perspectives.

ALL 3920 - Topics in Asian Culture
Exploring India: Languages, Literatures, and Film
4:00 - 5:15 p.m. TTh
Instructor: Dr. Sungok Hong

This is a survey course of the culture of Indian languages, including as seen through literature and film. This course will explore the languages of India from genealogical, linguistic, typological, historical and sociological perspectives. We will explore the literatures of several main South Asian languages with a focus on Hindi - Urdu literatures and film, considering their origins, periodization, and names during each period. We will also examine the important writers and their representative work along with the literary trends and influences, including political, social, and cultural situations which helped to shape the writers and their work.
Indian films, including those based on literature, have attained a very special place in the lives of Indian people as an important means of entertainment, reaching a larger audience that will not or cannot read the original work. The second half of this course will be spent on screening selected Hindi/Urdu films and discussing themes and messages that the writers try to convey to readers/audiences, and any cultural or social issues that need to be addressed. Students will have a chance to read English translations of some of the selected Hindi/Urdu works.
Click here for a class flyer.

AMST 8920- Topics: Transnationalism and U.S. - Mexico Borderlands

AMST 8920 "Transnationalism and U.S.- Mexico Borderlands" will be taught spring 2013 by Yolanda Padilla. This course will track Chicana/o border studies as it evolved in the 1980's and 90's, examine ways in which border studies influenced and shaped the transnational imperatives that are now fundamental to work in American studies, and observe two case studies that indicate the importance of the borderlands for generating transnational approaches in Chicano/a and American Studies.

Transnationalism and U.S. - Mexico Borderlands

When Gloria Anzald√∫a published Borderlands / la frontera in 1987, she sparked a renewed interest among Chicana/o scholars in the U.S.-Mexico border region as a locus of analysis and as a conceptual paradigm. While the borderlands have been central to the field since its inception, Chicana/o scholars mined the region's critical potential with an intensified rigor, extending and developing approaches for its study as place, process, and metaphor. At the same time, scholars in American studies were searching for ways to re-think the place of the nation in the field, especially in light of work that elucidated the relationship between nation and empire in the United States. The global framework that Chicana/o studies scholars were applying to the border was seen as powerfully generative, particularly the connections such scholars made between the study of ethnicity, racialization, and immigration, and empire building, imperialism, and international relations. In the ensuing years, the "borderlands" has become one of American Studies' key tropes, and a central critical coordinate in the field's much-remarked "transnational turn."
In this course, we will critically engage the developments outlined above, doing so in three parts. First, we will track Chicana/o border studies as it evolved in the 1980s and '90s, paying special attention to the approaches the field generated for challenging nation-based understandings of cultural politics, racialization, and subject formation. Second, we will examine the ways in which border studies influenced and shaped the transnational imperatives that are now fundamental to work in American studies, as well as the strong criticisms directed against such work by Latin Americanists. Finally, we will consider two case studies that indicate the continuing importance of the borderlands for generating transnational approaches in Chicana/o and American studies. The first will be a focus on Américo Paredes, a figure of particular importance for our course due to his centrality in the initial emergence of border studies and in more recent debates regarding transnational American studies. Second, we will study the rise of more material-based cultural criticism in Chicana/o border studies, especially work that examines the cultural politics of the border around the economic globalization of the region and the Juárez femicides.
Each part will be grounded in analyses of the border region's rich tradition of cultural production. Possible cultural works we will study include the foundational border writings of Américo Paredes and Gloria Anzaldúa, films by Lourdes Portillo, John Sayles, and María Novaro, performance art by Marisela Norte and Guillermo Gómez-Peña, music by Chela Silva, Tish Hinojosa, and El Vez, and short fiction by Mexican fronteriza/o writers Rosinda Conde and Federico Campbell. Scholarship we will engage includes works by Norma Alarcón, Alicia Schmidt Camacho, Debra Castillo, Claire Fox, Rosa Linda Fregoso, José Limón, Walter Mignolo, Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Ramón Saldívar, and Sonia Saldívar-Hull.
Click here for a flyer for the class.

Melissa Autumn White "Ambivalent Belongings"

Quadrant visiting scholar Melissa Autumn White hosts two workshop and lunches to discuss material for upcoming book "Ambivalent Belongings: Regarding Queer (Im)Mobilities in an Age of Global Apartheid." The workshops will take place on Friday November 30th from 3:30-5:00pm in 445 Blegen Hall and Monday December 3rd 12-1:30pm in 260 Social Science.

Faculty and graduate students are invited for a workshop and lunch with Quadrant visiting scholar Melissa Autumn White, assistant professor of gender and women's studies at the University of British Columbia. Professor White will be here to share and discuss material from her book-in-progress, "Ambivalent Belongings: Regarding Queer (Im)Mobilities in an Age of Global Apartheid." Here is the schedule for her public lecture and workshop /lunch:
Friday, November 30, 2012 - 3:30pm - 5:00pm, 445 Blegen Hall: Public Lecture
Monday, December 3, 12-1:30, Social Sci 260, lunch and workshop on the chapter, "Desiring the State's Desire": Ambivalent Homonationalisms and Territorialized Belongings
(RSVP to sign up, please)
Lecture Description:
"Documenting the Undocumented: Queer/No Borders/Migrant Strategies of Resistance and Transformation"
This talk explores the ways that contemporary queer and migrant justice networks in Canada and the United States are organizing around documenting the undocumented/undocumentable. Drawing on recent representations of such organizing--including media accounts of Toronto-based efforts to stay the deportation of illegalized queer artist Alvaro Orozco ("Let Alvaro Stay," 2011) and the social media tactics of the U.S.-based Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project (QUIP)--this talk engages contemporary queer "no borders" tactics and affects, and particularly the ways in which the content and form of activism colludes with and/or evades state tendencies of thought. How/are such networks rethinking/re-enacting the very notions of "queer," "migrant," "the state," and "status" in relation to modes of recognition and address, and with what (affective) implications?
This Quadrant talk is given as part of the Geography Coffee Hour. Cookies and coffee available at 3:15 p.m.; the talk begins at 3:30.
Click here for a complete PDF on Melissa Autumn White's accomplishments, CV.pdf

Professor Andrew Hartman "A Trojan Horse for Social Engineering"

Professor Andrew Hartman presents "A Trojan Horse for Social Engineering: The Curriculum Wars in Recent American History on December 4th from 3:30-5:00pm in Walter Library Room 101.

Click here for the complete Hartman Talk description, HartmanTalk.docx

GWSS Colloquium Professor Jennifer Pierce

Professor Jennifer Pierce will present "Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash against Affirmative Action" as the final colloquium of the Gender Sexuality Power and Politics Colloquium on Friday November 30th at 12:15pm in 400 Ford Hall.

***This Friday, November 30th***
Jennifer Pierce
Professor, Department of American Studies
University of Minnesota
"Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash Against Affirmative Action"
12:15pm; 400 Ford Hall
Jennifer Pierce's new book, Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Gender, and the Backlash Against Affirmative Action (Stanford U Press, 2012), reconsiders white privilege and racial inequality by examining the backlash against affirmative action, recounting stories of elite professionals at a large corporation with a federally mandated affirmative action program as well as the broader cultural narratives about race, gender, and power that circulated in the news media and Hollywood films. Drawing on three different approaches - ethnography, narrative analysis, and fiction - the book conceptualizes the complexities of racial and gendered inequality in the contemporary United States. Pierce's talk for the GSPP Colloquium will focus on her ethnographic research with white male professionals.

New Course Offered in the School of Music

MUS 5950 SEC 003 "Music, Disability, and Society" will be taught by Alex Lubet this spring 2013 semester on Tuesdays from 6:00 - 9:00pm in 81 Ferguson Hall.

Click here for a complete PDF document,MD&S Poster.pdf

Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium with Professor Nancy Luxon

Professor Nancy Luxon will be presenting a chapter from her new book, "Breaking the Frame, Composing the Event," as part of the Minnesota Political Theory Colloquium Series. The talk will be held on Friday November 30th from 1:30-3:30pm in the Lippincott Room (Social Sciences Tower 1314).

