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The American Studies Graduate Students Association at Michigan State University is pleased to announce “Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies: Campaigns and Elections in American Culture.” This will be the second MSU American Studies Graduate Student Conference. The conference will be held on October 1-2, 2004 in East Lansing, Michigan, in conjunction with the Fall Festival of the American Arts.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Gary Gerstle, professor and chair of History at the University of Maryland. Dr. Gerstle is the author of several books, including American Crucible: Race and Nation in the Twentieth Century (2001).
We invite faculty and graduate students from American Studies and other disciplines to submit abstracts for papers and panels. In honor of the upcoming elections, the theme of the conference will be American elections and politics. We encourage submissions that use interdisciplinary approaches to investigate campaigns and elections as they relate to everything from political to popular culture. Disciplinary essays will also be considered. A “handshake from the president” prize of $500 will be awarded to the best graduate student paper presented during the conference.
Below we provide a short list of suggestions for topics, but other topics related to the overall conference theme not listed below are also encouraged:
- Elections/campaigns throughout history
- “Fictional elections” (film, television, literature, etc.)
- Elections in popular culture & Popular culture in elections
- Comic strips
- Music
- Paraphernalia
- Propaganda in elections
- Activism and elections
- Role of the media
- Polling
- Calling races before polls close
- Role of education in elections
- Global implications
- US elections and international communities
- Long-distance nationalism
- Race/class/gender in elections
- Election oddities
Presentations for the conference will be 15-20 minutes in length. Abstracts can be submitted until Friday August 20th, 2004, and should be between 200-250 words. If you have any audio-visual needs, please submit them with the abstract. Proposals may be submitted via email to either: tremperk@msu.edu or postema4@msu.edu or they may be mailed to:
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