Washington, DC \ July 11-15

Proposal Deadline: February 8, 2018, 11:59pm EST

The Latina/o Studies Association’s 2018 National Meeting in Washington, DC, invites you to build on our prior Deliberations (Pasadena 2016) and Imaginings (Chicago 2014) by submitting proposals for papers, panels, and sessions for traditional and alternative conference platforms on the theme of “Latinx Studies Now.” The “x” and the “+” in our conference title graphically denote acts of resistance and dissent. The “x” in Latinx questions the traditional binary logic of gender and gendered language, enabling a new dispersion of identity across and beyond “genders.” At the same time, the “x” invokes a history of alphabetic challenge to naming and claiming in the Americas. The “+” following 2018 denotes whatever might be “next,” after and beyond the now of 2018 itself.

The mark of the minus (“-”) slashing through the vertical line to make and unmake the “+” suggests that what’s “next” does not guarantee “more” or “better” in the way of conventional promises of progress in historical change but may, in fact, always mask an opposite threat. Always more and less than itself, the “+” is a compass that indicates the many directions Latinx subjects and Latinx studies often take. The “+” calls us to the necessary presentism and urgency of the now and to the equally necessary historicism demanded of our field and its practitioners in a contemporary moment saturated in crisis and emergency, danger and risk, resistance and resilience.

LSA in Washington, DC, in 2018 considers Latinx Studies as an inter- and trans-disciplinary field that continues to rewrite traditional disciplines in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM, as well as in traditional professions such as Business, Medicine and Law. Our DC location highlights the various degrees of stability and precarity we experience in university teaching, researching, scholarly and creative publishing, art-making, activism, and the shaping of policy. Bringing LSA 2018 to DC, we will situate the field within the context of looming political realities in the United States that impact our communities with regard to immigration and citizenship, law and justice, health care, education, policing, gender and lgbtq rights, as well as freedoms of speech, assembly and expression.

We invite submissions following these directions in all their compelling existential, material and symbolic meanings, including but not limited to:

• +  Activism and Activist Histories of Naming
• +  Environmentalism
• +  Trans-Latinx Embodiments: Gender, Sexuality, Disability, Capacity
• +  Non/Human Anima(lisms)
• +  Age and Generation
• +  Violence: Structural, Economic, Carceral, Political
• +  Immigration, Depatriation, Citizenship
• +  Mobility and Containment
• +  Settler and Decolonial States
• +  The Not National: Local, Regional, Continental, Hemispheric, Global
• +  Labor and Capital: Production, Consumption, Abstraction
• +  Art, Music, Literature, Performance, Media
• +  Race and 2020 Census Classifications
• +  Racial Imaginaries (and Realities)
• +  Public Policy in the 21st century
• +  STEM: Impact and Challenges
• +  Latinx Studies and the University

Proposal Submissions:
The program committee welcomes proposals in diverse formats: individual papers; paper panels with moderators or respondents; roundtable discussions; workshops emphasizing participation by all session attendees; professional development workshops for graduate program and academic job applicants; poster presentations; sessions devoted to work by graduate students and/or community activists; creative and performance presentations; sessions using online and other virtual platforms. We also welcome proposals for special events such as screenings, readings, and special exhibits. Proposals should be submitted online.

Individual Paper:
Please provide name; contact information; position or title; institutional/organization affiliation; discipline (if applicable); 500-word abstract.

Panel Proposals:
Please provide names; contact information for each participant; presenters’ positions or titles (listing organizer first, then each presenter/moderator); institutional/organizational affiliations, disciplines (if applicable); 500-word panel abstract; 250-word abstracts for individual papers.

Include the following for all proposal formats:
Description of format (e.g., panel, roundtable, workshop), including A/V needs and/or accommodations.

Please note: Submissions are limited to a one individual proposal abstract per person in a panel, round table, or workshop and one additional role per person as organizer, moderator, or respondent.

Conference Hotel: Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel

Conference Dates: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 – Sunday July 15, 2018 Conference Room Rate: $199/night

To get the conference room rate, please visit our website.

2660 Woodley Road NW
Washington, DC 20008-4106

Latino Studies Association

Email inquiries to: LSAssocInfo@gmail.com