11th Annual Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies Graduate Student Conference and Workshop, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

March 22-23, 2019

Negotiating the Borderlands: Identities and Encounters in the Liminal

Keynote lecture to be delivered by: Dr. Claudia Sadowski-Smith, Arizona State University

Mobility and displacement are elemental realities of our rapidly changing world, forcing populations to migrate, leading to potentially shifting identification and fluid forms of identity. Conditions such as war, climate change, political oppression or dissidence, and border conflicts are a hand full of the factors that force populations to move. Motion sometimes incorporates ephemeral experiences, such as refugee status, which although temporary, can be formative of one’s identity. The prevalence of migration as a human experience, and especially the current waves of migration, necessitate a discussion of the permeability of borders and of their physicality. Through the mixing of peoples’ personal perceptions, an interrogation of political, geographical and cultural borders give a new approach to the notion of identity. How do these real and imagined movements and shifts shape identities? How can we reinterpret borders to express the role they play in the formation and transformation of identity? How might borders be understood metaphorically as imagined spaces where interests and overlap and compete?

We pose these questions specifically to fields pertaining to literature, anthropology, cultural studies, digital humanities, philosophy, art history, history, and sociology, but gladly welcome submissions from all fields pertaining to the topic of the conference.

Possible session topics include but are not limited to:
• Identities and Displacement
• Border Crossing(s)
• Forces Shaping Identity
• Liminality and Gender
• Border Poetics
• Borders – Real and Figurative
• Colonization, post- & de-colonization
• Liminality from Ritual to Identity Discourses
• Diaspora in Media, Arts and Critique
• Bound(aries) & Transitional Spaces
• The Wall
• Language & Identity, Code-Switching
• Refugee Identities & Liminal Spaces
• Liminality and Politics

Conference Structure: This conference/workshop will be comprised of the keynote address and panels on Friday, followed by additional panels on Saturday. Central to the conference is a graduate seminar style workshop on Saturday. This workshop is led by the keynote speaker and designed to explore the issues presented and discussed in more detail and depth. Presenters are requested to arrange their travel so that they can participate in the entire event, including the workshop. There will also be a closing reception Saturday evening, which is open to all participants and audience members.

Please send a 500 word abstract along with a brief biographical statement, in a separate document, to csconference.unm@gmail.com by January 18, 2019. Selected participants will be notified by January 25, 2019. Limited financial support to offset travel costs might be available; please ask the conference organizers for more information.