2024 Graduate Student Conference  

 

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"Critical Ecologies and Speculative Futures: Conceiving the Envrionment"

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Jennifer French | Williams College

February 29 - March 1, 2024

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures | University of Miami



RSVP


The MLL Annual Gradaute Conference is open and free to all members of the University of Miami and the general public.

https://forms.gle/djK7yqEN6akjhJFa6

Program  

12PM: REGISTRATION 12:45PM: WELCOME 1:00PM-2:30PM PANEL 1: RELATIONALITY AND CULTURAL ENTANGLEMENTS KALITA DHRISYOTI (UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA, TWIN CITIES) VITAL CONSTITUENTS: NECROPOLITICS AND INTERSPECIES RELATIONALITY IN ARUPA PATANGIA KALITA'S "TERROR" FICTIONS ABBY RINALDI (NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY) IN DEFENSE OF A WOOD WIDE WEB VIKKIE PATTERSON (ULSTER UNIVERSITY) 'THE INTERCONNECTEDNESS OF EVERYTHING': A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF ART AND LITERATURE IN NORTHERN IRELAND 2:45PM-4:15PM PANEL 2: SPECULATIVE HORIZONS VERÓNICA PÉREZ-GARCÍA (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO) SPECULATIVE TRANSECOLOGY: QUEER RELATIONALITIES IN CARIBBEAN FICTION MIA CLAPP (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE) CAPITALISMO GORE Y LOS CALIFORNIOS: POST-NAFTA BORDERLANDS SCIENCE FICTION ERIN SAMANT (UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL) NO ROOM FOR ECO-DOOM: INTERSPECIES RELATIONSHIPS AS ECOFEMENIST PRAXIS IN MARGARET ATWOOD'S THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD (2009) 4:15-5:00 MIXER & HAPPY HOUR MERRICK 210.01, THEN TITANIC
                                             
                    

 

Call for Papers 

 

GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE 2024

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 29 – FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 2024

DEPARTMENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

 

Critical Ecologies and Speculative Futures: Conceiving the Environment

 

     Critical theory has questioned the conceptual limits of ideas like the Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and supremacy of human animals over nature. Ongoing global crises, such as climate change, divergent levels of modernization, and the search for bold and expedient solutions to accelerating environmental crises urge new frameworks to analyze an interdependent world.

     We take inspiration from scholars such as Aílton Krenak, Donna Haraway, Bruno Latour, Einar Haugen, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari whose works draw upon the grammar of ecology to investigate the mutual constitution of environment and culture. Critical ecologies assert that theories and practices that elevate culture over nature were never sufficient and thus demand innovative analyses of dynamic cultural ecosystems. 

     We welcome diverse and creative approaches to this theme. To this end, critical ecologies not only pose the environment as a focus for humanistic scholarship but also expand conceptual frameworks to (re)imagine space, resource distribution, technologies, urban development, temporalities, materiality, body, queerness, Indigeneity, ethnicity, race, class, and intersectionality.

     The Annual Graduate Student Conference of the Michelle Bowman Underwood Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami calls for papers from a variety of interdisciplinary approaches. We emphasize our invitation to graduate students but extend it to academics, artists, and activists from diverse disciplines around the world. We encourage projects that include or critique—but are not limited to—the following topics: 

 

LITERARY STUDIES

Literary ecocriticism

Literature and intersectionality

Speculative fabulation

Afrofuturism

Transhumanism and artificial intelligence

Science fiction

Decolonization

Border studies

 

SOCIOLINGUISTICS

Language contact induced change

Issues in Indigenous and minority languages

Linguistic anthropology

Bilingualism
Ecolinguistics

Ecology of language

Ethnolinguistics

 

 

CULTURAL STUDIES

Environmental humanities

Ecofeminism

Post-feminism

Posthumanism

Urban studies

Migration and diaspora

Hybridity

New materialisms

Cultural anthropology and psychology

 

Abstracts of no more than 500 words are welcome in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Please add a short 250-word author biography to the abstract. Proposals may be submitted via this link by Monday, November 27, 2023. The approved papers will be announced after Monday, December 4, 2023.

 

The plenary speaker will be announced by January 30, 2024.

 

This conference will take place entirely in person on the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables, Florida, on Thursday, February 29, and Friday, March 1, 2024.

 

For inquiries related to the participation of this conference, please contact doctoral student Neta Kanny (she/ella/ela/elle) at nkanny@miami.edu.

