Announcing the 2009-2010 Annual Symposium

Co-sponsored by the Clements Center for Southwest Studies, Southern Methodist University and

The Autry National Center, Los Angeles, California

CALL FOR PAPERS

On the Borders of Love and Power:
Families in the Multicultural American West

Proposals for scholarly papers dealing with the history of the family in the American West are solicited for a symposium co-sponsored by the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University (SMU) and The Autry National Center.  An initial presentation will be held at The Autry in Los Angeles, California in the Fall of 2009, to be followed in Spring 2010 by a conference at SMU in Dallas, Texas. Expectations are that a university press will publish the papers as a volume edited by conference organizers David Wallace Adams and Crista DeLuzio.

 

Contributions to the symposium and volume will explore the relationship between family life and larger structures of social and political power in specific times and places in the history of the West. The symposium does not take for granted a split between the private and the public – between the personal, affective, or intimate, on the one hand, and the social and political, on the other. Rather, the symposium will challenge scholars to interrogate how such relationships have been construed, enforced, regulated, and contested in particular socio-historical contexts and with what effects on individuals, families,  and groups. How has the family been shaped by the imperatives of economic, social, and political relations in the West? Conversely, what role has the family played in constructing, reproducing, or mediating social order and power relations in the West? Addressing one of the most persistent questions in the historiography on the West, contributors will also seek to discern whether the West as a region was distinctive in the ways in which the borders between “love” and “power” were negotiated, and if so, why this was the case.

 

Aspects of family life to be addressed in relation to these questions and themes may include: movement and settlement; courtship and marriage; birthing and babies; gender roles and relations; childhood (education, work, play, childrearing); diverse definitions of family among various racial, ethnic, and religious groups; family violence; families in peril (slavery, orphans, poverty); families and public policies; families in the urban West; and depictions of the family in the arts and popular culture.

 

We welcome submissions from scholars of any rank – from graduate students to full professor – who are eager to contribute substantively to what promises to be an exciting and important academic endeavor. Please send a CV and description of an original project to Crista DeLuzio by September 15, 2008. The description, of up to five pages, should both describe the research and explain how it serves the goals of the conference. Approximately eight to ten papers will be chosen for the conferences and resulting volume. Queries can be directed either to Adams or DeLuzio.

 

              David Wallace Adams                              Crista DeLuzio

              Department of History                                 Clements Department of History

              Cleveland State University                           Southern Methodist University              

              2121 Euclid Ave                                         Box 750176

              Cleveland, OH 44115                                  Dallas, TX 75275-0176

              d.adams@csuohio.edu                               cdeluzio@smu.edu
              216-687-4577                                             214-768-3748

Last updated April 23, 2007.