----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Graduate Student Conference call for papers in Representing Culture: Methodology and Politics While scholars would like to think that their techniques for collecting evidence and for fashioning evidence into representations are neutral, they are not. Inherent in methodological practices are representational approaches that have important political implications. The political significance of scholarly representations extenda in two directions, backwards to the disciplines and fileds that conventionalize specific ways of representing, and forward to the impact of scholarly representations on academic and nonacademic audiences, including the "subjects." The goal of this conference is to spotlight these implications and their consequences for understanding academic work on culture. Preliminary questions including: How do innovations in ways of collecting evidence and constructing representation alter the impact of scholarly representations? How can scholarshop reflect the researcher's conccious exploration of the appropriateness, biases, and limitations of method? How does a researcher's positionality with respect to subjects affect his or her methodology? ... The conference will be held at Northwestern University in Oct. 13-15, 1995. There will be 4-6 panels featuring presentations by graduate students along with comments and discussion by distinguished visitors. Initial plans call for 5 major foci: REPRESENTING FIELD EXPERIENCE REPRESENTING SOCIAL MOVEMENTS REPRESENTING LOCALCULTURE REPRESENTING POPULAR CULTURE REPRESENTING DOMINANT CULTURE Other possible topics include: Improvisation and the problems it poses for representation, scholarly representations of cultuer and public policy, and the impact of representations on understandings of human rights. Interested students should send abstracts (1,000 words) (or for further information) to: Culture Conference c/o Judith Gibson, Ass. Director Center for International & Comparative Studies 618 Garrett Place Northwestern University Evanston, IL 60208 Fax: 708-467-1996 The deadline for receipt of abstracts is April 15, 1995. ---G