Abstract:
This chapter concludes a book manuscript that pairs Freud's account of the clinical dynamics of psychoanalysis alongside Foucault's reading of the ancient practices of fearless speech (parrhesia). In its entirety, the manuscript argues that these two accounts offer different models for the educative process of self-cultivation, the personal relationships of authority that sustain it, and the modes of subjectivity that ensue. Having worked through the dynamics within these texts, this final chapter theorizes the movement from text to world. Theorists of subject-formation often move quickly past transitions from self-cultivation to political practice, or from rhetorical to political strategy. Moving these metaphoric competencies from text to world, however, is a different enterprise than exploring the play of signs in a text. In addition to the challenges of scale and scope, such strategies would need to consider those structures - but especially the influence of political elites and the media - that mediate political engagement. In the next section I will evaluate the steps that Freud and Foucault have already taken to move a certain set of "metaphoric competences" from textual exegesis to politics. Initially, their efforts evoke the substitution or "abuse of words" powerfully evoked in Nietzsche's catachresis. Although authorship could be conceived as an ability to appeal to figurations of some sort - through playful irony, metaphors, or images - on their own, these ultimately are insufficient to move from text to world, or from reading to authoring. Instead, I want to slow down and consider a few instances in which rhetorical strategies become over-stretched, before outlining ways these strategies might be further refined and adapted for politics. To do so, I will turn to literary theories of "breaking the frame," to consider those interpretive frames that compose political events and lines of action. My concern here is less to propose a theory of frame-breaking than to initiate a discussion of its techniques, applications, and effects.
Click here for complete abstract and chapter seven, Chapter Seven.pdf

ICGC Brown Bag Africans and Afro-Descendants in Portugal

Fernando Arenas will present "Africans and Afro-Descendants in Portugal: Continuity and Ruptures from Late Medieval to Postcolonial Times" as part of the ICGC Brown Bag Series. It will be held Friday November 30th at noon in 1210 Heller Hall.

For a complete brochure, click here.

Schocet Endowment Academic Awards for Spring 2013

The University's GLBTA Program's office is offering Steven J. Schochet Endowment Academic Awards for Excellence in GLBT Studies. These awards honor the excellence of currently enrolled U of M undergraduate or graduate GLBTA students advancing the generation and dissemination of knowledge, awareness, and research around GLBT topics and identities. Awardees will receive a minimum of $1,000 towards the Spring 2013 semester. Application deadline is Monday, December 10th by 2:00pm.



In accordance with their 20th Anniversary, the U of M's GLBTA Programs Office is excited to offer $20,000 in Steven J. Schochet Endowment Academic Awards for Excellence in GLBT Studies! These awards honor the excellence of currently enrolled GLBTA students advancing the generation and dissemination of knowledge, awareness, and research around GLBT topics and identities.
Awardees must be currently enrolled undergraduate or graduate students on any of the U of M campuses. Awardees will receive a minimum of $1,000 towards the Spring 2013 semester and will be honored at the Lavender Celebration & Awards Ceremony on the night of May 6, 2013. Applicants may apply in one or more of the following categories:
- Best Undergraduate Academic Paper
- Best Graduate Academic Paper
- Artistic Expression
- Health, Policy, & Practice
- Leadership & Service
Applications are available via the following link, which offers additional information about each category - https://diversity.umn.edu/glbta/schochetawards - Application forms & any supplemental materials should be submitted to glbtapo@umn.edu by 2:00pm on Monday, December 10.

CFP: "Consent: Terms of Agreement"

Indiana University-Bloomington is hosting an International Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference "Consent: Terms of Agreement" from March 21st-23rd, 2013. Submissions are invited for this conference which will explore both the cultural and practiced significance of "consent". EXTENDED submission deadline is Tuesday, January, 15th, 2013.

There is a Call for Proposals for scholarly and creative submissions for an International Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference entitled, "Consent: Terms of Agreement," to be held at Indiana University - Bloomington from March 21-23, 2013. Their 10th annual conference, is hosted by the graduate students of the IU Department of English.
Details:
Consent: We click it any time we download a new software program. We are required to give it for medical procedures. Spoken or implied, it struggles to articulate our desires and will. Without it, numerous laws can be broken and our senses of agency violated.
We cannot disentangle it from larger structures of power, either. Antonio Gramsci defines hegemony, for example, as "characterized by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent." The American Declaration of Independence stipulates that consent is required to govern a people; that the freely governed "cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent." As a term, "consent" is something with which scholars and theorists across the disciplines must grapple; a concept that experts, from medical and legal ethics to web and software design, must constantly define and employ in their practices outside of the academy.
This conference explores both the cultural and practiced significance of "consent," welcoming papers on its diverse meanings and modes of representation: from issues in the consent to be governed to reading a text that resists interpretations; from felicitous utterances gone awry to the struggle for speaking and acknowledging desires between two or more people. Tracing the theoretical, formal, and political implications of this issue requires a variety of methodologies and perspectives, so we particularly encourage interdisciplinary and applied approaches that consider any time period, place, or practice. Below are some suggestions for possible topics. While this list is by no means exhaustive, we hope these ideas might inspire some exciting new thoughts related to the conference theme:
- Aesthetic and collaborative production
- Reading as consent, perception
- Narrative choice, authorship and authority
- Canon building, genre
- Professional ethics: medical, legal, business, public health, IRBs, etc
- Social contract, governing and the governed
- Sovereignty, agency
- National and cultural affiliations
- Informed/uninformed, implied and non-verbal forms of consent
- Resistance/Rejection
- Bodies in contact and intercorporeality
- Con/sensual intimacies, kinship
- Gendered, Sexual, Queer politics of consent
- Privacy, agreement contracts, legal theory
- Piracy (actual and digital), criminality, cons, manipulations
- Age of Consent
- Imprisonment, torture, trial, coercion, force
- Public spheres, marketplace
- Crowd sourcing, "liking" and likeness
- Human-animal relationships and posthumanism
- Environmental and ecological resources
- Game theory, rationality, suspension of disbelief
- Dis/Consensus and synthesis
We invite proposals for individual papers as well as panels organized by topic. We also welcome the interaction of scholarly and creative work within papers or panels. Please submit (both as an attachment AND in the body of the email) an abstract of no more than 250 words along with a few personal details (name, institutional affiliation, degree level, email, and phone number) by January 15th, 2013, to iugradconference@gmail.com.
Visit our web site (http://www.indiana.edu/~engsac/conference/) for the complete CFP and additional information in the coming weeks!

Libraries have trial access to African American Periodicals and Newspapers

The Libraries now have trial access to African American Periodicals, 1825-1995 and African American Newspapers, 1827-1998 available from Readex. Our trial access is up and running through December 7. These databases (along with others we do not have trial access to) are available at: http://infoweb.newsbank.com.

Click these for a guide to African American Periodicals and African American Newspapers.

Black Studies and American Studies at the Crossroads remaining lectures

Yuichiro Onishi presents"Transpacific Antiracism: Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th Century Black America, Japan and Okinawa." This is the third lecture in the Black Studies and American Studies at the Crossroads series and will be held on Monday, November 26th in room 105 Scott Hall. For an event flier for this lecture and the remaining lectures in the series, please continue reading.

Yuichiro Onishi presents "Transpacific Antiracism: Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th Century Black America, Japan and Okinawa." This will be held on Monday, November 26th at 3:30pm in room 105 Scott Hall. Click here for a flyer for his event.
Keith Mayes presents "Silencing Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown: The First Amendment and the Politics of Speaking Freely in the Cold War." This will be held on Monday, February 18th at 3:30pm in 815 Social Sciences Building.
Anissa Wardi of Chatham University presents "African American Literature: An Ecocritical Perspective." This will be held on Monday, March 11th at 3:30pm in 815 Social Sciences Building.
To conclude the series there will be the Annual David Noble lecture featuring University of Michigan Professor and University of Minnesota American Studies Alumni (PhD '00) Tiya Miles on Tuesday, April 9th. Location TBD.
Click here for a flyer to the remaining events in the series.

