German Studies Association
The 47th German Studies Association Conference
The 47th German Studies Association Conference in Montréal, Québec, Canada, from October 5 to October 8, 2023 will again host a series of seminars in addition to conference sessions and roundtables (for general conference information, click here). Seminars meet for all three days of the conference during the first or second morning slot to foster extended discussion, rigorous intellectual exchange, and intensified networking. They are led by two to four conveners and consist of 8 to 20 participants, at least some of whom should be graduate students. In order to reach the goal of extended discussion, seminar organizers and participants are required to participate in all three installments of the seminar.
Proposal Deadline: Friday, March 3rd, 2023 View conference website.
Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies
JIS Symposium 2023: Culture & Its Discontents: From Selfies to Community
At the center of postmodern culture is a paradox: What Christopher Lasch
analyzed as The Culture of Narcissism (1979) that celebrates an individual’s
unbounded subjectivity, found an unlikely ally in what Mark Milke calls The
Victim Cult (2021) that focuses on past grievances while forsaking the future.
Both Hitler and Stalin thought of themselves as “victims.” Their paranoia
stoked fascist and communist totalitarian dictatorships punctuated by Nazi
concentration camps and the Soviet Gulag chronicled by Aleksandr I.
Solzhenitsyn. In post-World War II U.S., racial, ethnic and gender preferences
had unintended consequences. Beneficiaries who succeeded due to talent and
effort would have done so without preferences, while those less-prepared often faced
higher education’s revolving door. As contributors to A Dubious Expediency
(2021) conclude, such preferences damage higher education, lowering standards,
resulting in demands for further leveling, and silencing of independent voices
via political correctness. But the major deleterious consequence of preferences
is the retribalization of American society and resulting identity politics
which now divide the Republic along ancient tribal, non-negotiable, lines. John
McWhorter claims in Woke Racism (2021) that the “Elect”--self-styled gurus who
demand uncompromising racial consciousness of victimhood from blacks and whites
alike--propagate a new “religion” that has betrayed black America. The question
arises: Can individuals and groups in 21st-century America find common ground,
renewing the culture and civil society as the precondition for community and a
more perfect Union?
Proposal Deadline: Wednesday, March 15, 2023 View conference website.