Theme: Consuming Race: Shifting Paradigms and the Politics of Race in the 21st Century
Call for Papers/Films/Art

Date: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Deadline for Abstract/Film Submission: March 23, 2008

The Minority Graduate Student Association of the University of Chicago invites you to participate in the Fifteenth Annual "Eyes on the Mosaic" Graduate Student Conference to be held on Saturday May 3, 2008. This conference is designed for graduate students to present current work that draws on race within an analytical framework and/or understands race as a primary organizing factor in the social world. As a whole the conference will provide a platform for research that examines the ways in which race can be conceptualized as myths, stories, and interpretations of reality that get mapped onto bodies (whether individual or collective) in literature, film, art, recorded histories, public policy, legal and medical knowledge, and day to day interactions.  As race is not a category that people experience in isolation, submissions should examine how race intersects with other constructs like gender, class, sexuality, nationality, and religion. In view of race/racialization as an experience/process that is made manifest in varied, often unexpected ways, submissions from all academic disciplines are welcomed.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
Cross-cultural and cross-racial alliances and tensions in history and politics; Racialized images and stereotypes in the media; Consumption and commodification of racialized goods and productions; Racial Erasure and the utility of race as a category of analysis in the 21st century; Race, migration,nationalism, and global politics; Race, gender, and sexuality;
Politics of Social Policy; Race and Social Work;  Legal Implications of Race; Race and Language; Race and Medicine; Racial violence and the politics of war; and
any exploration of race as interesting and important to contextualizing and understanding current events.

Submission Guidelines

Abstracts should be submitted, along with your contact information (name, institutional affiliation, department, e-mail address), to uofc.mgsa.conference@gmail.com by 11:59pm
on Sunday, March 23, 2008. Submissions must be 250 words or less and must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document. Conference presentations will be approximately 20 minutes.

Film submissions should be mindful of this same 20 minute time parameter and March 23, 2008 deadline. Films can be either in DVD or VHS format and should be sent to:

Attn: Minority Graduate Student Association (MGSA)
Office of the Reynolds Club and Student Activities
The University of Chicago
5706 S. University Avenue, Rm 001
Chicago, IL 60637.

For more information, write to uofc.mgsa.conference@gmail.com