University of Wisconsin's Law and Society Post-doctoral Fellowship

The Institute for Legal Studies of the University of Wisconsin Law School will appoint a law and society post-doctoral fellow for the 2013-14 academic year. We invite applications from humanities and social sciences scholars who are in the early (pre-tenure) stage of their career. Advanced ABD graduate students may apply, but the PhD must be completed before beginning the fellowship. The stipend will be $25,000, plus a research allowance of $5,000 and benefits that include health insurance. Application deadline is January 10th, 2013.

Click here for a link to their website.

Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History

The American Society for Legal History and the Institute for Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin Law School are pleased to invite applications for the seventh biennial Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History. The two-week program is structured but informal, and features presentations by guest scholars, discussions of core readings in legal history, and analysis of the work of the participants in the Institute. Preference will be given to applications from scholars in the early stage of their career (beginning faculty members, doctoral students who have completed or almost completed their dissertations, and J.D. graduates with appropriate backgrounds). Application period is from December 1st-January 15th.

Click here for a link to their website.

CFP: Humanity and Society media reviews

The official journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology Humanity and Society invites media reviews on a wide variety of topics but is particularly interested in media presentations that are relevant to humanist sociology. The journal welcomes reviewers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives, including activists, graduate students, and practitioners in fields other than sociology. For more information, please continue reading.

Humanity and Society recognizing the multiple modalities of communication and how these presentations enhance our sociological understanding of the complex realities of the 21st century.
Humanity and Society , the journal of the Association for Humanist Sociology, announces the introduction of media reviews.
We invite reviewers of sociological messages in:
- Photography
- Web-based art
- Websites
- Popular films and documentaries
- Radio broadcasts
- Multimedia presentations.
We also invite suggestions for media reviews. Please note that book reviews can be sent to our book review editor at RJ-Hironimus-Wendt@wiu.edu.
As a generalist journal, Humanity & Society publishes media reviews on a wide variety of topics. We are particularly interested in media presentations that are relevant to humanist sociology. Humanist sociology is broadly defined as a sociology that views people not only as products of social forces but also as agents in their lives and the world. We are committed to a sociology that contributes to a more humane, equal, and just society.
The journal welcomes reviewers from diverse backgrounds and with diverse perspectives, including activists, graduate students, and practitioners in fields other than sociology. Potential reviewers are also encouraged to contact the Editor with suggestions for reviews in their areas of interest and expertise.
Agreement to prepare a review for Humanity & Society assumes that the reviewer has no substantial material or personal connection to the material or to the producer. Reviews in violation of this guideline will not be published.
Written submissions should not exceed 1000 words. Reviews should also include your: Name: Position: Media Outlet: Mailing Address: Email Address: And the titles and dates published, along with URLs for electronic and multimedia presentations. If you think any additional contextual information would be useful, please include it with your submission/review. To review for Humanity & Society, or to offer suggestions for reviews, please contact our Media Editor, Pamela Anne Quiroz, with a brief summary of your chosen review (paquiroz@uic.edu). We look forward to hearing from you and Thank You for your contributions!
For a link to their website, click here.

University of Michigan- Ann Arbor graduate student conference "Animal Representation"

The University of Michigan Rackham Animal Studies Workshop is holding a graduate student conference with the theme of "Animal Representation" with keynote speaker Nigel Rothfels on February 8th-9th, 2013. They are looking for panel and individual paper proposals from a wide range of disciplines surrounding their theme. Submission deadline is Saturday, December 1st, 2012.

Conference Title: Animal Representation
Conference Dates: February 8-9, 2013
Location: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Keynote Speaker: Nigel Rothfels, author of *Savages and Beasts: The Birth of
the Modern Zoo* (2002), and editor of *Representing Animals* (2002)
The University of Michigan Rackham Animal Studies Workshop is holding a graduate student conference with the theme of "Animal Representation" on February
8-9, 2013. Nigel Rothfels will be the keynote speaker on Friday evening
with a reception afterwards, followed on Saturday by a full day of conference
presentations. We welcome panel and individual paper proposals from a wide
range of disciplines. Possible submissions may (but do not need to)
address some of the following areas:
- Translation between the human and the animal
- Critiques or defenses of the companionate turn
- Companionate, cohabiting, and/or incompanionate animals
- Liminality of animals
- Anthropomorphism (as gaze, as strategy) and speciesism
- Animals and instrumentality
- Animals, rights, and law
- Disability and animals
- Animal affect/feeling animals
- Technology and animals
- Sites and practices of animal representation (ex. taxidermy, reliquaries, zoos, museums, aquariums, collecting, hoarding, etc.)
- Gendering of animals
- Resistant animal actors (revenge, rebellion, uprising, undesirability, untouchability)
Interested participants should submit a title and abstract (500 words maximum)
to representinganimals2013@umich.edu by *December 1, 2012*. Panel proposals
should conform to a slot of 60 minutes; individual paper submissions should
be no more than 20 minutes long. Participants will be notified of their
acceptance by December 15, 2012.

Guant√°namo Public Memory Project open house

The Guant√°namo Public Memory Project open house will be held on Tuesday, December 11th, 2012 from 7-8:30pm at 1210 Heller Hall. Join the students involved in the project and hear about the innovative work that they have done in the public history Guant√°namo Project course, taught by Jean O'Brien and Kevin Murphy.

GUANTÁNAMO PUBLIC MEMORY PROJECT
open house

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2012
7 - 8:30 p.m. | Program: 7:15 - 8:00 p.m.
1210 Heller Hall, U of M West Bank

Meet our students and hear about the innovative work
that they have done on the Guant√°namo Public Memory Project.

- - -
The University of Minnesota is one of 12 U.S. universities participating in the Guant√°namo Public Memory Project, which facilitates intense and ongoing public debates on the possibilities and pitfalls of "remembering" Guant√°namo.
Public history students in the Guant√°namo Project course, co-taught by professors Jean O'Brien and Kevin Murphy, are researching and creating interactive digital projects on the past and future of Guant√°namo and have contributed content to a traveling exhibition that will visit the Minnesota History Center in winter 2014.
Click here to RSVP.

PCard Receipts Due

Please submit receipts for all November PCard purchases to Laura by Friday, November 30th.

For a generic coversheet, please click here.

CFP: EXTENDED DEADLINE for 14th Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History

The Executive Committee of the Fourteenth Annual Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is pleased to announce a call for papers. The Symposium is scheduled for February 28th-March 1st, 2013. Submissions from graduate students from any institution and discipline on any topic in the field of women's and gender history are invited. Submission Deadline: EXTENDED TO November 29, 2012.

Announcing the 2013 Graduate Symposium on Women's and Gender History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, February 28-March 1, 2013:

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 29, 2012 (NEW DEADLINE) to gendersymp@gmail.com.

New courses in the department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch studies

