The Terra Foundation for American Art, in partnership with Yale University Press, is offering a new prize for an unpublished manuscript or previously published manuscript in a language other than English written by a non-U.S. author. The manuscript should make a significant contribution to scholarship on the historical visual arts of what is now the geographic United States.

In helping to overcome the language barrier that often divides scholars and deters international research and collaboration, the prize aims to advance and internationalize scholarship on American art and seeks to recognize original and thorough research, sound methodology, and significance in the field. The award is especially intended to encourage authors who take the field of American art history into new historical and interpretive terrain, or who establish connections among the work of scholars within and outside the United States, providing a model of international exchange important to sustaining relevance and academic rigor for the future of the field.

The winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize; the Terra Foundation will fund production of the book, which will be published (in print and electronic form) in English by Yale University Press. In addition, Yale University Press will invite the winner to present a lecture on the book, upon publication, at Yale University. Scholars who have received PhDs within the past five years are strongly encouraged to apply.

Applicants must submit a letter of inquiry by August 3, 2015. The deadline for the receipt of completed applications is October 15, 2015.

For more information about application guidelines and the application process, schedule, and checklist, please visit the Yale University Press website:www.yalebooks.com/terratranslationprize.

Call for Papers:

The 10th Biennial Symbiosis 2015 Conference:
Transatlantic Literary & Cultural Relations
A Symbiosis and Essex University event

Venue: Essex University, Colchester, UK
Dates: Thursday 9th to Sunday 12th July, 2015
Keynote Speakers:
Richard Gray (Essex University); Peter Hulme (Essex); Jahan Ramazani (Virginia)
Guest speaker: t.b.a.

The headline conference theme is trauma, conflict, and reconciliations, although proposals on any topic relevant to any area of Transatlantic Studies are welcome. The event organizers invite submission of:

200 – 300 word abstracts for proposed 20-minute conference presentations
Panel presentations comprising 3 presenters (please submit three 200 word abstracts & brief overall rationale)
Please send by email to both: Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser. / Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.

EXTENDED SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday 22nd March 2015
The editors of Symbiosis, the Conference Directors, and Essex University’s Department of English invite proposals for panels and individual papers of twenty minute length, which engage a wide variety of transatlantic and/or transnational topics in the literatures and cultural histories of the Atlantic world. The conference is certainly not limited to any local concerns, although papers that treat issues related to the headline theme of conflict, trauma, and reconciliations in its transatlantic dimensions or a matter of cultural exchange and interrelationships are especially welcome, as are those examining the first fifteen years of transatlantic literary and cultural responses to the twenty-first century. Additionally as ever submissions are actively encouraged from all scholars and students of literary and cultural history and representation from every period from the earliest settlement right through to the present.



Poet Donald Davie was the first Professor of English at the new University of Essex, moving to Stanford and Vanderbilt Universities; Robert Lowell taught there for two years in the 1970s. The campus is conveniently located on the outskirts of Colchester, a thriving town, once the roman capital of Britain, now forty miles from London, 46 minutes journey on the fast train to and from London Liverpool Street station. Colchester itself offers numerous attractive bars, restaurants and two large shopping centres; the campus is close to the riparian attractions of Wivenhoe, also full of pubs and eating places.


Accommodation can be booked on campus, in well-appointed rooms, minutes away from the conference centre and the Symbiosis event. The conference fee (tba) will include a two-year subscription to the Symbiosis journal, confeence lunches, teas and coffees; single accommodation (with continental breakfast) can be booked if specified, and double rooms at a higher fee. The conference dinner is additional, and delegates are responsible for their own evening and other supplementary meals. Activities will include a literary event at the VENUE TBA, which will incorporate a SOMETHING reading and a tour of a significant cultural site. A list of local hotels and guest houses, if preferred, can be provided.


Submit 200 – 300 word abstract with details of your academic affiliation and contact details in Microsoft Word attachments by Sunday 22nd March, 2015 to the Conference Directors, Prof. Philip Tew (Brunel) and Dr. Matthew Scott (Reading): Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser. / Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.. Add ‘Symbiosis 2015 Proposal’ to the subject line of your message, an essential detail since they will be sorted automatically using this search term.


