Announcement: AMS Graduate Conference this week: "Home/Sick"
Join the graduate students of the Department of American Studies at UT as they put on a conference that takes on the theme "Home/Sick" this Thursday and Friday, April 2 and 3. The keynote address will be delivered by Dr. Kim Tallbear (Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, UT Austin) on Thursday, April 2nd at 6pm in NOA 1.124. Dr. Tallbear will give a talk called, "Molecular Death and Redface Reincarnation: Indigenous Appropriations in the U.S." Panels will take place Thursday and Friday in the Texas Union. See below for a full schedule, or click here.
The following is a description of the conference theme from the organizers:
The death of eighteen-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri this August, the immigration crisis centering around the influx of children from Central America to the United States, and the recent panic over the spread of the ebola virus can all be read as the newest manifestations of a long-running pattern throughout American history and culture: the relationship between constructions of “healthy” communities, the fear that these communities will be violated, invaded, or contaminated, and the mobilization of these fears as justification for action in the name of community preservation. The history of the United States is littered with rhetorical constructions of safety and security, purity and contamination—as well as with the results of very real processes of violence, displacement, and exclusion. The 2015 AMS Graduate Student Conference considers constructions of home and health, and explores how these concepts have been and continue to be mobilized in the construction and erasure of American communities, families, and selves.
Schedule for PanelsThursday, April 2Registration 1pm- 5pmSinclair Suite (UNB 3.128), Texas Union2:00pm - 3:30pm - Panel 1: Surveillance at HomeTexas Governors' Room (UNB 3.116), Texas Union3:45pm - 5:15pm - Panel 2: Sick: Bodies and AffectTexas Governors' Room (UNB 3.116), Texas UnionFriday, April 3Registration 8:30am - 5:00pmEastwoods Room (UNB 2.102), Texas Union9:00am - 10:30am - Panel 3: Race and Reconfiguring the HomeChicano Culture Room (4.206), Texas Union10:45 - 12:15 - Panel 4: Home in Digital LifeChicano Culture Room (4.206), Texas Union1:45 - 3:15 - Panel 5: Leisure, Labor, and Contested HomesChicano Culture Room (4.206), Texas Union3:30 - 5:00 - Panel 6: Gulf Coast Oil and the Labor of Self, Loss, and the SouthChicano Culture Room (4.206), Texas Union