File spoon-archives/bourdieu.archive/bourdieu_2002/bourdieu.0211, message 1


Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2002 12:46:23 -0500
From: betensky <betensky-AT-gwu.edu>
Subject: Call for papers


For the upcoming Human Sciences conference at George Washington University 
(Feb.28-March 1, 2003), I'm trying to put together a panel on what Bourdieu's 
contributions were, should, or might be to a conversation about academic labor 
and the current politics of consensus (see the general call for papers for the 
conference below).  Anyone interested should e-mail me a proposal 
(betensky-AT-gwu.edu) by December 2.

For further information about the conference, visit the webpage at 
http://www.gwu.edu/~humsci/events/Labor%20Conference%20Page.htm.  If you're 
interested in submitting an abstract that's not related to this proposed 
Bourdieu panel, you should send it to labor-AT-gwu.edu by January 8.

******************************************************************************
**

Call for Papers 
"United We Stand," or so the story goes--since September 11, 2001, American 
citizens and the rest of the "free world" have been urged to put forward a 
united front in the fight against terror. This call for consensus, marketed as 
an ostensibly liberating move, has imposed conformity and silence on the 
public. Academia has become one of many sites where the effects of ideological 
discipline have become particularly apparent as big politics and big business 
go hand in hand, working to contain and restrict the kinds of knowledge 
produced by students, scholars, and scientists.

The New Politics of Consensus force us to reconsider the role and purpose of 
the critical intellectual. The drive toward unanimity in mind and work as well 
as the material reality and language of capitalism have steadily eroded 
academia as a viable form of life. They have helped to dislodge possibilities 
for opposition, creativity, and alternative thinking in the university. 
Discourses of compulsory patriotism, liberal and conservative humanitarianism, 
and capitalist-scientific professionalism are monopolizing both higher 
education and research and suppressing the contestation and negotiation of how 
world events are made meaningful. In this context, we need to ask what we can 
do to reclaim our voices as agents of change and promoters of critique and 
dissent.

The focus of the Ninth Annual Human Sciences Conference shall be the 
interrelations between the following pressing problems: 1) the embattled 
situation, and even dismantlement, of academic institutions and programs, such 
as the Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology at the University of 
Birmingham, due to the cash-nexus logic of 'efficiency' and 'excellence'; 2) 
the exploitation of intellectual labor, especially within the lower ranks of 
the university hierarchy; 3) the recent (and historical) interests in national 
and international unity vis-à-vis the terrorist enemy; and 4) the 
cross-disciplinary decline of dissent in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 
university.

In addition to the topics noted above, we welcome panel or paper proposals on 
any of the following subjects:

*the corporate university
*unionization on campuses
*the expert professional and the intellectual
*research over teaching
*disparities and alliances between the human sciences and the natural sciences
*public intellectual vis-à-vis ivory tower
*race, gender, and radicalism in the university
*the knowledge class/intellectuals and class
*bureaucratic-administrative control of academic labor
*teacher work
*communication between the university, greater public, and policy-makers
*language and narrative
*history and future of higher education
*power within academia
*public health and homeland security
*academic biomedicine: knowledge and information
*(in)visible and (il)legitimate forms of violence
*historical representations of terror
*the state of the nation: the hetero-normative rhetoric of community and 
family
*national artifacts, symbols, and icons
*difference and unity, or Who is the Other?

9th Annual Human Sciences Conference: Academic Labor and the New Politics of 
Consensus
Human Sciences:
An Interdisciplinary Program in Language, Culture and Society
The George Washington University
2035 F Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
T: 202/994-6134
F: 202/994-7034

********************************************************************
Carolyn Betensky
Assistant Professor, English and Honors
George Washington University

Rome Hall 661
(202)994-6936
**********************************************************************
Contributions: bourdieu-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Commands: majordomo-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
Requests: bourdieu-approval-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005