XXIII Annual Juan Bruce-Novoa
Mexican Studies Conference
University of California, Irvine
April 13 – 15, 2017
Precarious Archives, Shifting Memories
Keynote Speakers:
ÉLMER MENDOZA
SARA SEFCHOVICH
CARLOS MARTÍNEZ ASSAD
The Department of Spanish & Portuguese at UC Irvine and UC-Mexicanistas announce the twenty-third annual Mexican Studies Conference to be held on April 13-15, 2017. This conference brings together academics from Mexico, the U.S. and other parts of the world who are conducting research on related themes.
This year’s topic, “Precarious Archives, Shifting Memories” (Archivos precarios, memorias cambiantes), is inspired from the term “shifting baselines” often used in the natural sciences to describe how, from one generation to the next, the idea of normalcy can shift, thus rendering invisible the true extent of loss over a greater period of time. The term is usually used to discuss matters related to ecological conservation and human exploitation of natural resources, but it is particularly pertinent to connect ecocriticism with issues such as violence and memory in Mexican culture. When official archives are incomplete, falsified or prone to disappear, what roles are played by other forms of cultural memory? How do cultural narratives evolve over time? How are archives reconfigured and reinvented? How can slow forms of violence, such as the gradual erosion of human rights, economic resources, public space and the natural environment be rendered visible?
We encourage submissions from across disciplines, including but not limited to: literary, visual, media and performance studies, as well as religious studies, history, anthropology, political and social sciences. We are particularly, but not exclusively, interested in papers that address the following themes:
- Reading fiction as archive, or archive as fiction
- A reading of archives through object oriented ontologies
- The politics of preservation
- Remembrance, time and technology.
- Ethnography meets the archive
- Archives, knowledge, and power
- Phenomenology of the archive
- Transnational or diasporic archives in movement
- The archive as embodied practice
- Fragmented and interrupted archives
We will also consider papers that explore other themes in Mexican literature and culture.
Papers should be written in either Spanish or English. Presentations are limited to no more than 20 minutes (8 pages double-spaced). If you are interested in reading an original paper, please submit a 200 word abstract electronically to ucimexconf@gmail.com by the deadline of January 16, 2017. Proposals should include the following information: title of the presentation, name of participant, affiliation, academic status, mailing address, telephone and email. The selection committee will respond to all proposals by February 10, 2017.
Registration fees for this year’s conference will be $35 for students and independent scholars, and $45 for faculty until March 11, 2016. Afterwards, the cost will be $45 and $55 respectively.
Hotel reservations should be made by March 22nd to ensure room availability. Contact Ayres Hotel, 325 Bristol St • Costa Mesa, CA, 92626 • Tel. (800) 322-9992
If you have questions, please contact:
Dr. Jacobo Sefamí or Dr. Viviane Mahieux
Email: ucimexconf@gmail.com
https://sites.uci.edu/jbncongresomexicanista/
Department of Spanish & Portuguese
322 Humanities Hall
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-5275
Office: (949) 824-6901 / Fax: (949) 824-2803