Statements

SASA 2022 Conference

March 3-5, The Westin Birmingham — Birmingham, Alabama

Submission Deadline: September 7, 2021

UPDATE: We are looking forward to holding an in-person conference, but we’re happy to be partnering with Whova event management to enable virtual participation. We plan to open conference registration in October, so watch this space!

Conference Theme: Resistance and (Re)Generation

With authoritarianism and nationalism on the rise in the US and abroad in recent years, “resistance” has become a keyword for activists, stressing the importance of organized, conscience-based opposition to governmental oppression. Resistance can take many forms, including traditional and nontraditional public protest, liberation pedagogy, and a variety of artistic expressions. Resistance responds not only to the actions of governments but also to broader power structures (economic, racial, gendered) that support violence and oppression. “(Re)Generation” signals the productive aspect of resistance — resistance as building, energizing, and creating, not simply opposing. “Generation,” of course, also brings to mind the demographics of age and the interactions (sometimes productive, sometimes fraught) among different “generations” of activists and scholars.

For the 2022 SASA conference, we are inviting interdisciplinary papers and roundtables that explore moments (literary, historical, cultural) of resistance and regeneration within national and transnational contexts. And we welcome papers and sessions that explore how scholars’ research, teaching, and/or service perform meaningful cultural work within and beyond their particular academic settings. Further, we ask scholars to consider where and how that public intellectualism/public scholarship fits into the research and teaching agendas of American Studies scholars. 

Possible topics for papers, panels, or roundtable sessions:

Activist art

BLM pedagogy

The #MeToo movement: accomplishments and backlash

Public scholarship as resistance

Journalism in the age of alternative facts

Voter suppression, then and now

Comparative protest movements

Resistance on film

New media and civic regeneration

Approaches to teaching American Studies in 2022

Regeneration in the age of COVID-19

The changing roles of museums and archives

Guidelines for submissions:

Please use the online form available here to submit your proposals by August 15, 2021.

For individual papers, you will be prompted to submit an abstract for your proposed paper (500 words) and a brief bio (max 300 words).

For complete panel or roundtable proposals, you will be prompted to

submit a title and description of the proposed panel or roundtable (300 words); a brief abstract for each presentation within the session (300 words per abstract); and a brief bio for each presenter (250 words per bio).

The full link to the submission form is https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QsM8dFYfQl_nbrySrAfzs8zMOtN5NTjd05J5RDit_o0/edit

In the interest of involving as many people in our conference as possible, each conference attendee may be listed in the conference program as a participant in a maximum of two sessions. While we welcome a range of formats, we ask that panels be designed so that they fit within a 75-minute time frame with at least 15 minutes dedicated to discussion. As always, we especially encourage graduate students to attend our conference, to present research, and to enjoy being part of our scholarly community. A limited number of Heusel/Moore travel grants for graduate students will be made available to offset some of the cost of attending the conference. The Critoph Prize recognizes the best graduate student paper presented at each SASA conference. It includes a certificate and a check for $250, as well as recognition at the next biennial gathering. The deadline for graduate students to submit the papers they are presenting at the 2022 conference—as a Microsoft Word or PDF attachment to SASAcritophprize@gmail—is noon on March 3, 2022. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Conference2021@southeasternasa.org

HB 1523 Statement

The officers and Board of the Southern Regional Chapter of the American Studies Association (SASA) join our colleagues, friends, and fellow activists in condemning the pernicious legislation enacted in Mississippi that allows religion to be used to discriminate against the LGBT community and deny access to the basic rights that many Americans enjoy.

 

Mississippi’s House Bill 1523, “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act,” guarantees that the state government will not punish people for refusing, because of their religious beliefs, to provide services to members of the LGBTQ community. Unfortunately, this law is not atypical. Many states currently are debating similar bills. Despite several landmark actions on the federal level, there is a long history of discrimination against the LGBTQ community that persists today.

 

We support the promotion and extension of equal rights and urge members to actively protest these discriminatory laws. SASA hopes to use our expertise and resources to create venues for constructive conversation and engagement and to collaborate with other individuals and organizations with similar goals. We also hope that such actions will lead to the end of hate-motivated violence and other forms of discrimination that negatively impact the LGBTQ community.

 

Finally, we commend all individuals who have already taken a stand against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, especially those who live and work in Mississippi and are directly affected by the legislation. We call on our fellow American Studies colleagues to engage in public discussions as we grapple with discrimination in all forms. Mississippi’s LGBTQ communities and their supporters need to be assured that they are not alone.

 

 

 

HB2 Statement

The officers and Board of the Southern Regional Chapter of the American Studies Association (SASA) joins our colleagues, friends, and fellow activists in condemning the pernicious legislation recently enacted in North Carolina that unjustly denies members of the LGBTQ community access to the basic rights that many Americans enjoy.

North Carolina’s House Bill 2, “Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act,” openly sanctions discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation by the state. Unfortunately, this law is not atypical. Despite several landmarks actions on the federal level in recent years, there is a long history of discrimination against the LGBTQ community that persists today.

We support the promotion and extension of equal rights and urge members to actively protest such discriminatory laws. SASA hopes to use our expertise and resources to create venues for constructive conversation and engagement and to collaborate with other individuals and organizations with similar goals. We also hope that such actions will lead to the end of hate-motivated violence and other forms of discrimination that negatively impacts the LGBTQ community.

Finally, we commend all individuals who have already taken a stand against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. We call on our fellow American Studies colleagues to engage in public discussions as we grapple with discrimination in all forms. North Carolina’s LGBTQ communities and their supporters need to be assured that they are not alone.