Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago

The theme of the symposium "Transcending Boundaries: Research and Scholarship in an Uncertain Era" encourages scholars to reflect on our current political and social climate and how that might affect our research and scholarship in the present as well as the years to come. We welcome scholarly proposals from all disciplines, time periods, regions, and locales. Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars of color at the intersections of all identities from all divisions are encouraged to apply.  

The symposium will feature a lunchtime keynote address given by Eve Ewing, current Provost's Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Chicago and incoming Assistant Professor in the School of Social Service Administration. In addition to thematic panel discussions the symposium will host a Research Lightning Round. During the Lightning Round, scholars are given 3 minutes to explain their research to an interdisciplinary audience. The lightning round is designed to give UChicago underrepresented minority scholars the opportunity to briefly share and promote their work in a low-stakes but high-energy setting.

 

 

Panel Themes

Resilience:

How have people, institutions, and ideas persevered in times of change or unrest? How has resilience, broadly construed, been interpreted over time? How have acts of resilience shaped our current world? 

 

Examples of papers submitted to this panel may discuss but are not limited to: the continuation of political and racial ideologies, cultures, forms of knowledge, systems, and types of resistance.

 

Space, Place, and Time: 

How does concepts of space, place, and time shape our understanding of the world around us. How might these concepts change or remain the same given our current circumstances? 

 

Examples of papers submitted to this panel may discuss but are not limited to: life in urban and rural settings, existing in public spaces, and environmental justice.

 

(in)visibility:

What truths are missing from the official records in our field of study? Who and what is rendered invisible, underrepresented, and hyper-visible and why? How might we begin to render the invisible visible? 

 

Examples of papers submitted to this panel may discuss but are not limited to: discussions of counter-narratives, groups that are often excluded from empirical study or theoretical frameworks.

 

Transformation:

How has the environment--built, natural, and human--responded to change over time? What forces have conspired to create that change? How has the environment responded? Conversely, how has the environment stayed the same? 

 

Examples of papers submitted to this panel include but are not limited to: environmental and human changes over time, instances of inertia, responses to change and/or stagnation, and efforts at preservation.

 

 

Submission guidelines
Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words describing the scope of the proposed presentation making sure to show how your project fits in with the conference theme. Because this is an interdisciplinary conference, participants are encouraged to interpret the panel themes broadly and think creatively about how their work might speak to one or all of the themes below. 

Please use this link below to complete an application for a panel or lightening round submission - http://bit.ly/2kvhjrW

Applications should be submitted by Apri 3, 2017 at 11:59 pm. Additionally, please rank the panels in which you feel your research best fits. In you application include your contact information including full name, department/division, and email address.