German Studies Association
The 47th German Studies Association Conference
The 47th German Studies Association Conference in Montréal, Québec, Canada, from October 5 to October 8, 2023 will again host a series of seminars in addition to conference sessions and roundtables (for general conference information, click here). Seminars meet for all three days of the conference during the first or second morning slot to foster extended discussion, rigorous intellectual exchange, and intensified networking. They are led by two to four conveners and consist of 8 to 20 participants, at least some of whom should be graduate students. In order to reach the goal of extended discussion, seminar organizers and participants are required to participate in all three installments of the seminar.
Proposal Deadline: Friday, March 3rd, 2023 View conference website.
University of Nebraska at Omaha
European Studies Conference
The 48th Annual European Studies Conference, which will be held on October 5-6, 2023, welcomes submissions on European topics in all disciplines. This year's event will feature both online programming and in-person presentations.
Founded in 1975, our interdisciplinary conference draws every year participants from colleges and universities in the United States and from abroad. Areas of interest include art, anthropology, history, literature, current issues, and prospects in cultural, political, social, economic, or military areas; education, business, international affairs, religion, foreign languages, philosophy, music, geography, theater, and film.
This year we will also offer special panels on the following topics:
- Ancient Mediterranean & Near Eastern World
- Black European Studies
- Human Rights
- Holocaust and Genocide
- Medieval Europe
Proposal Deadline: May 31, 2023View conference website.
Southern New Hampshire University
Virtual, multidisciplinary conference: Past, Present, and Future of Nation-States
Nation-states are relatively new to the international political landscape. Accompanied by wars, border realignments, and bitter territorial disputes, as well as by glorifying victories and alliances, the modern history of nation-states is a complex mix of losses and achievements. How did the modern nation-state-building process change the lives of people inside and outside of their borders? How do newly developing citizenship regimes and the forces of globalization affect nation-states today? Are nation-states in demise, losing their practical value for local and international politics, or are they changing to meet new conditions? These are some of the questions this conference seeks to discuss.
More than a dozen scholars in the fields of history, Political Science, Economics, Area Studies, and other will participate in this conference, representing seven countries on three continents. Participants include undergraduate students, graduate students, professors, and independent scholars.
Please register at https://events.blackthorn.io/1N1TpJJ7/5a3N3l1K6PP
View conference website.
Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
JIS Symposium 2023: Culture & Its Discontents: From Selfies to Community
At the center of postmodern culture is a paradox: What Christopher Lasch
analyzed as The Culture of Narcissism (1979) that celebrates an individual’s
unbounded subjectivity, found an unlikely ally in what Mark Milke calls The
Victim Cult (2021) that focuses on past grievances while forsaking the future.
Both Hitler and Stalin thought of themselves as “victims.” Their paranoia
stoked fascist and communist totalitarian dictatorships punctuated by Nazi
concentration camps and the Soviet Gulag chronicled by Aleksandr I.
Solzhenitsyn. In post-World War II U.S., racial, ethnic and gender preferences
had unintended consequences. Beneficiaries who succeeded due to talent and
effort would have done so without preferences, while those less-prepared often faced
higher education’s revolving door. As contributors to A Dubious Expediency
(2021) conclude, such preferences damage higher education, lowering standards,
resulting in demands for further leveling, and silencing of independent voices
via political correctness. But the major deleterious consequence of preferences
is the retribalization of American society and resulting identity politics
which now divide the Republic along ancient tribal, non-negotiable, lines. John
McWhorter claims in Woke Racism (2021) that the “Elect”--self-styled gurus who
demand uncompromising racial consciousness of victimhood from blacks and whites
alike--propagate a new “religion” that has betrayed black America. The question
arises: Can individuals and groups in 21st-century America find common ground,
renewing the culture and civil society as the precondition for community and a
more perfect Union?
Proposal Deadline: Wednesday, March 15, 2023 View conference website.
Concordia University Department of Political Science
Midwifery as Metaphor
In Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus (149e-151e), Socrates describes himself as a midwife, an art he says he learned from his mother. The fact that Plato weaves this metaphor of midwifery in an epistemological discussion is significant and ties into contemporary debates about knowledge and expertise. On the one hand, it speaks to the nurturing and birth of ideas, as well as their (intergenerational) transmission. On the other hand, it raises questions about what it means to know, and who can claim such status. From a contemporary perspective, we were especially struck by the potential of this metaphor to undermine persistent debates about midwives’ knowledge and expertise that not only have material implications for practising midwives, through pay and working conditions, but also limit their authority and legitimacy in policy and decision-making.
While this passage from Theaetetus serves as the inspiration for this workshop, we aim to bring together philosophers, historians, classical scholars, social scientists, health researchers, midwife practitioners, and activists to discuss the questions that arise from this metaphor, in both theoretical and applied contexts, such as:
• What is the meaning and significance of Plato’s metaphor?
• What are the different ways of knowing in ancient and modern perspectives?
• What does it mean to be a midwife, in both historical and contemporary contexts?
• How do midwives produce and share knowledge?
• How can the midwife/midwifery metaphor help us understand the production, transmission, and mobilization of knowledge more broadly?
• How does the midwife, as feminized subject, matter in how we understand and deploy this metaphor?
Proposal Deadline: August 15, 2023