Earlier inquiries are welcome; early acceptance may be possible if required for institutional or similar funding to facilitate attendance. Symbiosis cannot offer bursaries or fee waivers. Further details will be posted on the Essex University webpage, on the Symbiosis website and its Facebook page. See variously:


http://www.symbiosistransatlantic.com/

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Glasgow-United-Kingdom/Symbiosis-a-Journal-of-Anglo-American-Literary-Relations/313163095816).

Call for Papers for the 22nd Amerikanistendag at the University of Groningen

27 March 2015

“What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you can know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good.” (Andy Warhol)

Ever since the industrial revolution initiated the era of mass production during the 19th century, the world has started to consume at an unprecedented rate, and since the 1950s, people everywhere on the globe have bought and used more goods than the combined total of the world population throughout history. In many ways, the U.S. has been at the pinnacle of this development. Enjoying a time of national prosperity after WWII, the country saw the average American‟s spending power rise, and the sales of TVs, household appliances, and automobiles skyrocketed. Despite periods of economic downturn during the second half of the20th century, the general trend towards excess consumption has continued unabated until this moment. Currently, as a Mt. Holyoke College project on the “History of American Consumerism” found out, “[t]he average US-American uses 300 shopping bags worth of raw materials every week, an amount of food that weighs as much as a large car; [w]e would need the resources of 3 planets for everyone to live an „American‟ lifestyle; 99% of the stuff people in North America buy is trashed within 6 months after purchase; [and] Americans drive about as many miles as the rest of the world combined.” This American consumer lifestyle has also had a tremendous impact on other countries worldwide, and the U.S.‟s export of consumer and lifestyle products has contributed substantially to promoting a version of the “American Dream” that has encouraged thousands of migrants to seek a better life in the U.S.

Yet at the same time, industrial production and mass consumption are the biggest contributors to global forms of environmental destruction such as deforestation, ozone depletion, water and grain shortages, and soil erosion. Moreover, the tendency of multinational corporations to produce where labor is cheapest has driven American companies to outsource their production to other parts of the world, including Latin America and Asia, while driving local companies into bankruptcy. Even though recent financial crises have created a renewed understanding of the importance of the concept of “Made in America,” the question remains how this development can influence the working conditions of blue collar workers in the United States and elsewhere when production has to be cheap and fast. While the top 1 percent of the population is acquiring more and more wealth and goods, millions of Americans depend on a minimum wage that may remain stagnant, despite President Obama‟s assertions to thecontrary during his Labor Day speech of 2014. And when the minimum wage is below the living wage, are the poorest American consumers still able to buy some of the same things as the richest, as Andy Warhol claimed?

For these reasons, patterns of over-spending and over-consumption as well as current developments in international capitalism, corporate globalization, and economic neoliberalism have met with widespread criticism. At least since the protests against the WTO in Seattle in 1999, a wide range of activists, including trade unionists, environmentalists, land rights and indigenous rights specialists, as well as sustainable development and anti-sweatshop campaigners have started to gather annually during the World Social Forum to highlight how the policies of corporate globalization have exacerbated poverty in the global South and increased inequality both within the US and in other (Latin American) nations.

In addition, multinational companies as well as governments now also work in data-rich environments. As Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted in 2010, mankind now creates as much information every two days as it had from the dawn of civilization to 2003. The ways in which these (often sensitive) data are currently being used to gather information about citizens and/or possible consumers increasingly also leads to regulatory and ethical concerns.

