Call for papers

Anthropologies of the United States of America. Views from near and from afar

International Conference
University of Palermo, June 15 – 16, 2017

This conference is an interdisciplinary research project intended for scholars from various fields. The aim is to discuss a historically, anthropologically and politically central country: the United States. Is it possible to see the United States as a country to be examined from multiple points of view – both from near and from afar – with particular interest in the current “anthropological” culture, while also paying attention to history and making predictions about the future? Specialists and enthusiasts from various backgrounds are invited to respond from specific perspectives, in order to compare and contrast different interpretations of the “American galaxy”. To this end, both studies of a theoretical nature and case studies are encouraged. The view from near and from afar, obviously a reference to Lévi-Strauss, alludes to a modus operandi anthropologically based on comparing and contrasting different perspectives. Anthropologists are directly concerned here, because it was in the United States that the much-discussed anthropological Postmodernism recently emerged, and because it was also in the United States that the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, based on studies of Native Americans, was conceived. The reference to “anthropologies” should therefore be viewed literally (anthropologists specializing in the United States in largely ethnographic terms) and with a culturally wider meaning (linguists, comparatists, geographers, semiologists, historians, etc., who observe American culture from their respective epistemological perspectives). The reference to the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, aside from being a theoretical inclination shared by the organizers, is a happy necessity for those who study a multicultural country like the United States, with its difficult past of coexistence between colonizers and natives, as well as between the different cultures of which it is composed today.

We offer the following suggestions as possible topics of discussion, from a comparative perspective or otherwise:

Native and non-native cultures
Ancient/recent migratory phenomena
Conformism/individualism
Multiculturalism and identity
Religious radicalization and New Age movements
Processes of globalization and local agency
American anthropology/other anthropologies
American literature/other literatures
The linguistic relativity hypothesis today
Everyday cultures
Tradition and modernity
Processes of homogenization and diversification of knowledge
Spaces of imagination
Places and non-places
Ecologies of landscape
Wilderness
Languages of power and knowledge
Current political situation
Politics of inclusion/exclusion
Oral histories
Etc.

Keynote speaker:
Vincent Crapanzano, City University of New York

Scientific board:
Stefano Montes and Matteo Meschiari

Administrative organization:
Dipartimento Culture e Società
Università degli Studi di Palermo
Viale delle Scienze, 90128, Palermo, Italia

For information and to submit proposals:
Stefano Montes (montes.stefano@tiscalinet.it)
Matteo Meschiari (matmeschiari@gmail.com)

Practical information:
Deadline for submitting proposals: 30 May 2017
Proposal summary and title: 250-300 words
Duration of presentations: 20 minutes
Conference languages: Italian, French and English
Conference participation is free of charge
Travel costs, accommodation expenses and meals are covered by participants or their institutions
Proceedings of the conference will be published