Call For Papers: CONTAMINATION(s)

The Department of Anthropology at Columbia University will host a graduate student conference to be held on Friday, April 13, 2002. The theme of this year's Boas/Benedict conference is "Contamination(s)."

from The Arc Inside and Out by A.R.Ammons

I took branch
and meat from the stalk of life, threw

away the monies of the treasured,
treasurable mind, cleaved memory free
of the instant, if I got right down

shucking off periphery after periphery
to the glassy vague gray parabolas
and swoops of unnailable perception,

would I begin to improve the purity,
would I essentialize out the distilled
form, the glitter-stone that whether

the world comes or goes clicks gleams
and chinks of truth self-making, never
to be shuttered, the face-brilliant core

stone: of if I, amasser, heap shoveler,
depth pumper, took in all springs and
oceans, paramoecia and moons, massive

buttes and summit slants, rooted trunks
and leafages, anthologies of wise words,
schemata, all grassses (including the

tidal Spartinas, marginal, salty
broadsweeps) would I finally come on a
suasion, large, fully-informed, restful

By historicizing and problematizing the moment of, before, or after the identification of a contaminant we are provided with the occasion to examine the coalescence of boundaries and the conditions for their possibility. These boundaries, extending from a site, between sites and often defining the sites themselves, engender the identification of that which serves as a contaminant. The sites of Production,Language, Body, Episteme, Community and Ipseity may serve as focal points for an analytical approach to not only the coalescence of boundaries and the identification of contaminants, but also the reception, resistance and contestation of these processes over time and space.

Submission of papers addressing the the theme of "Contamination(s)" should be no more than 15 minutes in length.

For consideration, please submit three copies of an abstract to the address below.

Abstracts are due by February 1, 2002. Accepted papers will be due by March 15, 2002. Please address any questions to: Rodney Collins (rwc2001@columbia.edu) Nadia Latif (nl2021@columbia.edu)