The organizers of the 2015 Amerikanistendag invite proposals that focus on any aspect of consumerism in the Americas (the USA, Canada, and/or Latin American nations). Topics may include, but are not limited to, the following aspects:

- historical developments of / changes to consumption habits in the Americas

- consumerism and (social) media

- consumerism and identity; the role of status symbols

- consumerism and diversity; the targeting of specific (immigrant) markets

- the capitalism-inequality-poverty nexus, or, the American Dream in the era of globalization

- the consumption and distribution of data and intelligence information in the context of international security concerns

- critiques of consumerism (from Thorstein Veblen‟s Theory of the Leisure Class [1899] to the “Battle of Seattle,” the concept of rebellious consumption [David McRaney] and recent trends in downshifting and simplifying one‟s life)

- critiques of capitalism and neoliberalism (Occupy Wall Street; the Mexican Zapatista movement; the concept of “Socialism for the 21st century” as advocated by Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, and Evo Morales; campaigns targeting multinational corporations such as Nike and Monsanto)

The organizers invite speakers to submit proposals for brief presentations (15-20 minutes) in English on any subject related to the conference theme to Dr. Marietta Messmer ( Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.). Deadline for the submission of proposals: March 16, 2015. For more information, please contact Dr. Messmer.

On June 18-20, NASA and the University of Oldenburg will co-organize a three-day international conference (in Groningen and Oldenburg) on the topic of

“Political Participation in the Post-Democratic Era: Promises, Challenges, Illusions”

If the recent mid-term elections have told us anything, it is that participatory democracy in the United States is definitely on the wane. With a record estimate of $4 billion in campaign spending, big money was undeniably the ultimate winner in the latest Congressional race. And with roughly $1 billion of the total spending coming from “dark money” super PACs, the Daily Show sarcastically dubbed its coverage of the midterms, “Democalypse 2014: America remembers it forgot to vote.” Unsurprisingly, since money undeniably loves money, the DOW and S&P 500 closed at record highs the day after the midterms. The techno-demographic appeal of Obama’s first presidential campaign appears to have been a one-off, and the Occupy Wall Street movement seems only a faint memory now. Clearly, rumors of neo-liberalism’s demise have been grossly exaggerated.

So what does this teach us about the potential of social change in the post-democratic era and the future of peaceful global revolution? With democracy a fleeting illusion in Africa, the Middle East, much of Asia and Russia, and a European Union increasingly out of touch with its apathetic citizens, will the United States once more assume its former role as leader of the free world and ambassador of citizens’ rights? In the face of a growing income gap, a drop in social mobility and the increasing unaffordability of higher education, do we see signs of voters seeking ways to participate more actively in public debates? Is the much-touted democratization effect of social media technology really bearing fruit? If so, are these techno-networked voter-activists joining advocacy groups for specific interests? In an age of globalization, supranational unions, and the concomitant phenomena of immaterial labor and other forms of social alienation, what is the state of democracy in these times of increasing skepticism toward institutionalized political participation (cf. voter apathy)?

In order to discuss these (and related) issues, we invite participants in this conference to address alternative ways in which citizens have been claiming/reclaiming their place in political decision-making—in the United States, as well as in the wider American hemisphere, or, comparatively, between the United States and other parts of the world. Historical reflections and comparisons are also welcomed. Collectively, we want to explore these developments in political participation as harbingers of the emergence of a post-post-democracy.

A selection of revised and expanded papers will be published in the Interamericana Series (Peter Lang Publishing).

We invite proposals for individual 20-minute-presentations or complete panels. Proposals for individual papers should consist of an abstract (max. 250 words) and a short CV. Proposals for panels should provide a brief explanation of the goals of the panel and its link to the conference theme (500 words), accompanied by 250-word abstracts and brief CVs of all speakers. Proposals for alternative presentation formats (e.g. roundtables, impulse-sessions, interviews, performances, or other innovative formats) are also welcome. Please submit all proposals to Wil Verhoeven (U of Groningen, Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.) and Martin Butler (U of Oldenburg, Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.). 

Deadline: March 25, 2015.

Call for Papers: Open Access Tage 2015 à Zurich

 Les 7-8 septembre 2015 ont lieu les 9èmes journées Open Access à Zurich- La conférence est organisée par la bibliothèque principale de l'Université de Zurich en coopération avec l'Informationsplattform open-access.net

Un Call for Papers est ouvert jusqu'au 15 mars.