[Discussion] CFP: Anthropomorphizing the World (11/30/05; ACLA, 5/23/06-5/256/06)

[gpultar@cstgroup.org]

From: Ophelia Selam <ophelia.selam@gmail.com>

CALL FOR PAPERS.

ACLA CONFERENCE 2006

Please submit paper proposals to this seminar through the following website
by November 30th:
 www.princeton.edu/~acla06 <http://www.princeton.edu/~acla06>

*Anthropomorphizing the World*
Seminar Organizer(s): Ophelia Selam, Binghamton University

This seminar will focus on the actual act of defining "the human" in opposition
to the deemed "other." This act anthropomorphizes the world both through its
acceptance and its rejection (you are human, you are not human); it shapes the
way we view ourselves and the rest of the world. Exploring this act of
"defining-through-opposition/the other" in terms of what has been deemed
"non-human," directly puts into question the very structures that hold the
concept of "the human" in place. In the end, it can potentially be seen as an
act of oppression, particularly through its rigidity and its way of masking
itself as "truth." The interest here lies in the actual consequences of this
discourse and, more importantly, the consequences that befall the "others." In
other words: how do these definitions affect the ways in which we treat
ourselves and the (so-called) outside? In this seminar, I would like to
emphasize the anthropomorphizing of the so-called "rejects" of the world: womyn,
"minorities," animals and nature (through this rejection "methodology"). Some
possible topics can therefore be, but are not limited to:

- oppression of animals, womyn, and/or nature through their position as "other"
- the place of the human (or hu-man) within an ecofeminist approach
- the position of the so-called "natural" within the definition of "the human"
- identity and categorization/anthropomorphization
- definitions and oppression
- definitions as an act
- the role of comparative literary theories in the act of defining



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