For the ASA 2016 Annual Meeting, I am organizing a panel that showcases digital projects that generate notions of belonging and/or displacement in the American context. If you’re interested in participating on this panel, please send a 200-300 word proposal and brief bio to me at cej007 [at] bucknell [dot] edu by Thursday, January 28.
CFP for ASA 2016: Home Screens: Digitizing Belonging and Place in American Studies
This panel seeks contributors who have been involved with a digital project that preserves, recreates, or generates notions of “home” in the American context. In keeping with the conference theme, Home/Not Home: Centering American Studies Where We Are, we invite contributions that investigate the ways that home gets represented on the screen: the computer screen in digital projects, in television or film, smartphone applications, or other multimodal interfaces. Panelists will discuss their experiences recreating the physical “home” in a virtual space to highlight the distinctions between and intersections of those who occupied these physical places and those responsible for representing that space. Overall, this session aims to generate conversations about the scholarly, cultural, and political commitments that create notions of American identity and belonging and the ways that digital projects can uphold or upend those commitments.
Acknowledging that digital projects are often collaborative efforts, single proposals with multiple presenters/authors are welcome.
Submissions may address, but are not limited to:
- Web-based archives of public history projects
- Using digital tools to effectively engage the public or bridge the town-gown divide
- Digital archives of natural disasters and recovery efforts
- Digital preservation of a community’s personal narratives and/or cultural history
- The role of digital initiatives in environmental preservation efforts
- Redefining or transcending political boundaries and borders through digital work
- Mapping historical data to rethink national identity or nationalist narratives
- Multimodal projects that enhance diversity and inclusion efforts
