"Social Movements and Resistance"
Critiquing Culture Conference at George Mason University
Event: Saturday, October 7th 2017 at George Mason University
Submission Deadline: July 1, 2017
Event and Theme:
The Cultural Studies Student Organizing Committee (SOC) at George Mason University invites paper proposals for our 11t h annual Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference.
The theme of this year’s conference of “Social Movements and Resistance” reflects the particularly potent political moment in which we are currently situated. To that end, we strongly encourage submissions that address, critique, or otherwise analyze contemporary and historical developments of, and responses to, activism and political uncertainty.
This year’s conference will feature a plenary panel addressing contemporary sites of social justice and activism, with details and a final list of speakers to be released closer to the event date.
The Cultural Studies Program and Conference:
The Cultural Studies program at George Mason University is committed to the analysis and critique of culture. Cultural Studies examines cultural objects as products of the wider social, historical, economic and political conditions. Thus its interests lay both in understanding processes of cultural production as well as discovering the effects of culture at sites of reception. In particular, Cultural Studies focuses on power relations and inequalities, which shape the horizon of possibilities for any cultural object at hand, be it a political discourse, an economic model, or a mass cultural product. Towards this project, we recognize the value of a range of critical approaches including Marxist political economy, poststructuralism, feminism, critical theory and postcolonial studies. While the objects of Cultural Studies vary widely, the field aims at political relevance and efficacy.
In an attempt to broaden the community of scholars working in precisely this interdisciplinary vein, the Cultural Studies Student Organizing Committee at GMU invites graduate students to submit research papers for a conference specifically oriented toward the examination of cultural objects, through a variety of critical lenses. We encourage the submission of papers related to the following broad themes:
Abstracts of no more than 300 words and a current CV should be sent to critiquing.culture@gmail.com by July 1st, 2017. Please include presentation title, presenter's name, institutional affiliation, contact information, A/V requests, and any special needs required in the email. Abstracts should be sent as .doc or .rtf file attachments.
Attention LLC Students:
LLC 680, Theories of Feminism, has just been added to our course offerings for Fall 2017.
Dr. Mejdulene Shomali, Assistant Professor, Gender + Women’s Studies, will be teaching the course on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 7:00 p.m. in Fine Arts, Room 424.
This course examines the major theories of feminism through the study of works by central feminist thinkers considered in their social, historical and intellectual contexts. Such topics as reproduction and sexuality; the sexual division of labor; political rights; identity and subjectivity; and the intersection of class, race, nation, sexual orientation and gender will be explored from the dominant theoretical perspectives of feminism.
Please contact your LLC Program Advisor if you are interested in taking this course.
