The American Studies Program at the University of Miami presents:
ATLANTIC GEOGRAPHIES
A 4-day institute for advanced graduate students and recent PhDs May 14-17, 2012 The Elena Díaz-Versón Amos Conference Room of the Cuban Heritage Collection and the 3rd-Floor Conference Room, Richter Library, University of Miami www.as.miami.edu/ams/atlanticgeographies
Keynote lecture and workshop by Vincent Brown (Professor of History and of African and African American Studies, Duke University). Public lecture: Monday, May 14, 4:30 p.m. Closed workshop: Tuesday, May 15, 9:30 a.m.
The field of Atlantic studies has been at the forefront of the spatial turn in the humanities and social sciences for several decades, challenging national paradigms for the study of history and culture, embracing historical geography in groundbreaking projects such as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, and producing a rich body of scholarship that brings together art, geography, history, literature, and politics in innovative and fruitful ways. From D. W. Meinig’s Atlantic America, 1492-1800 (1986) to Nicolás Wey Gómez’s The Tropics of Empire (2008), geographical studies of the Atlantic world have centrally informed Atlantic history and transatlantic literary studies. Most recently, Atlantic studies has also begun to engage the expanded datasets and sophisticated cartographies of geographical information systems (GIS).
Eager to see what the next generation of scholars brings to this conversation and how they will change it, we invite applications from advanced doctoral students and recent PhDs in the humanities and social sciences who have completed or will complete the PhD between May 2010 and May 2013. We are interested in all environments, regions, communities, and countries of the Atlantic world and particularly in the wide array of discourses, events, and processes that bind them together. We hope that new maps of the field will emerge from these discussions and that participants will be able to draw and build on them over the course of their careers.
Participants will discuss their pre-circulated working papers in closed seminars led by faculty from the University of Miami, Florida International University, and Florida Atlantic University, all of which share a strong scholarly tradition in Atlantic studies. The institute will provide several meals and a $300 stipend for all participants and hotel accommodations for out-of-town guests. Participants are responsible for their own travel arrangements and expenses, though we may be able to defray travel costs for one or two applicants who otherwise would not be able to attend. Although the common working language of the seminar will be English, we are eager to discuss a variety of geographic and linguistic areas and encourage applications from scholars in and of Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America.
Please send the following materials in PDF format to atlantic.geographies@miami.edu:
1. a two-page description of your dissertation or book project; 2. a current CV; 3. a one-page abstract of the paper you wish to present; 4. (only if applicable) a request for partial travel funding. 5. Please arrange for two confidential letters of recommendation to be sent to the same email address.
Completed applications are due December 8, 2011. We will notify up to twelve successful applicants by mid-January 2012.
For more information, please visit our website at www.as.miami.edu/ams/atlanticgeographies.
Organizing committee: Tracy Devine Guzmán (Modern Languages and Literatures), Kate Ramsey (History), Tim Watson (American Studies and English), Ashli White (History).
The Atlantic Geographies Institute is generously supported by the following units at the University of Miami: the Program in American Studies, the University of Miami Libraries, the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of History, the Department of English, the Joseph Carter Memorial Fund of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, the Department of Geography and Regional Studies, the Department of Philosophy, the Center for the Humanities, the Center for Latin American Studies, the Graduate School, the Atlantic Studies Interdisciplinary Research Group, and the Program in Africana Studies.