Conference of the Second Cohort of the Graduate School of North American Studies

10 – 11 July 2009

John F. Kennedy Institut
Freie Universität Berlin

Friday, 10 July 2009
9.00 – 10.30

Official Opening

Welcome by the Director of the Graduate School Prof. Winfried Fluck

Kenote Lecture by Prof. Paul S. Boyer (Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)

Coffee Break

11.00 – 13.15
Panel 1 “Media Representations of Change”

Wüst, Sarah (Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg), “Always and Never the Same: American Remaking and the Re-negotiation of Cultural Narratives”

Schleusener, Simon (Freie Universität Berlin),“Processuality and Modern Culture: Can the Photographic Image Capture Change?”

Stieglitz, Olaf (Universität zu Köln), “Cinema of Change: Fantasies of New Leadership in Hollywood Movies of the Early Great Depression”

Lunch

14.30 – 16.45
Panel 2 “Transformative Elements in Religion and Community”

Nascimento, Amos (University of Washington, Tacoma), “Changing Practices of Community Change”

Jörgensen, Jenny (Freie Universität Berlin), “Evangelical Perspectives on Justice”

Wiegmann, Patricia (Universität Erfurt), “‘Mr. Black Man, Watch Your Step! Ethiopia’s Queens Will Reign Again […]’: Amy Jacques Garvey’s Struggle to Change Continuities”

Coffee Break

17.30 – 19.00
Keynote Lecture by Prof. David Harvey (City University of New York)

19.00
Reception

Saturday, 11 July 2009

9.00 – 11.15
Panel 3 “Political Rhetoric of Change”

Bashir, Hassan / Creel, Brady (Texas A&M University at Qatar), “The Anarchist and the Uncompromising Liberal: An Analysis of Candidates’ Rhetorical Strategies during the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign”

Neufeld, Mark (Trent University), “Canada’s Foreign Policy in the Age of Obama: Change if Necessary (but Not Necessarily Change)”

Weiten, Barbara (Universität Passau), “Change and Political Discourse”

Coffee Break

11.45 – 13.15
Panel 4 “Shifting Perspectives on Race and Immigration”

Singletary, Kimberly (Northwestern University), “Redefining Normal: Shifts in Visual Campaigns for Race Equality”

Gerken, Christina (Indiana University, South Bend), “‘One Nation under Threat’: Changing Attitudes towards Immigration”

Lunch

14.30 – 16.00
Panel 5 “(Dis)continous Images of the Nation”

Petersen, Felix / Särkelä, Arvi-Antti (Goethe Universität Frankfurt/Main), “From Tocqueville to Dewey to Obama? On the Continuity and Discontinuity of the American Democratic Spirit”

Bergthaller, Hannes (National Taipei University of Technology), “Coming of Age, Once More: Americanism, Cosmopolitanism, and the Allegories of National Maturity”

Coffee Break

16.30 – 18.00
Panel 6 “Literary Negotiations of Change”

Mokrani, Selma (Université Badji Mokhtar, Annaba), “Inflections of the ’National Symbolic’ in Henry James’s The American Scene”

O'Neill, Kevin (Goldsmiths College, University of London), “Hold Still! How McSweeney’s Creates a Stable Identity Through Constant Experimentation”

Coffee Break

18.30 Concluding Panel Discussion