The department of German, Scandinavian and Dutch studies has recently added two courses for the spring semester. These courses will be taught in English - no knowledge of Dutch or German is necessary (though credit toward a GSD major or minor does require some coursework in the target language).
DTCH 3510 Topics in Dutch Culture: Sex, Drugs, and Radicalism: Amsterdam & Brussels
Description: If we are to believe Fox News and conservative American politicians, the Netherlands are a country where "coffeehouses are crammed with happy stoners enjoying decriminalized hashish and marihuana, shopping for sex in Amsterdam's RLD is as simple as shopping for clothes anywhere else, full-fledged gay marriage is also legal, as are weddings with more than two people." Nobody goes to church, and doctors are allowed to euthanize feeble looking elderly people and infants with no perspective on life. Indeed, "Amsterdam is a cesspool of corruption, crime, everything is out of control. It's anarchy." So says Fox. Is this really what the Netherlands are all about? Belgium, on the other hand, rarely attracts outside attention: it has the reputation of being one of the dullest countries in the world, inhabited only by friendly people who eat mussels with French fries and mayonnaise, make fine chocolate and produce delicious beers. Actually, Belgium is anything but boring; it is in fact one of the strangest countries in the world. To begin with, their national monument is a little boy that pisses in public, their landmark building is made exclusively out of balls and for over 150 years, Belgium has produced the best experts in engineering the most inefficient political structure. Belgium excels in making everything as complicated as possible, in their three official languages of course. But in Belgium, people do not all need to be on the same wavelength. Their diversity is their greatest strength, their creativity their greatest commodity, their non-conformity their greatest virtue. Using text and images, this course takes students deeper into the culture of the Netherlands and Belgium. It is designed to engage students in meaningful discussions on current topics such as multiculturalism, right-winged politics, euthanasia, abortion, and legal prostitution. We will approach these issues in a nuanced manner and with a healthy dose of social criticism. In Belgium and the Netherlands, laughing is serious business, so the course will have its fair share of humor and the good life.
Instructor: Detailleur,Paulien
3 credits
05:45 P.M. - 08:15 P.M. , M (01/22/2013 - 05/10/2013) , PeikH 335 , TCEASTBANK
Click here for a flier for the new class.
GER 3610 German Literature in Translation: Defense Against the Dark Arts: Evil in Film & Lit
Description: Sure, you know about the connection between the Brothers Grimm and Disney's Snow White. But what about Franz Kafka and Harry Potter? ETA Hoffmann and the Terminator? This course will focus on conceptions of evil in German film and literature that are familiar in American popular culture as well. Students will learn about the German origins/inflections of several common villain figures in American popular culture such as witches, vampires, robots, Nazis, communists, and terrorists. We will explore how these figures embody evil and, with the help of film clips from Disney classics to Harry Potter, how they are neutralized or defeated in German and American media. This course will develop appreciation of how representations of evil vary over time and across cultural settings. It will encourage critical reflection on the binary of good and evil as well as its political usefulness. What purpose did (do) these evil figures serve? How do German and American understandings of these figures compare? To what extent do different conceptions of evil reflect the fears, anxieties and desires of a cultural group? This course will be taught in English, but can be used toward the German major or minor if extra work is done in German.
Class Time: 40% Lecture, 20% Film/Video, 30% Discussion, 10% Student Presentation.
Work Load: 20-30 pages reading per week.
Grade: 40% special projects, 10% reflection paper, 20% in-class presentation, 30% class participation.
Instructor: Lawton,Lindsay Jorgensen
3 credits
09:45 A.M. - 11:00 A.M. , M,W (01/22/2013 - 05/10/2013) , FordH 150 , TCEASTBANK
Click here for a flier for the new class.

If you plan to apply for the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund Fellowship, notify Melanie by Monday, November 19 at 12:00pm Noon

If you plan to apply for the Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund Fellowship, please notify Melanie (stein196@umn.edu) of your intent to apply by Monday, November 19 at 12:00pm Noon. Melanie will then be in contact with you directly regarding the internal application deadline. Please note that because the Department received late notice of this award, a short turn-around time for application materials will be necessary. Click here for information about the Fellowship.

ICGC Brown Bag "Little and little fills a measure: Family Adaptive Strategies in Rural Tanzania"

June Msechu will present "Little and Little Fills a Measure: Family Adaptive Strategies in Rural Tanzania" as part of the ICGC Brown Bag Series this Friday, November 16th at 12pm in 537 Heller Hall.

For an event flier with talk description, please click here.
For the complete Fall 2012 ICGC brown bag schedule, please click here.

Procedure for Requesting the use of American Studies Department Funds for Research and Conference Travel

Grad students are able to request the use of Department funds for research and conference travel on an on-going basis. Continue reading for more information and the procedure for requesting the use of funds.

All American Studies graduate students are provided up to $1500 in department Research and Conference Travel funding over the course of your graduate career. Requests are limited to $500 per instance. Because the funds are limited, you are encouraged to apply for outside sources and to rely on this department funding only when you are unable to secure outside funding. Good sources include conference organizations and "best paper" competitions. The following is a list of several
University web sites with information about additional funding opportunities:
http://www.grad.umn.edu/prospective_students/Financing/other.html
https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/gapsa/home/grants/scholarly-travel-grants
http://www.cogs.umn.edu/awards.html
http://global.umn.edu/funding/grad.html
You may request funding as soon as the criteria for each allocation are met. The typical response time in which you will receive a reply indicating whether or not your request has been approved is two weeks. Note: Funds are distributed after the travel takes place in the form of a reimbursement for specific expenses incurred. Please review the specific processes below and contact Melanie Steinman if you have any questions.
Requesting Funds for Conference Travel
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American Studies grad students in active status may request funding to travel to scholarly conferences to present a research paper. We will not provide funds for presenting the same paper at more than one conference.
Criteria for conference travel funding:
• You are in good standing
• You have been accepted to present research at a conference
• Your total claim from the research and conference travel funds has not exceeded $1500
To request conference travel funds, email Melanie Steinman, stein196@umn.edu, with the following:
• Student ID# and name of adviser(s)
• Proof of acceptance to present at conference
• Paper title and conference name, date, and location (if not indicated on proof of acceptance)
• Amount requested (not to exceed $500) with detailed budget proposal
• For students traveling internationally: Proof of University-issued international insurance OR approved waiver http://global.umn.edu/travel/approval/index.html AND TRAVEL APPROVAL, IF NECESSARY http://global.umn.edu/travel/approval/index.html
• DO NOT submit receipts with your request. Approved requests will include instruction for submitting reimbursement form with receipts.
Please note, we prefer, as proof of acceptance to present at conference, a PDF of the conference program page showing the session in which you will participating. However, a forwarded email from the conference organizers or hard copy acceptance letter will also suffice.
Requesting Funds for Research Travel
******************************************************************************
American Studies grad students in active status may request funds to cover expenses related to dissertation research. Covered expenses include travel costs and reproduction of essential documents and images.
Criteria for research funding:
• You are in good standing
• You have successfully completed the preliminary portfolio exam
• Proposed research is clearly connected to dissertation
• Proposal clearly establishes a justification for research (e.g. travel to an archive to investigate materials not otherwise available)
• Proposal sets out a sound research design
• Your total claim from the research and conference travel funds has not exceeded $1500
To request research travel funds, email Melanie Steinman, stein196@umn.edu, with the following:
• Student ID# and name of adviser(s)
• One page description of your project, including title
• Up to a one page research proposal clearly describing in detail the research you will undertake (be as specific as possible about the use of archives, libraries, interviews, etc)
• Amount requested (not to exceed $500) with detailed budget proposal
• For students traveling internationally: Proof of University-issued international insurance OR approved waiver http://global.umn.edu/travel/approval/index.html AND TRAVEL APPROVAL, IF NECESSARY http://global.umn.edu/travel/approval/index.html .
• DO NOT submit receipts with your request. Approved requests will include instruction for submitting reimbursement form with receipts.

CFP: "Virtual Identities and Self Promotion"

Submissions are invited for the 2013 PCA/ACA National Conference "Virtual Identities and Self Promotion". The conference aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues surrounding creating a sense of self in online environments and will be held in Washington, DC March 27th-30th, 2013. Submission deadline: November 30th, 2012.

Call for Papers:
Virtual Identities and Self Promotion aims to examine, explore and critically engage with the issues surrounding creating a sense of self in online environments. Undoubtedly, our experience of the web is changing and has changed our identity both on and offline. Many of us have used online environments to explore the fluidity of self expression as an "identity laboratory." Almost everyone in today's age has experienced some kind of online identity play, whether through playing an online game, participating in social networking sites, writing a blog, creating a website, commenting on an article, or contributing to updates on twitter. Many users present an idealized "me", specifically shaped for our various audiences. These new technologies have changed the way we think and how we have constructed our identities and consequently have informed our relationships and interactions within both online and offline arenas.
We invite submissions investigating and exploring virtual identity creation and self promotion, including but not limited to the ways in which users:
· -- Use social media to create identity professionally, personally, socially, academically
· --Socially construct (gender, race, sex, etc) their identity in online environments including social media, and other online communities
· -- Use online technology in order to study language, communication, and identity construction
· -- Construct and reconstruct themselves in arenas promoting user-generated content, such as youtube
· -- Surveil, adapt, and/or censor their online identities and content, changing the nature of digital expression
· --Create digital artifacts as a way of self discovery and identity construction
· -- Negotiate online identity with physical identity socially, professionally, and academically
· --Use online interactions for validation of self, emotionally and/or intellectually
· --Are affected by interface design in their online experiences as well as their identity
Please submit all email abstracts through PCA 2.0
http://ncp.pcaaca.org
by November 30th, 2012.
For any questions, please contact:
Jennifer Consilio
Associate Professor of English
Writing Center Director
Lewis University
consilje@lewisu.edu
815-836-5727

The James Smithson Fellowship Program for Post-Doctoral Students

The Smithsonian Institution invites applications for the 2013 James Smithson Fellowship Program for post-doctoral students in the fields of science, the humanities and the arts. The fellowships will offer an early career opportunity for scholars interested in gaining experience in both scholarship and policy through a Smithsonian lens. Candidates must be not more than five years beyond receipt of their PhD by December 31st, 2012. Application deadline: January 15th, 2013. Click here for complete requirements and application information.

