MOVING BOUNDARIES:
AMERICAN RELIGION(S) THROUGH THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE
February 19-21, 2004

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia invites proposals for an interdisciplinary conference provoked by the occasion of the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase.

On April 30, 1803, the boundary of the United States moved west to include the Louisiana Purchase. Whenever physical boundaries move, new configurations of imagination and authority take shape. The doubling of the nation's territory involved remapping American culture, identity, and religion. American religion, however, has never been described in terms of the developments that have taken place in the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. "Moving Boundaries" will examine the religious history of this region as one crucial narrative in American religion.

This interdisciplinary conference will take place Feb. 19-21, 2004, on the campus of the University of Missouri-Columbia, the first state land grant university founded in the Louisiana Purchase. The goal of the conference will be a critical engagement with and analysis of religion and culture in relation to this specific landscape. The conference will deal with any historical period up to the present, in order to reflect the shifting namings of this region as Louisiana, the Louisiana Purchase, the West, the Midwest, etc.

Proposed papers should fit into one of the following themes around which the conference is organized. For more detailed descriptions of these themes, see the conference website.

• Narratives of the Purchase
• Meanings of the Land
• Territorial Crossings
• The Wild West
• The West Constrained
• Festivals and the Arts

Proposals of approx 500 words are due May 30, 2003. They may be submitted by email attachment, with a subject line reading "Moving Boundaries Proposal," via email, or by regular mail to: