Woman-Nation-Narrative: Revisiting Anderson Reviving the project "Woman, Nation, Narrative" (though no longer under this title, or necessarily under the rubric of its initial, exclusive focus on gender and nationalism), we are interested in pursuing the following:
Although nationalism continues to inform, indeed determine, material conditions in the world, why does it appear to have stalled as a subject of scholarship? Is this because the terms and framework for discussion--including Benedict Anderson's influential concept of "imagined communities"--envision narrative as the most appropriate modality? Has this focus on narrative become disabling for discussions that need to be anchored in materialist explanations?
If you are interested in this project, contact Anu Needham, English Department, Oberlin College, Anuradha_Needham@qmgate.cc.oberlin .edu; Wendy Kozol, Women's Studies, Oberlin College, fkozol@oberlin.edu; or Mary Layoun, English Department, University of Wisconsin, layoun@lss.wisc.edu
The SCE invites you to peruse the following papers to be discussed at the upcoming 1998 M/MLA session, "Revisiting Benedict Anderson."
Session I:
Materializing Nationalism: Race, Sex, and the Trauma of Citizenship
Chair: Mary Layoun, Comparative Literature, U. of Wisconsin, Madison
Anna Agathangelou, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Poltics, Oberlin College
Nationalist Narratives and (Dis) Appearing Women: State-Sanctioned Sexual Violence
Steven S. Volk, Associate Professor of History, Oberlin College
Nationalism Without Patriotism: Frida Kahlo Remaps the Nation
Tassln Frame, Ph. D. Candidate, Dept. of History, Case Western Reserve U.
'Our Nation's Attic': Creating American Identity at the Smithsonian Institution
Kathryn Temple, Assistant Professor of English, Georgetown U.
'Respecting the Existence of Marks': Mary Prince, Libel, and National Identity
Discussant: Anuradha Needham, English Dept., Oberlin College
Session II:
Is the Model Open or Closed? Rethinking Anerson
Chair: Mary Layoun (Comparative Literature, U. of Wisconsin, Madison)
Larry Needham, Affiliate Scholar, Oberlin College
Representative Subjects, Modes of Representation in Anderson's Imagined Communities
Jonathan Sadowsky, Assistant Professor of History, Case Western Reserve U.
"Towards an Infinite History of Nationalism" (not yet available)
Helen Hok-Sze Leung, Ph. D. Candidate, Dept. of Comparative Literature, U. of Wisconsin, Madison
Unimaginable Communities: Limits and Openings in Discourses of Nationalism
Discussant: Wendy Kozol, Women's Studies and History, Oberlin College
