2007 Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference

According to the website of the California Institute of Integral Studies, “Integral studies are a response to the growing need to synthesize the fragmentary aspects of contemporary thought and culture into a meaningful whole. […] In exploring the interplay of mind, body, and spirit, integral education connects the spiritual and practical dimensions of intellectual life. The integration of the wisdom traditions presents an evolution of consciousness that has never been more relevant and crucial than it is today” (www.ciis.edu).

In his essay “What is Enlightenment”—a title that poses a historically, intellectually, and spiritually loaded question in this context—Michel Foucault writes, “[C]riticism is no longer going to be practiced in the search for formal structures with universal value, but rather as a historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves and to recognize ourselves as subjects of what we are doing, thinking, and saying. In that sense, this criticism is not transcendental, and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible: it is genealogical in its design and archaeological in its method” (45-46).

Is an Integral critique, in Foucault’s sense, possible?

This panel seeks to understand Integral Studies as a phenomenon of popular culture, and as a pedagogy or a means of inquiry. Papers exploring the genealogy of the Integral approach in history, current developments in Integral Studies literature and teaching practices, and critical responses to the motives and methods of Integral Studies, are encouraged. All papers should demonstrate a solid understanding of critical theory (broadly defined), as well as an Integral approach to the constellation of issues invoked by Integral Studies.

Direct a 100-word abstract (attachments in MS Word are acceptable), or your inquiries, to Daniel Gustav Anderson at andersdg@uidaho.edu, or:

Daniel Anderson
Department of English
University of Idaho
P.O. Box 441102
Moscow, ID 83844-1102

Abstracts are due 31 October 2006.

The conference will take place February 7-10, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico. For further information, see: http://www.h-net.org/~swpca/