Yuichiro Onishi Talk on Nov. 26th at 3:30pm

Yuichiro Onishi presents "Transpacific Antiracism: Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th Century Black America, Japan and Okinawa." This is the third lecture in the Black Studies and American Studies at the Crossroads series and will be held on Monday, November 26th at 3:30pm in room 105 Scott Hall.

Click here for an event flier.
Yuichiro Onishi will discuss his forthcoming book Transpacific Antiracism. The book introduces the dynamic process out of which diverse constituents of social movements in Black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities against white supremacy in the twentieth century. It argues that in the context of forging Afro-Asian solidarities, race emerged as a political category of struggle with a distinct moral quality and vitality.
This book explores the work of Black intellectual-activists of the first half of the twentieth century, including Hubert Harrison and W. E. B. Du Bois, that took a pro-Japan stance to articulate the connection between local and global dimensions of antiracism. Turning to two places rarely seen as a part of the Black experience, Japan and Okinawa, the book also presents the accounts of a group of Japanese scholars shaping the Black studies movement in post-surrender Japan and multiracial coalition-building in U.S.-occupied Okinawa during the height of the Vietnam War which brought together local activists, peace activists, and antiracist and antiwar GIs. Together these cases of Afro-Asian solidarity make known political discourses and projects that reworked the concept of race to become a wellspring of aspiration for a new society.
Yuichiro Onishi is assistant professor of African American and African Studies and Asian American Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is the author of Transpacific Antiracism: Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th-Century Black America, Japan, and Okinawa, forthcoming from NYU Press in July 2013. In addition, his American Quarterly essay titled "Occupied Okinawa on the Edge" will be published in December 2012. His essays have appeared in XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics, Journal of African American History, and Extending the Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2009).
Click here to view full lecture series schedule: Black Studies and American Studies at the Crossroads series.

CFP: Two Praeger Publishers Volume Series

Praeger Publishers seeks proposals for two of their series: "Racism in American Institutions" and "Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in America." Both are open-ended series of one-volume works. Continue reading for both series descriptions and more info.

1. Call For Proposals New Praeger Series!
"Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in America"
Series content:
The intersections of racial and ethnic culture within the dominant American white culture re-veal challenges and tensions. This open-ended series of one-volume works (each 105,000 - 135,000 words long) will examine changing and often controversial issues in racial and ethnic culture in the U.S. Projects will explore the intersections of race and
ethnicity with gender, sexuality, religion, class, nation, and citizenship. These titles uncover and explore racial ten-sions, stereotypes, and cultural appropriation, as well as celebrate cultural forms, influential people, and critical events that shape today's
American culture.
This fascinating new series complements our reference series-Cultures of the American Mo-saic-by exploring often controversial issues in America's ethnic cultures. Addressing hot top-ics of yesterday and today, the series will appeal to both general and academic libraries and a wide range of readers interested in American and ethnic cultures.
Series Editor: Gary Okihiro, Columbia University Gary Y. Okihiro is a professor of international and public affairs and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race at Columbia University. He is author of ten books, including his latest two of a trilogy on space/time, Island World: A History of Hawai'i and
the United States (2008) and Pineapple Culture: A History of the Tropical and Temperate Zones (2009), both from the University of California Press. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Studies Association, received an honorary doctorate from the University of the Ryukyus, and is a past president of the Association for Asian Ameri-can Studies. He is also the author of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Japanese American In-ternment (2014). http://garyokihiro.com/
Examples of potential topics/titles:
* Appropriation of American Indians in popular culture - film, television, fashion, sports
* The Model Minority Myth: Beyond the stereotypes of Asians in America
* From Navajo Prints to Wiggers: Appropriating ethnic culture in the name of fashion
* Hip Hop Goes Mainstream and the Impact on African American Culture
* African American Women and Islam: Tensions between Liberation and Oppression
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2. Call For Proposals Praeger is seeking proposals for our Racism in American Institutions
Series content:
Despite the fact that America has elected its first Black President, racism has historically been a problem in our society and continues to be a problem today. We may have done away with such overt racist policies as the Jim Crow laws and school segregation, but covert racism still affects many of America's established institutions from our public schools to our corporate of-fices. For instance, schools may not be legally segregated, but take a look at some of the schools in wealthier suburban areas where there are few minority students. What racist policies both in the housing market and in the school systems might be contributing to the fact that many schools have so few students of color? Or look into our prisons. What racist policies within our legal and prison systems might account for the fact that so many people of color are behind bars and are being kept there?
This open-ended series of one-volume works (each 70,000 - 90,000 words long) will examine the problem of racism in established American institutions. Each volume will trace the preva-lence of racism within that institution throughout the history of our country and will then ex-plore the problem in that institution today, looking at ways in which the institution has changed to fight against racism as well as at ways in which it has not. Special attention will be paid to the ways in which racism within each institution has harmed not only individuals but also the institution itself, and solutions, with examples of successful programs, if available and applica-ble, to the problem of racism within each institution will be provided.
Series Editor:
Brian Behnken, Ph.D. is an expert in 20th century United States history and specializes in the fields of African American and Mexican American history. His published and forthcoming books explore relations between Latinos and blacks during the civil rights period. He is a mem-ber of the faculty in the Department of History and the U.S. Latino/a Studies Program at Iowa State University. More information on Dr. Behnken can be found on his website, www.briandbehnken.com. He is a assistant professor in history and Latino/a studies at Iowa State University.
Examples of potential topics/titles:
Racism in Politics, Racism in Corporate America, Racism in Academia, Racism in the Public Schools, Racism in the Medical Profession, Racism in the Prison System, Racism in the Legal System, Racism in Religious Institutions, Racism in Journalism, Racism in the Entertainment Industry, Racism in the Housing Market, Racism in Mental Health and Social Work Fields
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CONTACT for questions or submissions for both series:
Kim Kennedy White, Ph.D.
Senior Acquisitions Editor, American Mosaic
ABC-Clio/Greenwood/Praeger
kkennedy-white@abc-clio.com
303-385-1609
http://www.abc-clio.com

MNHS Spring 2013 Internship Opportunities

The Minnesota Historical Society is seeking graduate and undergraduate interns for spring semester of 2013. Deadline for applying is November 18, 2012. Continue reading for more information.

For Spring 2013, we have 20 positions available across 30+ majors in 16 departments. Five of these positions are paid, and we also offer a limited number of stipends for students who are from communities of color currently underrepresented in the Society and the public history field. Students from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply. A list of these opportunities is attached to this email and the details can be found on our website at: http://www.mnhs.org/about/interns/ The semester internships starts with Orientation on January 8, 2013 and runs through the end of May. The deadline for applying is November 18, 2012. Students who are interested in future opportunities are encouraged to "like" our facebook page for early notifications of internship opportunities as well as insights into the program. They can find us on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/MHSinterns.
For full PDF for Available Sprint Internships, Spring 2013 Available Opportunities.pdf

Curriculum & Instruction Diversity Dialogue Friday 11/16

The Curriculum and Instruction Diversity Dialogue presents "Constructing the Innocent Classroom: Rethinking Teacher-Student Relationships" with Alexs Pate on Friday, November 16th, 2012 from 12:00pm-1:30pm in 355 Peik.

