Welcome to SAAS

Call For Papers for Our Next Conference

"A Return to (What Never Was) Normal: Discourses of (Ab)Normalcy in US Culture, Literature, Arts, and Politics; Past, Present, and Futures"

PANEL 17

17)"Cuando lo extraordinario se hace cotidiano: Revolutionary Histories of the Everyday "
Panel Chair: Daniel Widener, University of California, San Diego
E-mail: dwidener@ucsd.edu  

The simultaneous explosion of antiracist protest (Black Lives Matter) and reactionary resistance (January 6th insurrection) amidst the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic draw a harsh spotlight on the contemporary fractures that plague American social life. Yet, the seeming unendingness of contemporary crisis also asks us to rethink recent "states of exception" in American politics, culture, and social life. What histories of popular resistance can be located, for example, in the embrace of Black Liberation Army and Cuban exile Assata Shakur by a new generation of activists affiliated with the movement for black lives? What knowledge of the long history of the deportation regime do modern immigrant rights activists mobilize in the course of their work? What sonic histories do contemporary Latinx musicians like Quetzal and Santa Cecilia call upon as they created a 21st century urban civility? How do conflicts of monuments to slaveholders, "Indian fighters," and Franciscan friars resonate amidst parallel calls to "make America great again?" What does it mean that ongoing indigenous resistance to carbon extraction—which by one recent measure has paused upwards of 25% of US emissions—is increasingly spoken about as a form of "terrorism" by law enforcement. In other words, what if our "new normal" is a return not to a form of stasis, but to the impasse that Antonio Gramsci spoke of when he said, "the old is dying and the new cannot be born."

GUIDELINES FOR PARTICIPANTS

Abstracts of Proposals are to be e-mailed directly to the chair of the selected panel using this form. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 15, 2022. Panel chairs are expected to accept/reject proposals and have panels set up by November 7.

Non-members of SAAS (of all nationalities) are welcome to participate in the conference, but will be required to pay membership dues for one year as well as the conference registration fee. Members of ASA (American Studies Association), AISNA (Associazione Italiana di Studi Nor-Americani), APEAA (Portuguese Association for Anglo-American Studies) and HELAAS (Hellenic Association for American Studies) need only pay the conference registration fee.

Further guideliness for participants can be found here.