Date(s): April 24th-25th, 2015
Location: Birmingham-Southern College, 900 Arkadelphia Road, Birmingham, Alabama 35254

Description:
Established at BSC in 1992 to foster undergraduate research, the symposium increases public awareness of Latin America and provides a forum for students and faculty to share their interests and to establish contacts with colleagues in other disciplines.

The theme for 2015 is “Extreme Events in Latin America.” The term “extreme event” tends to be associated with severe weather phenomena such as tornadoes, tropical storms, hurricanes, and floods. It is also increasingly being used to describe climate change impacts and the effects earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides can have on urban areas. However, there is no precise metric for determining the extremeness of an event, and while some large-scale human events might generate positive effects or outcomes—sporting events, celebrations, commemorations, and elections, for example—extreme events are usually associated with death, destruction, misery, and mayhem. Airline disasters and bus crashes and some mass public demonstrations, strikes, and uprisings; and sudden political events such as coups, assassinations, and mass killings are also types of extreme events.

Although the 2015 theme is “Extreme Events in Latin America,” undergraduate papers on any topic relevant to Latin American Studies may be accepted: politics and culture, the global economy, literature, the environment, public health, gender, and art, for example.

Proposal deadline:
March 13th, 2015

Contact information:
Dr. Vincent T. Gawronski
Latin American Studies Symposium, Director
Birmingham-Southern College
900 Arkadelphia Road, Birmingham, AL 35254
Phone: (205) 226-4836
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Conference Website: http://www.bsc.edu/academics/las/symposium.cfm

Additional information:
Papers may be presented in Spanish, English, or Portuguese. Please submit an abstract proposal of no more than 250 words to Dr. Gawronski.

Date(s): October 15-17, 2015
Location: Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA

Description:
This conference is organizes by ERIP, the LASA section on Ethnicity, Race and Indigenous Peoples in collaboration with Virginia Commonwealth University and theLatin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies journal (LACES). ERIP is committed to the promotion of research, teaching, and the exchange of ideas about the distinctive cultures, racial identities and relations, as well as concerns of subaltern ethnic groups in the region, particularly indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. The conference provides an opportunity for convening an international and broad interdisciplinary forum for scholars to explore related social, economic, political, historical, and cultural issues.

"Communities, Circulations, Intersections" evokes the scope of the 2015 ERIP conference. Panel and paper proposals related to this motif, as well as to all topics related to the section’s mission and areas of interest in Latin American and Caribbean studies, are welcome and encouraged.

Proposal deadline:
June 15, 2015

Contact information:
G. Antonio Espinoza, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Latin American History
Department of History
Virginia Commonwealth University
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Phone: 804-828-9387

Edward Abse, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Anthropology
School of World Studies
Virginia Commonwealth University
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Phone: 804-827-1143

Additional information:
Conference website: erip.vcu.edu

One-day conference

Poitiers University, France, October 16th, 2015

From the 17th century onwards, the demographic and economic growth of the North American and Caribbean colonies was intricately linked to the introduction and subsequent exploitation of bound labor. The implementation of indentured servitude addressed the need to compensate for the scarcity of labor, after the relative failure of the enslavement of Native Americans, while also assuring the peopling of the colonies. By the same token, the deportation of vagrant children, of vagabonds and convicts also provided a means for the Old Continent to rid itself of its undesirable population. The rise in European immigration that resulted from the decrease of sea transportation costs made free labor more economically attractive and gradually transformed the indentured servitude system into the Redemptioner System. During the course of the 18th century, the increasing reliance on black bonded labor led to the disappearance of white indentured servitude. Economic incentives - be they in terms of productivity or in the cost of controlling the laborers - motivated the adoption of new forms of bound labor. However, the substitution of one form of unfree labor for another did not occur in a sudden and orderly fashion: the change was characterized by a period of transition during which several types of bound labor coexisted.

This one-day conference aims at historicizing the implementation and development of different forms of bound labor in North America and in the Caribbean before the abolition of slavery. By specifically focusing on the process of legal codification, it intends to underline the continuities, the transfers and the differences that existed between the legislations which applied to various forms of unfree labor, but also between practices. Bound labor took many forms (indentured servitude, apprenticeship, convict labor, slavery, etc.) and encompassed diverse personal and collective experiences, depending on the geographic location and the historical period. Besides examining the construction of a legal arsenal aimed at controlling and disciplining unfree laborers, this one-day conference will also endeavor to assess, through case studies, the disparities between rhetoric and reality, in order to highlight the indomitable propensity for individuals or social groups to emancipate themselves from normative injunctions.

We welcome presentations based on a variety of topics such as:

- a comparative approach between different legislations, different time periods and different geographic locations

- the extent to which social and geographical origins, or religious confession, influenced unfree laborers’ social integration and treatment

- the social and political difficulties posed by the coexistence of various forms of bound labor

- the specialization and assignment to professional tasks according to the type of bound labor force

- the gap between law and practice

- the historiographic progress which the development of new technologies allows, namely in the treatment of data and the reconstruction of personal or collective trajectories

The languages of the one-day conference will be French and English.

For consideration, please submit a paper proposal of 300 words and a 1 page CV by April 15, 2015 to Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.

A selection of papers presented at the conference will be published.

Conference organizers:

Lawrence Aje (Université Paul -Valéry, Montpellier 3 - EMMA)

Anne-Claire Fauquez (Université Panthéon - Assas - EA 1569: Transferts critiques et dynamiques des savoirs, Université Paris VIII)

Elodie Peyrol-Kleiber (Université de Poitiers - MIMMOC)

On 6 - 8 July 2015 the Transatlantic Studies Association will host its 14th Annual Conference at the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg, the Netherlands.

Established in 2002, the TSA is a broad network of scholars who use the ‘transatlantic’ as a frame of reference for their work in political, economic, cultural, historical, environmental, literary, and IR/security studies. All transatlantic-themed paper and panel proposals from these disciplines are welcome. The Middelburg conference also encourages proposals / panels that:

1. investigate the relevance and significance of the ‘transatlantic’ for a certain discipline or field;
2. that explore it through frames of reference such as ideology, empire, race, religion, migration, political mobilisation, or social movements;
3. that incorporate perspectives that involve north-south and south-south transatlantic connections, as well as north-north;
4. that link the ‘transatlantic’ to other key perspectives such as the transnational or the cosmopolitan.

Both panel proposals and individual papers are welcome. Panel proposals are encouraged to include a discussant. New members and junior scholars are especially welcome.

Please send individual paper proposals (a 300 word abstract + brief CV) and complete panel proposals (300 word overview + 300 word abstracts for the papers + brief CVs) to the conference email: Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.

Deadline for panel and paper proposals: 1 January 2015

Keynote Lectures:

Jessica Gienow-Hecht (Free University, Berlin)

Inderjeet Parmar (City University, London)

Plenary Roundtable:

The Transatlantic Paradigm Reconsidered 

Accommodation

Due to limited accommodation options in the town of Middelburg, it is highly recommended that participants organize their accommodation as early as possible. Every effort will therefore be made to accept proposals as soon as possible after the 1 January deadline.

The Roosevelt Study Center can be contacted at Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo. for information on accommodation options.

TSA Chair and local conference organiser: Giles Scott-Smith: Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.

Conference committee: Victor Gavin, Mark Meirowitz, Alexandre Moreli, Sirpa Salenius, Roberta ter Haar, Pia Wiegmink, David Woolner

For further information on the Association please visit www.transatlanticstudies.com

The 8th Graduate School of North American Studies international conference will be held at the John F. Kennedy Institute at Freie Universität Berlin on May 7-9, 2015.