[Bilimsel Haber] “ The Self in North American Culture: Comparative Perspectives”

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

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 1, 
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