American Studies Center Aarhus

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Other America(n)s:

Politics and Poetics of Multiculturalism

Thursday 6 and Friday 7 March 1997

 

Program

Thursday 6 March 1997

Hornungstuen, Studenternes Hus

09:30 - 11:00 Helle Porsdam, 'Anxieties of Manhood and the Politics of Cultural Identity: An Analysis of William Gaddis's A Frolic of His Own'
11:00 - 11:30 Coffee
11:30 - 13:00 Ib Johansen, 'Ishmael Reed and Multiculturalism'
13:00 - 14:00 Lunch for guest speakers (sponsored by Aarhus University)
14:00 - 15:30 David Cowart, 'The Matriarch and the Solar Hero: Gloria Naylor's Mama Day'
15:30 - 16:00 Coffee
16:00 - 17:30 Bruce Leslie, 'The Mysterious Disappearance of German-America'
   
19:00 Dinner at a local restaurant (optional)


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Friday 7 March 1997

Mødesal 1, Studenternes Hus

08:30 - 10:00 Russell Duncan, 'Complexions of Indian Identity: The (Auto)Biographies of Wilma Mankiller and Russell Means'

Clara Juncker, 'The Body of Autobiography: Maya Angelou'

10:00 - 10:30 Coffee
10:30 - 12:00 Keynote address: Wai Chee Dimock, 'Rethinking Space, Rethinking Rights: Mary Wilkins Freeman and Others'
12:00 - 13:00 Lunch for guest speakers (sponsored by Aarhus University)
13:00 - 14:30 Magdalena J. Zaborowska, 'Mapping Transcultural Masculinities: James Baldwin's Innocents Abroad'
14:30 - 15:00 Coffee
15:00 - 16:30 Zygmunt Mazur, 'Ethnicity in Isaac Bashevis Singer's Works'
16:30 Closing Reception



All papers will be followed by a period for questions and discussion.

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The Speakers

David Cowart (M.A., Indiana University; Ph.D. Rutgers University) is Professor of English at the Department of English, University of South Carolina. His publications include Literary Symbiosis (1993), History and the Contemporary Novel (1989) and Arches and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner (1983).

Wai Chee Dimock (B.A., Harvard University; Ph.D., Yale University) is Professor of English at the Department of English, Brandeis University. Her publications include Residues of Justice: Literature, Law, Philosophy (1996), Empire For Liberty: Melville and the Poetics of Individualism (1989).

Russell Duncan (M.A., University of Georgia; Ph.D., University of Georgia) is Lecturer at the English Institute, Norwegian Institute of Science and Technology, Dragvoll. His publications include Entrepeneur for Equality: Governor Rufus Bollock and the Politics of Race and Commerce in Post-Civil War Georgia (1994) and Freedom's Shore: Tunis Campbell and the Georgia Freedmen (1992).

Ib Johansen (M.Phil., Aarhus University) is Associate Professor of English at the Department of English, Aarhus University. His publications include: Fantastic Tales. From Edgar Allan Poe to Angela Carter (1983) and Inventing the Future: Science Fiction in the Context of Cultural History and Literary Theory (1985).

Clara Juncker (M.A., Tulane University; Ph.D., Tulane University) is Director of and Associate Professor at the Center for American Studies, Odense University. Her publications include Black Roses: Afro-American Women Writers (1985) and 'Africa in South Carolina: Mamie Garvin Fields' Lemon Swamp and Other Places' in Transatlantic Passages, ed. Maria Diedrich, et. al. (forthcoming).

Bruce Leslie (B.A., Princeton University; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University) is 1996-97 Fulbright Professor in American History at the Department of English, Aarhus University. His publications include Gentlemen and Scholars: College and Community in the 'Age of the University,' 1865-1917 (1993) and 'When Professors had Servants: Prestige, Pay and Professionalization, 1865-1917,' in History of Higher Education Annual 10 (1990).

Zygmunt Mazur (M.A., Jagiellonian University; Ph.D., Jagiellonian University) is Lecturer in American Literature at Teacher Training College, Tarnów, and Associate Professor at the Institute of English Philology, Jagiellonian University. His publications include David as Author in Joseph Heller's 'God Knows,' (1992) and 'Interactive Narrative in V. Nabokov's Pale Fire,' in Studia Anglica Cracoviencis (1981).

Helle Porsdam (M.A., Copenhagen University; M.A., Yale University; Ph.D., Yale University) is Associate Professor at the Center for American Studies, Odense University. Her publications include 'Law as Soap Opera and Game Show: The Case of The People's Court,' in Journal of Popular Culture, 28 (1994) and 'The Black Experience and the Law' in Odense American Studies International Series, 7, (1993).

Magdalena J. Zaborowska (M.A., University of Warsaw; Ph.D., University of Oregon) is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Aarhus University. Her publications include How We Found America: Reading Gender through East-European Immigrant Narratives(1995) and 'Ethnicity in Exile in Maria Kuncewicz's Writings,' in Something of My Very Own to Say: American Women Writers of Polish Descent (forthcoming, 1997).



The American Studies Center Aarhus is grateful to the American Embassy, Copenhagen, the US Information Agency, Washington, the Department of English, Aarhus University, and the Aarhus University Research Foundation for their generous support which has made this conference possible.

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