Curriculum & Instruction Diversity Dialogue
Constructing the Innocent Classroom: Rethinking Teacher-Student Relationships
Alexs Pate, Ph.D.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Peik 355
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Pizza will be provided!
Throughout his career, the issues of guilt and innocence, especially as they impact people of color, have preoccupied much of Alexs Pate's writing and scholarship. He has developed a program that approaches academic performance by addressing the capacity of public schools to engage the innocence of their children. In this effort, he takes teachers beyond the boundaries of cultural proficiency and cultural competency and helps them understand better the way our society has burdened our children - especially children of color - with the weights of low expectation, stereotypes and negative narratives. Implemented in Omaha Public Schools, The Innocent Classroom helps teachers create more accurate and efficacious relationships with the goal of improving academic performance.
DD Poster 11-16.pdf

ICGC Distinguished Public Lecture featuring P.Sainath

The ICGC Distinguished Public Lecture will feature P.Sainath's presentation "India in the Age of Inequality: Farm Crisis, Food Crisis, and the Media". The event will take place on November 15th from 3:30-5:30pm in 1210 Heller Hall.

Presented by P. Sainath
Rural Affairs Editor, The Hindu and the McGraw Professor in Writing at Princeton University
While India has caught the attention of the world with it's growth rates and generation of wealth these past two decades, a much less-told side of the story remains: levels of inequality are higher than at any time since the days of the British Raj. The problems of hunger and deprivation are sharp and alarming. Distress migrations out of the countryside have risen dramatically. And the country is still to come out of its worst agrarian crisis since the even of the Green revolution. A lot of these problems and crises are driven not by natural calamity, but by policies that favour a very small segment of the population.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
3:30-5:00pm, 1210 Heller Hall
Talk followed by reception
Cosponsored by the Institute for Global Studies and the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Minnesota
Click here for an event flier.

CFP: "Beyond Production and Consumption: Refining American Material Culture Studies"

The American and New England Studies Program at Boston University seeks submissions for the conference: "Beyond Production and Consumption: Refining American Material Culture Studies" to be held on March 23rd, 2013. They invite submissions that engage material culture from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives and examine processes of appropriation, transformation, reclamation, or reinvention related to American material culture. Submission deadline: November 20th, 2012.

Beyond Production and Consumption: Refining American Material Culture Studies
Submission Deadline: November 30, 2012
Conference Date: Saturday, March 23, 2013
Call for Papers:
The American and New England Studies Program at Boston University is pleased to announce its 2013 graduate student conference: "Beyond Production and Consumption: Refining American Material Culture Studies." We invite submissions that engage material culture from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives and that examine processes of appropriation, transformation, reclamation, or reinvention related to American material culture. The conference seeks to enlarge our understanding of what Arjun Appadurai has identified as "the social life of things," and to extend the analytical and methodological processes that underpin material culture studies.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to: multivalent and/or mutable objects; transnational patterns in the use and categorization of objects; reclamation and redevelopment of the landscape; the labeling and rehabilitation of gray fields and/or brown fields; gentrification, adaptive use, and/or decay in urban and rural settings; objects relating to immigration and/or migration; the aesthetics of material transformation; literary representations and/or characterizations of the shifting meaning of things/objects; semiotic sign-shifting; material makeovers; popular representations of object processes [Storage Wars, Antiques Roadshow, etc.]; adaptations of objects, edifices, landscapes, over the course of time; transgressive or subversive objects; cultural attitudes towards material transformation; adaptations of the landscape and/or livestock through agriculture; those who reclaim/reinvent/repurpose objects [pickers, pawners/hockers, traders, advertisers, peddlers]; the shifting meanings and/or instabilities of "craftsmanship" in a global economy; the recycling of fashion and trends; appropriation and transformation through bodily actions [using, eating, watching, performing]; notions of expiration [foods, shelf life, fads, excess].
The Graduate Student Association of the American and New England Studies Program at Boston University is committed to collaborative scholarship and encourages graduate students in all fields with interdisciplinary interests related to American material culture to submit proposals for twenty-minute presentations. A successful proposal will identify its sources and methodology and will be analytic rather than descriptive. The conference will be held on Saturday, March 23, 2013 on Boston University's Charles River Campus. Submit abstracts of no more than 250 words and a two-page CV to: beyondproductionconsumption@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is November 30, 2012. Successful applicants will be notified before Friday, January 11.
This event is sponsored by the Graduate Student Association of the American and New England Studies Program, the American and New England Studies Program at Boston University, and the Boston University Center for the Humanities.
For Full Description in PDF, click here.

CFP: "Academics IRL: Taking Scholarship out of the Ivory Tower"

The American Studies Department at Purdue University invites submissions for the 38th Annual Graduate Symposium to be held April 17th-19th, 2013. They invite papers from students of all disciplines to engage the theme "Academics IRL: Taking Scholarship Out of the Ivory Tower." Submission deadline: January 12th, 2013. Click here for the complete call for papers.

Tenure-track Assistant Professor in IAS at Univ. of Washington -Tacoma

The University of Washington Tacoma invites applications for a full time tenure-track Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (IAS) to begin fall 2013. An ideal candidate will be specialized in Gender/Intersectionality (race, class, and gender broadly defined) with preference for a scholar trained in Latino/a Studies. Application deadline: November 27th, 2012.

University of Washington Tacoma
Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Assistant Professor of Gender Studies/Intersectionality
The University of Washington Tacoma invites applications for a full time tenure-track Assistant Professor in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (IAS). The successful candidate will be an intellectually expansive scholar trained in any field in the humanities, social sciences or a related interdisciplinary field specializing in Gender/Intersectionality (race, class, and gender broadly defined) with preference for a scholar trained in Latino/a Studies. She/he will be expected to engage in creative research and to develop and teach a range of classes, and will also contribute to our curricular offerings in womens studies. We seek an interdisciplinary scholar ready to further UWTs goal of building a culturally diverse educational environment, and who is eager to integrate new pedagogical techniques and technologies into teaching/learning.
The position primarily contributes to an interdisciplinary major in Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies but also contributes to other interdisciplinary majors at UWT, such as: Arts, Media and Culture; Criminal Justice; American Studies; Hispanic Studies; and Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.
The position begins September 16, 2013, requires an earned doctorate, and is contingent on funding. Candidates in the final stages of their dissertation will be appointed on an acting basis.
IAS offers a range of innovative interdisciplinary majors. We welcome applicants representing diverse perspectives and approaches. One of three University of Washington campuses, UWT is located in new and historic facilities in downtown Tacoma and serves students of a wide range of ages and backgrounds in the South Puget Sound region. The South Sound is a beautiful place to live with outstanding opportunities for both cultural and recreational activities. It also has vibrant business and nonprofit communities including organizations like the world-renowned Museum of Glass, Tacoma Art Museum, Amazon, Boeing, Microsoft, Nordstrom, RealNetworks, Starbucks, Weyerhaeuser, the Port of Tacoma, and more. For more information on UWT, visit our website at https://www.tacoma.uw.edu.
To apply, please submit an application including: 1) a cover letter delineating your interests and qualifications, a description of your research agenda, teaching experience, and previous activities mentoring minorities, women, or members of other under-represented groups, 2) your curriculum vitae, including a list of courses taught, 3) an article length writing sample, 4) a statement of your teaching philosophy, and evidence of teaching effectiveness, and 5) three letters of reference. Submit all application materials through https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/2246. Application materials, including letters of recommendation, received via email will not be considered. Screening of applicants will begin November 27, 2012 and will continue until the position is filled. For further information, e-mail Dr. Luther Adams, search chair, at

Click here for application page.

The University of Washington is an affirmative action, equal opportunity employer. The University is building a culturally diverse faculty and staff and strongly encourages applications from women, racial/ethnic minority group members, individuals with disabilities, and covered veterans. If you have a question about the details of this search/position please contact that hiring unit directly. All University of Washington Tacoma faculty engage in teaching, research and service.

