[Discussion] Gender and Citizenship

[gpultar@cstgroup.org]

Gender and Citizenship

Third Annual New Scholarship in Citizenship Studies Conference: Gender and
Citizenship **Extended Deadline**

The Center for the Study of Citizenship at Wayne State University announces its
third annual New Scholarship Conference in Citizenship Studies. The conference
will be held on March 24, 2006 with a workshop for presenters on March 25, and
will focus on the Center’s theme for this academic year: “Gender and
Citizenship.” To explore this theme, the Center is considering questions
such as: In what manner is citizenship a gendered concept? Should citizenship be
equal or differentiated with respect to gender? How can tensions between gender
identity and identity group loyalty be resolved? How does gender influence civic
participation, political activism and expressions of nationalism?

The Center for the Study of Citizenship’s third Distinguished
Scholar-in-Residence, Hortense J. Spillers, the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of
English at Cornell University, will serve as the keynote speaker and commentator
at the conference. Professor Spillers’ work has focused on the
relationships between race and gender in African American and American
literature. She is best known for her race-centered revision of psychoanalytic
theory and for her subtle account of the relationships between race and gender.
Her collection of essays, Black, White, and in Color: Essays on American
Literature and Culture, published by the University of Chicago Press in 1993,
spans her work from the early 1980s, in which she pioneered a poststructuralist
approach to African American literature, and extends through her turn to
cultural studies in the 1990s. These pieces, which display her passionate
commitment to reading as a fundamentally political act, contain powerful
readings of individual authors and address such issues as the effect of
migration on the black cultural experience and the African American sermon.

The Conference will give junior faculty and advanced graduate students the
opportunity to present their own work in citizenship studies. Please submit a
one-page abstract of a paper proposal and a one-page c.v. to Marc Kruman,
Director, Center for the Study of Citizenship, Wayne State University at
M.Kruman@wayne.edu by November 28, 2005 . Proposals are welcome from scholars in
all disciplines. A faculty committee will review each application and announce
its decisions at the beginning of December. Among the topics you might consider
are those relating to aspects of Professor Spillers’ work as well as
subjects such as: gendered and multicultural citizenship, challenges to
understanding gender construction including transgender identity,
gender-specific activist movements, popular media messages of citizenship and
gender, the relationship of gender to membership within identity groups (based
on ethnic, religious, racial, sexual orientation, political, or other
differences), and gender-based variances in immigration and migration practices
and policies.

Unfortunately, the Center for the Study of Citizenship is unable to defray the
cost of travel.


Marc Kruman, Director
Center for the Study of Citizenship
Wayne State University

Email: m.kruman@wayne.edu

Visit the website at http://www.citizenship.wayne.edu