Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference Joint Conference with the Western History Association (WHA) October 11-14, 2006 - St. Louis, MO

In partnership with the Western History Association, the ninth conference of Recovering the U. S. Hispanic Literary Heritage will be held at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis Union Station, St. Louis, Missouri on October 11-14, 2006.

The theme of our conference, "Encuentros y Re-encuentros: Making Common Ground," reminds us that earlier encuentros of Hispanic and non-Hispanic cultures, languages, and literatures-from the 16th through the 20th century-form the rich subsoil, the common ground if you will, for our reencuentros in St. Louis and beyond.

The theme not only exhorts literary critics and historians to reach out and find common ground in each other's research and writing, but to also integrate the research being conducted in Latina and Latino Studies disciplines, from Chicano to Cuban to Dominican to Puerto Rican Studies to Sephardic Studies and beyond. In keeping with this effort, the central location of St. Louis not only links Hispanic and non-Hispanic historical and literary legacies, it also facilitates participation from scholars located everywhere in the United States.

"Encuentros y Reencuentros. . " aspires to trans-disciplinary, trans-national and trans-cultural scholarship, thus complementing the previous conference, which concentrated on the critical importance of regions. Of particular interest will be defining the scope and recovery of historical documents and from them constructing new history (ies) and historiographies; applying varying cultural, textual and linguistic analyses to historical texts; historicizing literary texts; identifying the themes that cut across the various Latino literatures and histories, and those that are unique to one or another ethnicity; identifying key historical movements and figures in Latino/a cultural history, etc.

As always, studies on the folowing themes will be welcome:

Analytical studies of recovered authors and/or texts

Critical, historical and theoretical approaches to recovered texts

Curriculum development

Religious thought and practice

Folklore/oral histories

Historiography

Language and linguistics

Library and information science

Social implications, cultural analyses

Collections and archives

"ENCUENTROS Y REENCUENTROS. . ."CONFERENCE COMMITTEE:

Jose Aranda, Rice University, Co-Chair
Antonia Castañeda, St. Mary's University, Co-Chair
Clara Lomas, Colorado College
Antonio Saborit, INAH Dirección de Estudios Históricos