Trans-Scripts 2013 Call for Papers: "Thinking Activism"

The interdisciplinary online journal Trans-Scripts invites graduate students to submit work for the publication's third volume "Thinking Activism." They seek submissions in the humanities and social sciences that focus on the productive intersections of scholarship and activism, as well as submissions that address the differences between these two modes of thinking and doing. Submission deadline is Tuesday, January 1st, 2013.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Trans-Scripts, an interdisciplinary online journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences at UC Irvine
Volume III, Spring 2013:
"Thinking Activism"

Trans-Scripts - an interdisciplinary online journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of California, Irvine - invites graduate students to submit their work for publication. The theme of the third volume is "Thinking Activism."
In The Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha reflects, "There are many forms of political writing whose different effects are obscured when they are divided between the „theoretical‟ and the „activist‟." Scholars in the humanities and social sciences have long struggled to position their own subjective experiences and investments in relation to the scholarship they produce. Some choose to situate their research between two competing poles of theory and activism. Others, like Bhabha, argue against constructing an arbitrary distinction between the two, positing instead that scholarship is activism, and vice-versa.
Activism can take many forms; as an intellectual labor, it challenges current structures of knowledge production and has the potential to reinvent the university‚Äüs role within and against the cultures that sponsor it. To that end, we seek submissions in the humanities and social sciences that focus on the productive intersections of scholarship (what some might call "theory") and activism (what some might call "practice"), as well as submissions that address the differences between these two modes of thinking and doing.
The popular democratic protests of the last few years make it all the more crucial that we address the ways in which our own positionality or privilege is enabled by systems of power that actively work to dispossess people. It is important, now more than ever, for academic scholarship to address its relationship to activism, in an attempt to provide new meaning to the purpose and direction of academic research. The concerns outlined here have produced and are productive of critical scholarship in a vast range of disciplines, including literature, law, medicine, rhetoric, anthropology, gender studies, sociology, English, economics, history, political science, and critical race studies, to name a few.
Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:
- Historical or theoretical examinations of activist movements, strategies, and tactics
- Coalition building across time, space, and issue areas; transnational networks of scholars and activists
- Post-recession governmental austerity measures and their social effects
- The privatization of higher education and student (financial) dispossession in the United States as well as abroad, where student movements, like the Chilean student protests (2011-2012), continue to demand educational reform.
- Conservative activism (i.e. the Tea Party) and the academy
- Social media (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) and social justice
- Prison-Industrial Complex and/or Criminal Justice
- Police brutality, including the limits and potentialities of law enforcement reform
- Radical visions for peace and public safety
- Rhetoric and democratic participation
- Immigration policy and reform
- Sexual violence
- Gender (in)equality, particularly in light of recent attempts to legislate women's bodies and healthcare in the United States, as well as its instantiations in different local contexts abroad.
- Marriage (in)equality, LGBT rights, and other homonormative forms of inclusion
- Significant budget cuts to social services, like those we have seen in the UK
- Religious discrimination and violence
- The relationship between text and critic
- The move towards public writing in Composition Studies
- Anthropology‚Äüs reflexive turn and other questions regarding the ethics of participant-observation (ethnography)
- Action-research methodologies
- Poverty and homelessness, particularly in light of recession-era global increases
- Death penalty debates
- Affirmative Action debates
- The personal as political, and other phenomenological extensions of feminist theory
- Protest as performance (and vice versa)
- Identity politics and its critiques
- Medical-Industrial Complex and/or Patient Advocacy
- Ability as a category of analysis/ The rise of Disability Studies
- Public space and free speech
- Critical Pedagogy and its discontents
- An examination of what is or should be the relationship between the community and the university
- Broad trends of anti-intellectualism or (conversely) academic exceptionalism
- Academic publication and the public sphere (i.e. academic freedom in publicly-funded universities)
- Thought crimes - the (literal) policing of radical ideology, both inside and outside of institutionalized educational environments
Trans-Scripts welcomes all submissions that engage topics related to activist-scholarship or activism more broadly. They may, but certainly need not, address the examples listed above. Submissions need not conform to any disciplinary or methodological criteria. They need only be original, well researched, and properly cited in MLA style. English language contributions from all universities in all countries will be considered. In addition, we welcome contributions from independent scholars who are not affiliated with any formal institution.
Faculty Contributors
In addition to selected student work, renowned academics will contribute editorial pieces, offering students the chance to place their work in conversation with experts in various fields. Past contributors have included Étienne Balibar, Hortense Spillers, Lee Edelman, and Roderick Ferguson.

Submission Guidelines and Review Process
The deadline for submission is January 1, 2013. All submissions should be written in English. The total word count should be between 3,000 and 12,000 words, including footnotes. Explanatory footnotes should be kept to a minimum. Submissions should employ the MLA style of citation (for further information on the journal‚Äüs submission guidelines and mission statement, see the journal website at http://www.humanities.uci.edu/collective/hctr/trans-scripts/index.html).
All pieces should be submitted as a Word document attached in an email to transscriptsjournal@ gmail.com. The email should include your name, institution (if you have one), program/department, and an email address at which you can be contacted. Please also include a short abstract of less than 300 words describing the content and argument of the piece.

Assistant Professor job opportunity at UNC-Chapel Hill

The department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill invites applications for a tenure-track job at the Assistant Professor level. Candidates should have demonstrable engagement with the application of digital technologies in research and teaching related to the study of the American experience. A PhD in American Studies is required by August 15th, 2013.

We aim to hire a promising scholar-teacher who will push the intellectual boundaries of our rich and diverse discipline and who appreciates the transformative potential of digital technologies for his/her own research and teaching agenda. Our new colleague will embrace the role digital technologies can play in expanding the audience for American Studies scholarship and in engaging a wider public. We expect his/her intellectual ambition, imagination, and resourcefulness to have a significant impact on our department, our university, and the field of American Studies. He/she will contribute to the new PhD program in American Studies, our graduate program in Folklore, and to a broader graduate curriculum in digital humanities, training students both for traditional academic jobs as well as a variety of new professions in the public sphere; develop innovative graduate and undergraduate courses exploring the methodological and intellectual diversity of the field; further the work of the department through effective engagement with cultural organizations and non-academic audiences, particularly around issues affecting the state and region; and participate in interdisciplinary research collaborations.
A Ph.D.in American Studies or a related field is required (degree in-hand by August 15, 2013).
Candidates should have demonstrable engagement with the application of digital technologies in research and teaching related to the study of the American experience.
Our new colleague will also contribute to the broader Carolina Digital Humanities Initiative. Supported by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the CDHI is designed to offer an adaptable and sustainable model of transformative academic practice for the 21st century, which embraces research, teaching, engaged scholarship, and the dissemination of knowledge in the humanities. One of three new digital humanities hires in the College of Arts and Sciences anticipated over the next four years, he/she will contribute to and help shape the direction of the Digital Innovation Lab. The position carries a $50,000 start-up fund with the expectation that the candidate arrive on campus prepared to pursue a robust and innovative digital research agenda.
The Department of American Studies is an inclusive and dynamic fellowship of interdisciplinary interests devoted to the integrative study of the American experience. In addition to long-standing prominence in the historical study of cultural forms and practices, we offer distinctive strengths in American Indian Studies, Southern Studies, International/Comparative American Studies, Folklore, and material culture. We enjoy robust collaborative relationships across the University, including the Ackland Art Museum, Carolina Performing Arts, Center for the Study of the American South, Renaissance Computing Institute, and the University Library's Southern Historical and North Carolina Collections, as well as with local, regional, and global partners. Our new PhD program will emphasize collaborative, interdisciplinary work that will train students for multi-pronged career options, both within and beyond the Academy.
Candidates must apply online via http://unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/9129. Applications should include:
- Cover letter
- CV
- Statement of teaching philosophy and demonstration of teaching effectiveness
- A portfolio (uploaded as a single "other document") that contains: dissertation abstract, research statement, example of recent written scholarship (no more than article/chapter length), and evidence and discussion of engagement with digital technologies.
At the time of application candidates will be required to identify the names, titles, and email addresses of four professional references who can speak specifically to their qualifications, experience, and interests as they relate to the special role this position will serve for our department and university. The recommenders candidates identify will be contacted via email with instructions for uploading their recommendation letters. Please note that only individual reference letters will be accepted; recommendation letters sent via Interfolio or other reference services will not be accepted. Applications with less than four recommendation letters will be considered incomplete.
For more information about this position, please contact:
Dr. Robert C. Allen
Search Committee Chair and James Logan Godfrey Distinguished Professor of American Studies
Co-Director, Digital Innovation Lab
Department of American Studies
CB# 3520
UNC Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill NC 27599-3520
rallen@email.unc.edu

Charles Dickens Bicentennial Celebration

A Charles Dickens Bicentennial Celebration will be held on Thursday, Nov. 8th from 3-4:30pm and Friday Nov. 9th from 1-3pm in Lind Hall 207A. These events are presented by the Nineteenth Century Subfield and will feature Prof. James Eli Adams as the keynote speaker.

