Mere months after this conference, Americans will be electing a new government after eight years of George W. Bush’s administration. Political commentators of all ideological stripes have for some time now been addressing the vexed question of this administration’s legacy: how will the often dramatic and occasionally shocking policies enacted by George W. Bush et al resonate in the years to come, both domestically and internationally?

This conference’s theme addresses the question of such “legacies” more broadly and the footprint that the United States has left at points in its past, both on itself and the world. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

Presidential Legacies, real and imagined
Military Footprints
The Persistence of Puritanism
American Regimes
Exceptional Americas
Evolving Enemies, or: Who’s the bad guy this year?
American Renditions
The Influence of Anxiety
Contested Terrains
Imperial Americas
American Idol(s)
Epochal Images
Captive Americas
America’s Next Top ___________
American Innocence
Newfound Americas

In addition to the conference’s major theme, we will also be organizing a series of special sessions around the topic of “Newfoundland and the Americas.”

CAAS invites paper proposals for its annual conference, which will be held in St. John’s, at Memorial University of Newfoundland August 13-16.

Please send 500 word proposals to: CAAS 2008 Committee, c/o Michael Epp (michaelepp@trentu.ca). Please include with proposals your name, academic affiliation, email address and any AV requirements your paper will have.

CAAS also encourages panel proposals of three or more papers. Anyone interested in proposing a panel topic can contact Michael Epp or Christopher Lockett (clockett@mun.ca) with questions.