Official Call for Papers Letter

This event is sponsored by the Michele Bowman Underwood Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, the Joseph Carter Memorial Fund, the Graduate Student Association of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, the Department of English, the Department of History, and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program

Previous Conferences

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  • 2023 | Transcultural Expressions: Conflict, Identity, and Revitalization in Multicultural Spheres

    2023 Graduate Student Conference  

     

    ‌‌



    "Transcultural Expressions: Conflict, Identity and Revitalization in Multicultural Spheres"

    Keynote Speakers: Ana Carvalho | University of Arizona and Caroline LaPorte | University of Miami

    March 2-3, 2023

    Department of Modern Languages and Literatures | University of Miami



    RSVP


    The MLL Annual Gradaute Conference is open and free to all members of the University of Miami and the general public.

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScGaDuB3T2AfqTzObBDttHvBN9BBTyeV0aYSYKHJU-kKLoZnA/viewform

    Program 
     

    March 2-3, 2023 | University of Miami 

    Call for Papers 

     

    GRADUATE CONFERENCE 2023
    DEPARTMENT OF MODERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
    UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI

    TRANSCULTURAL EXPRESSIONS
    CONFLICT, IDENTITY, AND REVITALIZATION IN MULTICULTURAL SPHERES

    Call for Papers

    The constant change of the contemporary world is a challenge for citizens and institutions. With new forms of symbolic and literal conflicts, borders are transforming at an accelerated pace, making previously stable political and ideological spaces anew at speeds never seen before. Because of this, dynamic and multidisciplinary perspectives are essential to understanding the complex relationships between power, language, culture and society. The relationships between languages, cultural traditions and artistic productions, for example, have been issues of academic debate from the perspective of several fields of knowledge. Contact between these constructs often does not take place peacefully and, in many cases, their advocates reproduce certain agenda with their own political goals and ideologies.  

    Everything done with language is a political act. Therefore, the clashes between multiple agents open space for the study of the marginalization of peripheral peoples, the resistance of minority cultures, the application of educational policies, and the consequences of linguistic-cultural imperialism. With these problems in mind, the Annual Graduate Student Conference of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Miami calls for papers focused on intersections of art, culture, language, identities, borders, and conflicts in multidisciplinary approaches. We invite academics, students, artists, and activists throughout the world to think and debate about Culture, Literature, Art, Language, and Society. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

    LITERARY STUDIES
    Literature and Decoloniality
    Latin American Literature
    African Literature
    Caribbean Literature
    Literature and translation
    Literature and power dynamics
    Literature and Queer studies
    Literature and gender
    Literature and intersectionality
    Literature and Black studies
    Indigenous Literature
    Literature and Subaltern Studies

    SOCIOLINGUISTICS, LANGUAGE, POWER, AND EDUCATION
    Language variation (morphosyntactic, phonetic, phonologic and pragmatic variation) Language contact induced change
    Standarization and varieties of minority languages
    Issues in indigenous and minorized languages and varieties
    Language ideology issues: attitudes, stigmatization, prestige
    Newspeakerism and heritage
    Language and the Nation
    Language in Conflict and Diplomacy
    Language and State Fracture
    Heritage Language Literacies
    Aspirations of Heritage Learners
    Resources for Heritage Learners 

    CULTURAL STUDIES
    Globalization and local cultures
    Culture, Sexuality, and Gender roles in culture
    Social Movements, Cultural Manifestations, and Protests
    Culture, Identity, and Nationalism
    Culture and social media
    Cultural diversity and inclusion
    Multicultural Communities and Intercultural education: pedagogical challenges in education Cultural Heritage and their challenges for preservation: Tangible and intangible objects Intersectionality between ancestral knowledge, archives, oral histories, native music, and archaeology
    Literature and the young reader
    The habit of reading among the youth population
    Cultural expressions of our times
    Indigenous Cosmovisions analyzed from cultural productions in the 21st century

    Abstracts of no more than 500 words are welcome in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Please provide a short author bio with the abstract. Papers and presentations may be delivered in English, Spanish, Portuguese or French. The Conference will take place on March 2nd and 3rd, 2023, at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.

    Submit proposals before January 14, 2023 directly to: umgradconf23@gmail.com

    The approved papers will be announced until January 17th, 2023.

    Official Call for Papers Letter

     

    This event is sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures and the Joseph Carter Memorial Fund. 