The Nineteenth Century Subfield Presents:

A Charles Dickens Bicentennial Celebration, November 8th and 9th

Thursday, November 8th, 3-4:30 p.m.
Our keynote speaker, Professor James Eli Adams of Columbia University, will present "At Home with Phil and George: Dickens, Domesticity, Desire." Professor Adams's most recent book, A History of Victorian Literature, was the winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Book of 2009. His other works include Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era (Editor-in-Chief), Sexualities in Victorian Britain (Editor), and Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Masculinity. Professor Adams's current project is entitled The Uses of Inheritance: Identity and Agency in Britain, 1789-1895.
Friday, November 9th, 1-3 p.m.
University of Minnesota Professors Anna Clark (Department of History), Michael Hancher (Department of English), and Gordon Hirsch (Department of English) will present on aspects of Dickens's life, illustrations of his novels, and a silent film of A Christmas Carol. Readings of Dickens's works and fun Dickens trivia will follow.
Both events are free and open to the public and will be held in in Lind Hall 207A. We hope to see you there!
Cosponsored by the Department of English, Student Activities Grants Initiatives, and GAPSA.
Please contact nineteen@umn.edu or visit http://sites.google.com/site/19subfield/ for more information or Click here for a flyer for the event.

Spectral Illusions, Spiritualism, and the Limits of Vision: Francis Edmonds' The Speculator

Associate curator Peter John Brownlee from the Terra Foundation of Art will be lecturing on "Spectral Illusions, Spiritualism, and the Limits of Vision: Francis Edmonds' The Speculator" on Thursday, Nov. 8th at 4pm in Room 1210 Heller Hall.

Abstract
In 1852, banker and painter Francis Edmonds completed The Speculator, a composition begun over a decade earlier. Edmonds first sketched ideas for this picture in the wake of the Panic of 1837, an economic breakdown resulting from the expansion then sudden retraction of paper currency in place of specie that facilitated rampant speculation in land and real estate. Throughout the 1840s and 50s, the circulation of paper money animated a lively discourse that likened banknotes to evanescent traces, even ghosts, of real value. Across the cultural landscape, however, paper was the central medium for exchange, perennially before the eyes of a populace increasingly reliant on the transmission of printed information. Consumed in great quantities, print had become a source of ocular impairment for those who worked in the clerical trades as well as for readers at large. Herman Melville's forlorn copyist, Bartleby, first introduced a year after Edmonds' painting, was one such victim.
But paper also provided a stage for experimentation in the emerging field of physiological optics, which investigated the eyes' functions and malfunctions as constituent components of "modern" vision. The eyes, as natural philosopher Sir David Brewster pointed out, acted as sentinels between the "worlds of matter and spirit," leading some to investigate ocular spectra and other illusions within the context of spiritualism, a highly popular mid-century movement premised on communication with the departed. In fact, the year after Edmonds completed his painting, his brother, the powerful Democratic judge John Worth Edmonds, published a major treatise on the subject. Though articulated in the purportedly straightforward manner of antebellum genre painting, The Speculator meditates on the subjective nature of eyesight and the ambiguities of vision, a theme that preoccupies Melville's 1852 novel, Pierre. This paper, the final chapter of a book manuscript in progress, argues that Edmonds' painting discloses the overlapping ways in which paper money economics, subjective vision, and spiritualism came to define modern conceptions of eyesight in a period of rapid, even reckless, economic development.

ICGC Brown Bag presents Professor Elliot James

Professor Elliot James will be lecturing on "Crime and Governance in Cape Town's Early Taxi Industry, 1908-1916" as part of the ICGC Brown Bag series. It will be held in 537 Heller Hall at 12pm on Friday Nov. 9th.

ICGC Brown Bag
Friday, November 9, 2012
12:00 noon, 537 Heller Hall
"Crime and Governance in Cape Town's Early Taxi Industry,
1908-1916"
Presented by: Elliot James
Department of History

This presentation explores a South Africa where laws against taxi drivers who injured people were few but strict, and where those convicted of negligent driving should expect not to ever work as a taxi driver again. Considering the alarm over widespread taxi violence, many living in South Africa might find such punitive justice improbable today. Rather than resist the law, the entrepreneurs who established the first taxi businesses pushed provincial authorities to govern them more--to restrict their activities and to hold them accountable. For taxis, abiding by the law was a crucial strategy in earning legitimacy. In so doing, the appeals of early taxi entrepreneurs helped inaugurate a definition of the taxi in the early 20th century that was concomitant with the competent, law-abiding subject. As the "black taxi revolution" unfolded in the 1970s and 1980s, this sense of subject-hood was disavowed as state governance over the taxi industry waned and as taxi drivers formed new coalitions with anti-apartheid nationalist movements. Considering this, analysis of early taxis' appeals to the institutions that governed them might help us gauge the stakes of transforming what constitutes as "the taxi" at different moments of political change in South Africa.
For the complete Fall 2012 ICGC brown bag schedule, go to ICGC.umn.edu
Click here to view a flyer for the event.

Catherine Guisan at Political Theory Colloquium Friday Nov. 9th

This Friday, November 9th, the Political Theory Colloquium is proud to present Professor Catherine Guisan of the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Professor Guisan will present her paper, "The Transatlantic Relationship: Of Natality, Gender and Midwifery," as part of our ongoing series on Empire and Other Global Designs. The abstract is below and the paper will be distributed later this week. Please note that this week the colloquium will be meeting in Social Sciences Building 614 at 1:30. Coffee will be served. All are welcome.

US influence on the beginnings of European integration is widely acknowledged and well documented, but under theorized; and remembrance of the actual practices that constituted this strange partnership is all but lost. This essay argues that the IR state-centered categories of Neo-Liberalism, Neo-Realism and Constructivism cannot easily account for this complex relationship, which calls for an interpretation rooted in practices more usually associated with the feminine. Indeed, accounts of the American and European founders, and of scholars also, used metaphors of birth giving and natality quite unselfconsciously. It is the least feminist of great women scholars, Hannah Arendt, who offers the most compelling discussion of natality in politics, a highly relevant concept to interpret the post WWII transatlantic relationship. A second (non-Arendtian) concept, midwifery, is helpful to think through the politics of aid and assistance, which Arendt left unexamined. Finally, feminist theory's focus on individual agency and friendship provides another analytical resource to probe the political meaning of personal relationships among transatlantic actors. Indeed US influences were conveyed not only through large public programs such as the Marshall Plan, but also individuals such as Jean Monnet, Robert Marjolin, and Max Kohnstamm who spent years in the US.
The second part of the essay contrasts the post WWII discourses on natality with the emergence of deliberately gendered metaphors in US-EU security debates after 9/11. Robert Kagan argued famously that power and the capacity for international responsibility are Martian categories whereas the "European paradise" is Venus-like. Sadly these discourses are no longer about life and natality, but about power over or strength (the US) as opposed to power with or weakness (the EU). It is, of course, dubious whether war-making should be considered masculine and peace-making feminine; but the 2003 EU Security Strategy can be interpreted as a move by the Venus-like EU to imitate the US model of masculine strength. Arendt's notions of natality and power as action in concert transcend gender differences, but at the cost of overlooking the body's need. American feminist scholar Judith Butler offers some ways to think through precarious life and natality across the Atlantic and beyond in the 21st century.