1 GRANT APPLICATION for the ASA Regional Chapter Grants Date

GRANT APPLICATION For the ASA Regional Chapter Grants Date: February 26, 2016 Name of Submitting Institution: Southern Regional Chapter of the American Studies Association (southernamericanstudiesassociation.org) Name, Address, Phone Number/Fax Number/Email Address of Project Director: Professor Timothy Marr Department of American Studies Greenlaw Hall 412, CB #3520 University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520 (919) 962-4019 Fax: (919) 962-3520 [email protected] Name, Address, Phone Number/Fax Number/ Email Address of Person Responsible for Submitting the Project and Financial Reports: SASA Treasurer Chair and Professor Lynne Adrian Department of American Studies 101B Ten Hoor Hall University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0214 (205) 348-9762 [email protected] Project Title: “Migrations and Circulations” (2017 Biennial Conference of the Southern American Studies Association) Requested Grant Amount: $3,000 Proposed Time Frame of Project: (include date grant funds are needed) Conference Dates: March 16-18, 2017 Funds Needed By: January 1, 2017 Project Objective: (one paragraph) The University of North Carolina will host the 2017 biennial SASA Conference, “Migrations and Circulations,” in Chapel Hill, March 16-18, 2017. We are excited about the opportunity to come and learn together about the literal and figurative movements of people, things, 1 and ideas within American Studies scholarship. An ASA Regional Grant would fund two initiatives that align with the mission of the conference and of the SASA. First, support for transportation and subsidized registration will enhance opportunities for educators and students to attend "Migrations and Circulations" and deepen the diversity of perspectives on conference themes. Additionally, funding for a plenary and discussion that engages all attendees in sustained exploration of interdisciplinary work by a prominent scholar will generate conversations about the past and future of our discipline. Our last three conferences were well attended, ranging between 150-200 participants. We expect that “Migrations and Circulations” will attract a similar number of attendees as previous conferences. Although a majority of our attendees live and work within our regional chapter boundaries, many come from other parts of the country and the world to participate. Project Description: The Southern regional chapter of the American Studies Association (SASA) is a growing and vibrant chapter within the ASA. Founded in 1989, it has proven to be one of the ASA’s largest and most dynamic regional chapters. SASA, with a mailing list of over 700 and an active membership of 353, presents new developments and findings in American Studies scholarship, identifies and defines areas of debate about the nature of American culture and its study, and conducts cultural and historical programs in the region and elsewhere. While our name begins with Southern, we emphasize that American Studies is our middle name, thereby emphasizing our focus on the interdisciplinary investigation of American culture in order to better understand the institutional patterns, beliefs, and values of America's pluralistic society and of the connections among the peoples, publics, and places of the U.S., including its various regions. The biennial conference meeting has expanded from an historic average of 25 to 35 panels and 60 to 80 presenters, to 225 speakers and chairs, 58 sessions, one colloquy, and three keynote addresses at Georgia State in 2011. The 2013 conference in Charleston included 265 presenters in 38 concurrent sessions and had three plenary sessions. In 2015, we returned to Atlanta once again, and had 45 concurrent sessions, two plenaries, a digital projects component, colloquy, and over 200 presenters. We anticipate accommodating a similar number of panelists and sessions in 2017. In March 2017, the University of North Carolina, a flagship, public institution, is hosting the regional conference. The conference will take place at UNC’s Global Education Center with accommodations at the nearby Carolina Inn. The Triangle region of North Carolina is a centralized nexus for interactions between the south’s past and traditions and broader national and transnational circulations and migrations. The timing and location is tied to a momentous occasion in UNC’s American Studies program—the graduation of its first cohort of American Studies PhD students. Students from this program and others will contribute to the operations of the conference and gain important professional experience through their engagement with its scholars and panels. In the call for proposals (see ASA’s website), we encourage presentations, workshops, roundtables, and performance pieces addressing the theme, “Migrations and 2 Circulations,” broadly defined. This interdisciplinary American Studies conference will explore interactive flows of ideas, discourses, bodies, and objects across cultures, populations, periods, and geographies. These movements span an array of involvement: some promoting generative transculturation and entrepreneurial innovation with others enforcing established powers in ways that produce exclusion and violence. Our collective inquiries will challenge the sufficiency of local, tribal, regional, and national frames by presenting new research in American Studies that charts dynamic interconnections and exchanges. We welcome critical and creative transgressions that refigure traditional scopes and -scapes in intersectional, comparative, transnational, and global ambits in ways that dramatize how every location embodies each of these registers. This includes the following topics: • Explorations of adoptions and adaptations of stories, songs, motifs, and performances across varied communities • Mixed, hybrid, and blended practices, aesthetics, languages, genetics, identities, and recipes • Interethnic and transcultural influences and appropriations • Pathways through different genealogies of belonging and inventions of memory • Circuits of ideas, beliefs, and practices through diverse media and technological channels • Translations of events, documents, and spaces into and through digital domains • Creative pedagogies and alternative performances for generating and transmitting learning • Transmutations of personal identities, historical reputations, and spatial stories across time • Migrations of refugees, emigres, defectors, asylum-seekers, contractees, adoptees, and retirees • Circulations of tourists, deportees, absconders, wanderers, and personae non gratae • Forced migrations and restrictions on movement, such as slavery, removal, incarceration, detention, and probation • Pushes and pulls of corporate and labor relocations, including urbanization, outsourcing, and franchising • Imports and exports and the transportation and consumption of these resources and products • Contending conceptualizations of freedom, equality, justice, patriotism, and citizenship. For the conference format, we will organize five concurrent sessions, with time for coffee breaks and networking in between. We will also hold receptions for conference attendees in conjunction with plenary talks. As always, we will award the Critoph Prize to the best graduate paper present by a student at the conference. Funding from the chapter grant will focus on generating more intellectual community between SASA and the American Studies programs in its member states, including at the undergraduate and secondary levels. Consistent with ASA’s intent to serve a broad audience, including K-12 teachers, and to respond to questions of public 3 importance, the site and program committees encourages and seeks sponsored sessions on community-based research and learning, projects that build ties between academics and a broader public, as well as sessions on the relevance of American Studies perspectives at all levels of education. To implement this initiative, we plan to use funds to hire a graduate student assistant to work on recruitment and outreach. A listing of the more than 25 American Studies programs in the region will be generated and Directors of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies will be contacted about the conference and its opportunities. Leaders of programs will be encouraged to nominate undergraduate and graduate students to participate in the 2017 SASA conference as well as share information with their teaching faculty. Attendees will be selected from submitted papers, invited to attend, and incorporated into panels at the conference. Funding support for transportation and registration fees will be provided out of the chapter grant as available. DUSs and DGSs will be encouraged to provide complementary support for students included in the conference program, possibly by enabling students to attend with their professors. Secondary schools that offer integrated American Studies curricula will be included in this community and their teachers and students invited to attend the conference and partake in panels, including those on pedagogy, and offered support if available. Accommodation during the conference will be arranged with students and locals in Chapel Hill and Durham. This innovation will enable top young students and secondary teachers to be exposed to the broader intellectual community of American Studies and enable the sharing of opportunities for further study and teaching across pre-professional levels. It will also foster support and commitment for SASA across all levels of our constituency and raise its profile among the American Studies programs within its

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