jim writes:

"American Studies Association Panel on Culture, Activism, and Power:

Social Reform and Strategies for Change"

November 11-14, 2004

This panel will investigate how social activists deploy forms of culture as tool for reform. From the nineteenth century to the present, American reformers and community activists have staffed reading rooms, held sporting events, taught literature and language, and engaged in other practices that depend upon transmitting cultural forms across class or experiential boundaries. In the process, they also engage another aspect of culture by attempting to cross the boundaries that characterize distinct ethnic, middle-class, working-class or upper-class cultures.

This panel will investigate how cultural exchange reflects social power dynamics and challenges or reinforces class, ethnic, and racial boundaries in the pursuit of social reform and/or social justice. Contributors to this panel might address, for example, community activism past or present by insiders or outsiders to the community; union organizing and the uses of culture; missionary work in the United States or abroad; or prison voluntarism.

The panel also welcomes submissions from community activists about their own experiences.

Please send a 250-word abstract of your proposed paper and a one-page vita by December 31, 2003, to Emily Mieras, American Studies Department/Box 8262,
Stetson University, DeLand, FL 32723, or e-mail to emieras@stetson.edu.