With Special Faculty Presentations by:

• John D'Emilio (Illinois/Sexuality)
• Carol Gluck (Columbia/East Asia)
• Robin Kelley (NYU/Race)
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Columbia/Postcolonial)
• Christine Stansell (Princeton/U.S. Gender and Urban History)

As a result of the overwhelming success of last year's interdisciplinary conference on the History of Activism, History as Activism at Columbia University, the graduate students in the history department are currently organizing an interdisciplinary conference on the historical, theoretical, and political dimensions of writing. The objective of the conference is to provide a forum for writers, activists, novelists, screenwriters, poets, journalists, graduate students, and faculty--from all fields and across all time periods and geographic locations--to discuss "why they write."

Proposals could address but are not limited to:

• historical, sociological, literary, medical, legal, and anthropological examinations of writing
• writing theories of gender, sexuality, and identity
• the importance of the printed word in issues related to nationalism, globalism, human rights, environmentalism, and animal rights
• the role of the activist, scholar, and writer in public culture
• rethinking disciplinary boundaries and imagining the future of interdisciplinary studies
• getting published: the politics and mechanics of writing articles, editing collections, producing documentaries, and writing screenplays
• bridging the gap between writing scholarly articles and teaching the survey writing public history
• writing outside the academy

Please send proposals (roughly 250 words) with a CV to whywewrite@hotmail.com.

Deadline is January 5, 2003--proposals sent before the deadline are greatly encouraged.

Accepted panelists will be notified by February 16, 2003