  • 2020 | SEEING MORE QUEERLY in the 21st Century

    SEEING MORE QUEERLY in the 21st Century

    THE CHALLENGES OF GENDER, FEMINISM, AND QUEER THEORIES AND PRACTICES IN OUR CONTEMPORARY WORLD 

    February 20 - 21, 2020

     

     

    February 20‌, 2020 

    Conference Opening Event | Norman A. Whitten Univeristy Center | 6pm

    “Requiem for a Stone-Curlew,” performance by Mexican artist Lukas Avedaño

     

     

    February 21, 2020 

    Donna E. Shalala Student Center | University of Miami | 8am-7pm

    Keynote Speaker, Dr. Ochy Curiel  

    Panel 1: 

    Feminist Readings from a Decolonial Perspective in the 21st Century

    Coordinator: Helen Hernández Hormilla

    Discussant: Dr. Yolanda Martínez San Miguel, Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures 

    Panelists:
    • Paulina M. Barrios Giordano (Rutgers): “Rethinking Decolonial Feminist Knowledge Production through Zines and Cartoneras”
    • Greice Markwith (Florida Atlantic University): “The Defect in the T-Shirt: Misappropriation of an acronym and symbols”
    • Miguel Ángel Blanco Martínez (Columbia University): “Feminist friendship as a decolonial alliance through the arts: A poetic conversation with Rebeca Lane’s Alma Mestiza”
    Panel 2: 

    Queerness, Space and Placemaking

    Coordinator: Monica Faust

    Discussant: Dr. Steve Butterman

    Panelists:
    • Carmen Petaccio (University of Miami): “An Atlas of Feeling: The Transnational Subjects of Lana and Lilly Wachowski”
    • Cedric Courtois (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) : “Queering Heterosexual Spaces in Britain and Nigeria: The Carving Out of Space by a Transgender character in When We Speak of Nothing by Olumide Popoola”
    • Christina Csensichl (University of South Florida) “Public Space and the Development of a Queer Community in Nineteenth-Century Paris”
    • Bobuq Sayed: (University of Miami) 'Between the Deep Blue, the City, and the Night: The Pier as Critical Interstice of Trans Fugitivity'
    Keynote Speaker: Ochy Curiel

    “Encounters and Dis-Encounters in Decolonial Feminism and Queer Theory and Practices”

    Introduced by Dr. Yolanda Martínez San-Miguel.

    Panel 3:


    Intersectionality and Resiliency: “On Adversity We Thrive”

    Coordinator: Helen Hernández Hormilla

    Discussant: Cae Joseph-Massena

    Panelists: 

    • Kerry Green (Arizona State University) “The Indexical Portrayal of Black Women in the Photography of Manuel González de la Parra’s Luces de raíz negra”
    • Preston Taylor Stone (University of Miami): “Meta/Black Time: The Queer Formalism of Toni Morrison’s Sula”
    • Alessandra Adorisio (Florida Atlantic University): Gender and Sexuality are Expressed in Southern Manabí Province, Ecuador.
    • Joao Gabriel (Johns Hopkins University): “Beyond queer and feminist “anti-racism” In Defense of Gender and Sexual Politics in Rupture with Western and Capitalist Hegemony”

    Panel 4:


    Fluid Subjects/Splitting Bodies: the Trouble of Gender

    Coordinator: Marivi Véliz

    Discussant: George Yúdice

    Special Guest: Lukas Avendaño

    Panelists:

    • Cynthia Melendez Montoya (New York University): “Reimagining the Past: Queer Memory and Temporality in Peru”
    • Manion Kuhn (New York University): “Fluid Dynamics and Queer Optimization: Everyday Tactics of Porosity, Viscosity, and Coagulation”
    • Sebastián Eduardo (Leuphana Universität Lüneburg): “Regina José Galindo’s Delinkings and Incarnations. Bodily Practices of (De-)coloniality and Sex-Gender.”
    • Yarden Stern (New York University): “Queer Projections: Trans*ing Tech and Splitting the Body”
    Closing Remarks
    Dr. Chrissy Arce

     

     This event is sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages & Literatures Joseph Carter Memorial Fund, Center for the Humanities, Institute for Advance Studies of the Americas, Latin American Studies Program, Africana Studies Program, English Department, Department of Philosophy, Woman's and Gender Studies Program, and Latin American Studies Program.