Call for Papers

After Theory: Hispanism at the Crossroads
Después de la teoría: el hispanismo en la encrucijada

Graduate Student Conference / SUNY at Stony Brook / 7-8 de marzo 2008

 

In recent years, the field of Hispanic studies has addressed various questions, particularly in regards to what some have called the “crisis of the humanities.” Currently, these same humanities are undergoing a significant process of re-construction and re-definition, in the context of a radical transformation of the relationship between the Academy and Society . As a result of this, we face a requestioning of the inherited discourses that are perceived by some scholars to arise from the so-called “Establishment” itself.

The status of the humanities as a discipline has generated a number of ongoing debates, such as the one between cultural studies and more traditional philological approaches. The emergence of a postnational criticism or the balcanization within departments (foucaultians, lacanians, althusserians, bakhtinians, etc) are symptomatic of this profound schism in the Academy. Hispanic Studies are not beyond this state of things.

The current situation could be aptly described as a crossroads, highlighting a need for a discussion of the different methodological, ideological, and political problems pertaining to the humanistic disciplines. This raises a variety of questions: What are our dominant theoretical paradigms? What can different theoretical models or approaches contribute to this debate? What is the function of literary studies in the globalized/globalizing world? What factors weigh upon the production of academic knowledge?

This conference aims at posing these questions and many others, and we hope to promote an ongoing debate and access the critical imagination of our discipline. Participants can address the issues we propose in a direct way, be it through exposition, discussion, and/or critique of various theoretical approaches; or they may also address pertinent issues in an indirect way, via commentary or analysis of representative literary works from any period or geographical location within the Spanish speaking world.

We welcome contributions on any of the following topics:

o Compatibilities and incompatibilities: applications and divergences of feminisms, marxisms, psychoanalysis, queer theory, ecocriticism, myth criticism and cultural studies, as an object of study per se or in relation to Hispanic literary texts.

o Peninsularism and Latinamericanism: reconfigurations and redefinitions (transatlanticisms, new historicisms, post-colonialism and Imperium studies, indigenisms, etc.)

o Traditional Hispanism vs. Cultural Studies: literary theory against literary history; the place of theory: from the resistance to theory to the application of theory.

o Mester de Cibervia: Hispanism, new technologies and information networks.

o The legacy of structuralism and post structuralism. Re-readings, reductions and continuations of earlier schools and authors (formalism, New Criticism, stylistics and reception theories, etc.)

o The role of aesthetics in the multidisciplinary arena. The problem of discourse and the boundaries between the human sciences. The relationship between literary studies and the social sciences. The definition of literary studies.

o Hispanism and political struggle. The relationship between the Academia and Society, the proletariat and the “cognitariat”, isolation and/or compromise of the intellectual.

Abstracts can be written in Spanish or English and should be 250-300 words in length and sent via email attachment to the address below. Please include author’s name, academic affiliation, areas of interest and contact information in the message.

Abstract submission deadline: January 27^th

Abstract submissions, concerns and registration: graduate.aftertheory@gmail.com