Call for Papers: Northeast Workshop on Southern Africa 2008,
03/08
Northeast Workshop on Southern Africa 2008 Call for Papers
This is the first call for papers and participation for the Eighth
Northeast Workshop on Southern Africa (NEWSA). We encourage scholars
from all disciplines who are currently working on southern Africa
(Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia,
South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) to submit proposals.
The meeting will be held at the Bishop Booth Conference Center in
Burlington, Vermont (US), October 17-19, 2008. Located on 130 acres
of forest with its own secluded beach, the center is an ideal
location for scholarly conversation.
The NEWSA conference is organized around intensive discussion of pre-
circulated papers. There are also many opportunities for informal
conversation about work in progress. Drawing on the successful
precedents of the former Southern African Research Program at Yale
and the Canadian Research Consortium on Southern Africa, this program
is designed to give southern Africanists the opportunity for close
and intensive discussion of work across a wide variety of scholarly
fields. We aim to prioritize scholarship, regardless of discipline or
topic, that is grounded in an analysis of African discourses and
concepts, and which elucidates local worldviews and experience.
We encourage the presentation of previously unpublished work, and
submissions from graduate students and junior faculty in particular.
We especially encourage participation from professionals, scholars
and graduate students in Africa, as well as those located in Europe,
Canada, and the United States.
There are multiple ways to participate in the NEWSA conference.
Participants may:
-
present a paper
-
propose an entire panel of three papers
-
serve as a discussant
-
attend the workshop
If you wish to give a paper, your proposal should include a title and
one- to two-paragraph abstract.
If you wish to organize your own three-paper panel, your proposal
should include all the authors' names, titles and abstracts for all
three papers, as well as a brief rationale for how the papers
complement each other. The organizers will be happy to negotiate
alternative panel formats (such as open discussions of a current issue).
If you wish to serve as a discussant, your proposal should indicate
the areas of southern African studies on which you are most prepared
to comment. Once the conference participants are selected and
organized into panels, each panel will be assigned a discussant.
Discussants thoroughly read the pre-circulated papers by the
participants in their session, and at the conference give a 10-15
minute constructive criticism/comment on the papers individually and
collectively. Discussants also coordinate discussion of the papers
amongst those attending the panel.
The deadline for paper and/or panel proposals, and to volunteer as a
discussant, is March 14, 2008. Send proposals to Peter Alegi
(alegi@msu.edu).
Completed papers, not to exceed thirty pages, will be due September
12, 2008, so that the papers can be pre-circulated on a conference
website ahead of the meeting.
Accommodation, Registration and Travel
All participants are housed at the Bishop Booth Conference Center
(http://www.dioceseofvermont.org/Orgs/BishopBooth.html), which offers
inexpensive accommodation and meals in a beautiful setting. The
conference facility can sleep up to a maximum of 50 people. Single
and double rooms are extremely limited and most rooms sleep 3 people
with shared bathrooms.
The estimated costs are as follows:
Rooms (sharing):
Double: $40 per night
Triple: $30 per night
All meals for the weekend (Friday lunch – Sunday breakfast, excluding
Saturday night dinner): $75
Registration:
| Full time faculty at North American or European Institutions |
$80 |
| Graduate Students at North American or European Institutions |
$30 |
| Attendees traveling from Southern Africa are not required to |
pay |
registration.
Burlington is easily accessible. By car it is 90 minutes from
Montreal, 3½ hours from Boston and approximately five hours from New
York. In addition to its airport Burlington is served by AMTRAK
(train) and several bus lines.
For Further Information
If you would like to receive direct notices about this and future
NEWSA meetings, please subscribe to our e-mail list. To do this, send
an email to majordomo@southwestern.edu. The body of your email should
read:
subscribe su-newsa
For the latest updated information on the conference, see the NEWSA
web site at https://segue.southwestern.edu/sites/greenmue.
Page Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar, Ph.D.