21st International Colloquium of American Studies
(Biannual Conference of the Czech and Slovak Association for American Studies):

The conference is organized by Palacký University Olomouc in cooperation with The Czech and Slovak Association for American Studies, and Embassy of the United States in Prague.

TOPICS AND ISSUES:

• How does literature, film, television, art, history and cultural geography reflect the notion of the human body/subject/identity or objects as being situated or emplaced; place as an event?
• How does literature respond to Yi-Fu Tuan’s notion of place as a field of care?
• Does the identification of place have to involve an “us/them distinction in which the other is devalued” (David Harvey)?
• Should one speak of constructing or producing a place? (“Place, then, needs to be understood as an embodied relationship with the world. Places are constructed by people doing things and in this sense are never ‘finished’ but constantly being performed.” (Nigel Thrift)
• How are places “produced” by cultural practices such as literature, film and music?
• How is the human subject and identity constructed or produced by places?
• Which new kinds of places appear in recent American literature?
• Place as home, outdoor places, indoor places and their changing meanings over time.

Deadline for paper proposals (ca 250 words): March 30
Address: colloquium.olomouc@upol.cz and michal.peprnik@upol.cz
Extended versions of papers will be peer-reviewed and their selection will be published in the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Moravian Journal of Literature and Film published by Palacký University Olomouc Press (seehttp://www.moravianjournal.upol.cz/ ).
Plenary speakers TBA. See the colloquium web pages for further details:  http://colloquium.upol.cz
 
Registration fee: 1000 CZK (40 EUR), reduced fee for doctoral students: 800 CZK (30 EUR). The fee includes conference package, two lunches, and a reception.