Keynote Speakers:
ANN LAURA STOLER, New School for Social Research
AILEEN MORETON-ROBINSON, Queensland University of Technology
LYNETTE RUSSELL, Monash University
PATRICK WOLFE, La Trobe University
MATT WRAY, Harvard University

Following on from the Historicising Whiteness conference of 2006, Re-Orienting Whiteness invites scholars interested in exploring the potential, or otherwise, of ‘whiteness’ to analyse the operations of ‘race’, past and present. Our central aim is to bring whiteness studies into a closer conversation with other approaches to ‘race’, particularly those which have emerged from studies of colonialism and postcolonial theory. Broadening out from the (settler colonial) context of the United States, we wish to explore how whiteness operated in colonial and non-colonial contexts across the globe.

Possible themes include:
Indigenous perspectives on whiteness
The politics of apology/assimilation/sovereignty/restitution/power
Whiteness in the colonial/settler colonial encounter
Whiteness in non-colonial contexts
The gendered privileges of whiteness
The chronology of whiteness: visibility/invisibility
Cultures, representations, borderlands, bodies, transformations
How important were global imperial processes to the operation of white power?
Does whiteness even matter?

Please send 200 word abstracts, along with a brief half-page CV, by 29 August 2008 to:
reorientingwhiteness@gmail.com

Proposals for panels of up to three speakers are most welcome.

Website: coming soon to http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/historical-studies/news-and-events/index.php

Conference Convenors:
Leigh Boucher (Monash University), Jane Carey (University of Melbourne), Kat Ellinghaus (Monash University).

In association with the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association.

Supported by the School of Historical Studies, Monash University and the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne.