We invite chapter proposals for an edited volume that will focus on the representation of contraband in the Americas. We are primarily interested in the illegal movement of goods across borders or other frontiers, and how this contraband economy changes the way the Americas are imagined. This project responds to an emerging body of literary and cultural criticism on the topic of informal/illegal economies and secret commerce. Our volume seeks to show that these individual studies form a new field in the cultural history of the Americas.

Central to this project will be a theorization of the way the multiple cultures and nations of the Americas have been formed in relation to illegal economies and the illicit crossing of borders of all kinds. As such, this volume invites papers that deal with contraband not only between the various countries of the Americas, but also in transatlantic and transpacific exchanges. At the same time, this volume proposes a broad historical scope: from colonial discussions concerning the mercantile system, to 18th- and 19th-century debates on the free market, to more contemporary representations of the trafficking of music, drugs, humans, organs, and sex in and throughout the Americas. We are therefore interested in different forms of contraband and welcome a variety of approaches and methodologies.

The aim of _Contraband in the Americas_ will be to explore the role of the black market, broadly defined, in literature and culture across the Americas. The volume will ask: Does the smuggler interrupt the development of a nation, or is this figure a necessary part of any kind of imagined community? What are the different forms of contraband and how have these forms changed in different economic and political systems? How is the notion of a contraband economy important for rethinking political narrative? How is the notion of a secret economy used as a figure for political movements? How can smuggling be theorized not only as a motif in literary and cultural texts, but also as a figure for the act of writing in the Americas? In the end, is the history of the Americas also a history of contraband?

Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
- Literary and cultural representations of contraband
- The figure of the contrabandist, the pirate, the privateer, the filibusterer
- Contraband and the imagined community
- Contraband as a form of politico-economic resistance
- Contraband as a form of politico-economic hegemony
- Illicit trade and trade routes
- Illegal border crossings
- The counterfeiting of metals and moneys
- Smuggling as gendered space
- Contraband and race
- Contraband and the commodification of the human
- Writing as a form of contraband
- Contraband as a model for political storytelling

Send inquiries, 2-page abstracts, or completed essays by November 15, 2007 to Jeremy Paden, jpaden_at_gsu.edu, or David Kelman, dkelman_at_learnlink.emory.edu, or mail to

Jeremy Paden, Assistant Professor,
Modern and Classical Languages,
Georgia State University,
P.O. Box 3970,
Atlanta, GA 30302-3970.