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9th Annual Human Sciences Conference Academic Labor and the New Politics of Consensus Hosted by the George Washington University |
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Speakers: Robin D. G. Kelley, History Department, New York University |
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Katherine Ott, Curator, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC |
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| Call for Papers
"United We Stand," or so the story goes--since September 11, 2001, American citizens and the rest of the "free world" have been urged to put forward a united front in the fight against terror. This call for consensus, marketed as an ostensibly liberating move, has imposed conformity and silence on the public. Academia has become one of many sites where the effects of ideological discipline have become particularly apparent as big politics and big business go hand in hand, working to contain and restrict the kinds of knowledge produced by students, scholars, and scientists. The New Politics of Consensus force us to reconsider the role and purpose of the critical intellectual. The drive toward unanimity in mind and work as well as the material reality and language of capitalism have steadily eroded academia as a viable form of life. They have helped to dislodge possibilities for opposition, creativity, and alternative thinking in the university. Discourses of compulsory patriotism, liberal and conservative humanitarianism, and capitalist-scientific professionalism are monopolizing both higher education and research and suppressing the contestation and negotiation of how world events are made meaningful. In this context, we need to ask what we can do to reclaim our voices as agents of change and promoters of critique and dissent. The focus of the Ninth Annual Human Sciences Conference shall be the interrelations between the following pressing problems: 1) the embattled situation, and even dismantlement, of academic institutions and programs, such as the Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology at the University of Birmingham, due to the cash-nexus logic of 'efficiency' and 'excellence'; 2) the exploitation of intellectual labor, especially within the lower ranks of the university hierarchy; 3) the recent (and historical) interests in national and international unity vis-à-vis the terrorist enemy; and 4) the cross-disciplinary decline of dissent in the post-Cold War and post-9/11 university. In addition to the topics noted above, we welcome panel or paper proposals on any of the following subjects: *the corporate university 9th Annual Human Sciences Conference: Academic Labor and the New Politics
of Consensus Please send proposals to labor@gwu.edu. |
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Basic Information Hosted by the George Washington University Deadlines: Panel Proposal Deadline: Monday, December 2, 2002. Registration (includes lunch on Friday and Saturday): Before 2/15/03 After 2/15/03 or on site registration Contact Information: Human Sciences: |
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