[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: "The Self in North American Culture"

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

From: Dennis Bryson <dennis at bilkent.edu.tr>

Call for Papers

"The Self in North American Culture: Comparative Perspectives"
November 30 - December 2, 2006
Department of American Literature and Culture
Faculty of Humanities and Letters
Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey

The fragmented self; the dissociated self; the postmodern self; the
disintegration of the self; the corrosion of character; the
preoccupation with immediacy-such phrases conjure up a contemporary
sense of selfhood as threatened and besieged, as in a state of crisis.
Whether or not such descriptive phrases are valid, the sense of the self
as a focus of accelerated cultural transformation, of possible
dissolution, seems pervasive in contemporary North American culture-as
the sense of selfhood seems increasingly problematic and destabilized.

Under such circumstances, the examination of notions and practices of
selfhood takes on a special urgency.  We propose a conference "The Self
in North American Culture: Comparative Perspectives" in order to examine
selfhood today and in the past. The conference will be interdisciplinary
in scope, soliciting contributions from scholars working in the
humanities and social sciences, in such fields as literary, historical,
film, media,  gender, race, and ethnic studies.  We will focus on
representations of the self in North American culture and the discourses
of the social sciences in both the past and present. Moreover, in line
with recent scholarship, the conference will attempt to get beyond rigid
dichotomies of the private and the public, the personal and the
political, and will aim to explore the manner in which the self is
constructed within various social, cultural, and historical contexts.

Suggested topics and themes include the following: the gendered self;
the racialized self; the self and ethnic identity; the self and the
politics of recognition; sexual orientation and the self; the self in
relation to the other; intimacy, marriage, and the self; emergent
pathologies of the self, for example, the narcissistic self; the
psychological effect of racial discrimination; technologies of the self;
psychotherapy and the care of the self; representations of the self in
confessional narrative: the autobiography, reality TV, etc.;
representations of multiple personality disorder in psychology and film;
affectivity and the self; the self and the crowd; the annihilation of
the self and the quest for "limit experience"; the self from the
perspective of cultural psychology; psychoanalysis and the secrets of
soul; transitions in selfhood: from "character" to "personality";
instrumentalizing the self: the measurement and management of
personality; the self and political economy; neo-liberalism and the
precarious self; and the self within the globalizing economic context.

We invite proposals for both individual papers and panels. Prospective
presenters should send an abstract of approximately 400 words in length
and a curriculum vitae. Proposals for panels should include the
abstracts and c.v.s of the individual participants along with a brief
statement of the overall theme of the panel. The deadline for submitting
proposals is September 15, 2006. Send proposals to: Dennis Bryson,
Department of American Culture and Literature, Faculty of Humanities and
Letters, Bilkent University, 06800 Bilkent Ankara, TURKEY. E-mail
submissions (and queries with regard to the conference) are welcome.
Please send to: dennis at bilkent.edu.tr

Dennis Bryson, Ph.D.
Acting Chair, Department of American Culture & Literature
Bilkent University
<dennis at bilkent.edu.tr>