IX CONGRESO SAAS / 9th International SAAS Conference

Barcelona, 1-3 April 2009

List of panels

WATER AND AMERICAN RENEWAL: Critical readings. Political interventions

The 2008 SAAS (Spanish Association for American Studies) Conference will be
held in Barcelona, Spain, in Spring, 1-3 April 2009. The Program Committee invites colleagues to submit proposals for individual papers, on diverse aspects of this topic, within the following proposed panels.

Please send your proposed abstract directly to the Chair of each panel (via e-mail) by 15 October, 2008 (full papers should be sent by 15 February, 2009). Should your proposal not fit into any of the panels, you can send it to prof. Cristina Alsina (alsina@ub.edu) and to prof. Ana Mª Manzanas (amanzana@usal.es), for there will also be a Miscellaneous Panel for a limited number of selected contributions. Please bear in mind that participants cannot present more than one paper at the conference. Conversely, they can chair a panel and present a paper. Participants are reminded that their names will not appear on the conference program if they have not previously payed the conference fee.

List of Panels

Water, both literally and metaphorically, sustains the flow of life. At the ecological level, concern about water in the 21st century, its availability to all people, and its sustainability for the coming generations, has triggered urgent calls for action both within the United States and beyond its frontiers. The International Exposition Zaragoza 2008 "Water and Sustainable Development" focused on the water crisis that poses great social challenges for our world. Al Gore's documentary film "An inconvenient truth" testifies to the North American preoccupation with the role that both administration and citizens should play to reverse the impending draughts that threaten to sap the world of water. The sustainability of water then depends on the political and emotional implications of the people. From the perspective of the humanities, water as enabler/consequence of emotion (tears, sweat, the breaking of waters...) is crucial in any analysis of the potential interaction between the personal and the political.

The 9th International SAAS Conference, which will be held at the Universitat de Barcelona, is going to offer a space of reflection on the social and ideological dimensions of water. Some issues to be addressed at this international meeting will be:

•  W ater, its presence in U.S. geography and history. A bicoastal continent, America is connected by the two biggest existing oceans with all the other continents. Water was the means by which explorers, sojourners, settlers, slaves, and immigrants flowed in from all other corners of the world. American rivers and lakes have been central to the survival of both the native nations and the colonizers of the continent. How is water represented in North American literature as a means of psychological or emotional survival and renewal?

•  A llegories of water have shaped the conception of the United States as an emotional site. To what extent has the empathy of egalitarianism and democratic ideals been manifested in the "body" of American literature through actual corporeality? Tears, sweat, the breaking of the waters, sexuality can be discussed as elements that bridge the gap between American individualism and social awareness or political activism.

•  T erritoriality and water. How central is water to the shaping of "local color" identities and literary traditions? From which ideological premises has water been represented along the centuries in American literature and history both as a source of life and as a destructive element?

•  E mancipation and water in American culture. Water as physical mobility and emotional fluidity. To what extent are self-liberation and (national) freedom(s) epitomized by representations of water?

•  R eading and/as political activism. The current binding of the water crisis with the need to defend human rights for all people highlights the connection between nature and culture, the sciences and the humanities. To what extent can (critical) readings become sites for political intervention?

Deadlines

April 1st, 2008: Deadline for submission of proposals for workshop sessions. Send them to Ana Mª Manzanas (amanzana@usal.es) and/or Cristina Alsina (alsina@ub.edu).

Late April 2008: Workshop chairs will be notified about their proposals. The final list of workshops will appear on the webpage, and will be made public through the distribution list.

October 15th, 2008: Deadline for participants to submit their paper proposals to workshop chairs.

Non-members of SAAS (of all nationalities) are welcome to participate in the conference by sending paper proposals to the different panel conveners, but will be required to pay membership dues for one year as well as the conference registration fee. Members of ASA (American Studies Association), need only pay the conference registration fee.