Borders-Cultural, Conceptual, Curricular
Western Humanities Alliance
24th Annual Conference
October 20-22, 2005
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Proposals are invited for the 24th Annual Conference of the Western Humanities Alliance on the theme of Borders: Cultural, Conceptual, Curricular. The Western Humanities Alliance seeks a wide variety of contributions from all relevant disciplines on questions such as:
* How do borders influence political, social or cultural issues within a given country or internationally? In what sense are borders constructive or destructive?
* How do borders facilitate or limit human understanding and scientific progress? What is the function of conceptual borders and their synonyms, from margins and boundaries to classification and categorization, from partitions and interfaces to gaps and interstices?
* How do borders serve to define the relation between academic disciplines, from the arts to the sciences, and between different disciplines within related fields, such as the humanities, fine arts, social sciences and sciences?
* What is the role of borders, or how have policies on borders changed, since 9/11 as regards for instance terrorism and refugees, communication and information, exportation/importation of commodities, artifacts, drugs or weapons?
* What is the current status of borders in relation to issues in health and medicine (e.g. regarding AIDS or SARS), in economics (e.g. regarding currency), or in international law?
* How are borders related to discussions of race, class and gender or of
migration and identity? What is their relevance in literature, in
psychology (e.g. behavioral patterns with respect to borders,
"borderline personalities," etc.) and in the social sciences, including
linguistics and pedagogy?
* How do borders determine our relation to, and our usage of, natural resources, such as water and minerals? Relevant topics may include, but are not limited to, maritime borders, watershed boundaries and depth of property or mineral rights.
* How do cultural borders relate to natural borders? How do borders help to protect traditional cultures or to preserve the environment?
* How are borders related to reflection on time and space in fields such as astronomy, geology, philosophy and archeology?
Submissions should be addressed by February 15, 2005 to:
WHA Conference Committee
Modern Languages 345
P.O. Box 210067
University of Arizona,
Tucson, AZ 85721-0067
wha@email.arizona.edu
Proposals either for individual papers or for complete sessions are encouraged. Selected papers from the conference will be published in a special issue of the Western Humanities Review.
For information on the Western Humanities Alliance: http://wha.ucdavis.edu
The WHA maintains a limited fund for graduate students from member
institutions only to help meet travel expenses to present at the
conference. Eligible graduate student participants who wish to apply for
travel funding should indicate their intent to do so in the proposal.
The institutional members of the Western Humanities Alliance are:
Arizona State University
University of California, Riverside
Claremont Graduate University
University of California, San Diego
Reed College
University of California, Santa Barbara
Stanford University
University of California, Santa Cruz
University of Arizona
University of Colorado, Boulder
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
University of California, Berkeley
University of Oregon
University of California, Davis
University of Southern California
University of California, Irvine
University of Utah
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Washington
Utah State University
University of British Columbia
University of Calgary