CFP CESA – 1st of September

DECOLONIZING FUTURE INTELLECTUAL LEGACIES
and ACTIVIST PRACTICES

The Second Major Conference of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association
September 19-21, 2013 (NOT 2012)
University of Illinois-Chicago

Plenary Speakers (To Date):
Taiaiake Alfred • Ricardo Dominguez • Nirmala Ervelles • Jin Haritaworn • Robin D.G. Kelley • Scott Kurashige • John Marquez • Mia Mingus • Emma Perez • Vijay Prashad • Jasbir Puar • Barbara Ransby • Beth Richie • Dorothy Roberts • Cedric Robinson • Steven Salaita • Ella Shohat • Alexander Weheliye • Patrick Wolfe • Jessica Yee

Conference Information:
Interrogating the limitations of ethnic studies today and counteracting these appropriations, CESA’s second conference has as its central goal the development of an approach to scholarship, institution building, and activism that is animated by the spirit of the decolonial, antiracist, and other global liberationist movements that enabled the creation of Ethnic Studies (Asian American Studies, Black Studies, Native American Studies, Arab-American Studies, Latino/a Studies, and Postcolonial Studies) and continues to inform its political and intellectual projects.  An un-disciplinary formation, critical ethnic studies has decolonization not as its goal but sees decolonizing as a set of ongoing theories, practices, imaginaries, and methods in the service of abolishing global oppression. Thus, rather than focusing exclusively on critique, critical ethnic studies stands for decolonizing as a generative praxis of world-making.

We particularly seek proposals that do not romanticize social movements or prescribe a specific relationship between scholars and activists, but rather, call into question the emphasis on professionalization within ethnic studies and the concomitant refusal to interrogate the politics of the academic industrial complex or to engage with broader movements for social transformation. We hope to counteract the tendency of seeing the academic industrial complex as radically removed from the world and to provide a space to interrogate how the university transforms ideas into ideology, thought into action, and knowledge into power.

We invite panel and individual paper submissions on a wide range of topics that may include but are not limited to the following:

* Settler colonialism and white supremacy
* Critical genocide studies
* Queering ethnic studies
* Heteropatriarchy
* Race, colonialism, and capitalism
* Race and disability studies
* Intersections of transgender and ethnic studies
* Racial logics of immigration and border policing
* Critical imaginaries, alternate presents and futures
* Religion
* Sounds, images, and performances
* Contested archives
* Technologizing ethnic studies
* Professionalization, praxis, and the academic industrial complex
* Critical race studies
* Liberationist epistemologies
* Critical ethnic studies, un-disciplinarity, and relationships with
other fields
* Decolonization and empire
* Social movements and activism

We encourage submissions in traditional academic conference paper and panel formats, as well as alternative, creative, collaborative, and site-specific presentations, workshops, roundtables, etc., from academics, independent scholars, artists, cultural producers, activists, community workers, and others.

For submission guidelines and conference registration, or to become a member of CESA, please visit: http://www.criticalethnicstudies.org <http://www.criticalethnicstudies.org/>

*Final Submission Deadline is September 1st , 2012.

For questions regarding the conference please email
cesaconference@gmail.com <mailto:cesaconference@gmail.com>

For questions regarding CESA please email criticalethnicstudies@gmail.com
<mailto:criticalethnicstudies@gmail.com>