>forwarded from H-ethnic
>
>CALL FOR PAPERS
>
>Solidarity: "The Social" in Thought and Practice
>
>Graduate Student History Conference
>New York University
>April 2-3, 1999
>
>Graduate students in the History Department at New York University
>announce a conference on the theme of "solidarity" and invite graduate
>students in all fields and periods of history to submit abstracts for
>papers. We use "solidarity" to refer to social phenomena that have
>come to be called mass action, political mobilization, and
>coalition-building. Calling attention to "solidarity" addresses recent
>trends in the academy. Many intellectual and cultural historians argue
>that discourse, ideology, and narrativity ought to be privileged
>categories of social analysis. To what extent has this view challenged
>or supplanted an older view that society is to be studied as a realm of
>competing structures, contending classes and groups, and conflicts over
>material resources? We invite students to present historical work that
>showcases the various interpretive and methodological tools that
>historians bring to the study of "solidarity."
>
>We encourage prospective panelists to submit abstracts of papers that
>address any of the four following questions:
>
>FIRST, is the study of society an exercise in metaphysics, disguised as
>science, or is it a professionally anchored way of investigating and
>knowing the social world?
>
>SECOND, if discourse constitutes the social, to what degree have
>competing discourses operated as agents of historical change and how
>have they been socially located?
>
>THIRD, can a focus on mass action, political mobilization, and
>coalition-building be reconciled with the view that power exists
>diffusely and cannot be located in particular groups, classes, or
>institutions?
>
>FOURTH, how have recent explorations into the social construction of
>identity promoted or undermined "solidarity" as a matter of practical
>politics?
>
>While we are not soliciting panel proposals, we suggest that panel
>topics could include:
>
>-Identity, Politics, and Social Change
>-Individuality and Solidarity
>-Resistance as Solidarity
>-Has the Idea of the "Public Sphere" Fallen Flat?
>-Academic Knowledge and Its Social Uses?
>-The Problems of Collective Action
>-Solidarity and the Discursive Construction of the Social
>-The Reflexivity of Social Knowledge
>
>Please submit proposals by NOVEMBER 15, 1998. Proposals should include
>a one-page abstract and a curriculum vitae, and should be sent to the
>following address:
>
>Graduate Student History Association
>"Solidarity" Conference
>Attn: Jane Rothstein and Louis Anthes
>New York University
>Department of History
>53 Washington Square South
>New York, NY 10012
>
>For further information, contact:
>
>Jane Rothstein
>jr231 who-is-at is5.nyu.edu
>
>Louis Anthes
>lqa9210 who-is-at is2.nyu.edu
>--
>Gary Klass
>gmklass who-is-at ilstu.edu
>Editor, PSRT-L
>Associate Professor
>4600 Political Science
>Illinois State University
>Normal, Illinois 61790
>
>http://WWW.ILSTU.EDU/~gmklass
> (309) 438-7852
> (fax) 438-5310
>