Welcome to SAAS

Call For Papers for Our Next Conference

"A Return to (What Never Was) Normal: Discourses of (Ab)Normalcy in US Culture, Literature, Arts, and Politics; Past, Present, and Futures"

PANEL 16

16) "Deviation from the Norm: Intersectional Discourses in American Literature and Culture"
Panel Chair: María Laura Arce Álvarez, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
E-Mail: laura.arce@uam.es  

In their work Gender Trouble, Judith Butler asserts that "a descriptive account of gender includes considerations of what makes gender intelligible, an inquiry into its condition of possibility, whereas a normative account seeks to answer the question of which expressions of gender are acceptable, and which are not, supplying persuasive reasons to distinguish between such expressions in this way" (xxii). Here, Butler challenges normative presumptions of gender by "troubling" its definition in terms of normative operation. Discourses that deviate from the norm have conquered American literature in its contribution to redefine, restructure, and rewrite not only literature itself but also identity, political, and social discourses. This panel welcomes proposals that question gender, race, class, age, and identity from an intersectional perspective in American literature that deviate from the norm. We will discuss narratives that criticize the delimiting power of the norm to transform it and we will show how these reconstructed discourses introduce a historical vision of the past to which it is impossible to return. This panel welcomes papers that address and discuss intersectional discourses in American literature media, visual arts, and films in the following issues (but not limited to them):

• Gender, class, and race in American literature

• Ageism in American literature

• Matricentric narratives and new conceptions of motherhood and family

• Queer literature

• Queer theory: the reconstruction and deconstruction of the narrative discourse

• Transgressive discourses in film studies

• TV shows and their social impact

GUIDELINES FOR PARTICIPANTS

Abstracts of Proposals are to be e-mailed directly to the chair of the selected panel using this form. The deadline for submitting abstracts is October 15, 2022. Panel chairs are expected to accept/reject proposals and have panels set up by November 7.

Non-members of SAAS (of all nationalities) are welcome to participate in the conference, but will be required to pay membership dues for one year as well as the conference registration fee. Members of ASA (American Studies Association), AISNA (Associazione Italiana di Studi Nor-Americani), APEAA (Portuguese Association for Anglo-American Studies) and HELAAS (Hellenic Association for American Studies) need only pay the conference registration fee.

Further guideliness for participants can be found here.