Humanities Conference to Consider ‘Contact and Power’

Suppose you were one of the first to greet Columbus and his crew upon their arrival in this hemisphere. How would their (continued) presence have changed the way you saw yourself? The way you viewed your culture? And how might contact with you have altered the Europeans’ perceptions of themselves?

Such questions will be considered at a University of Wisconsin–Madison interdisciplinary conference, “Contact and Power: Transgressions in the Borderlands of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Encounter,” March 7-9. The conference, the 20th Burdick-Vary symposium, is sponsored by the UW–Madison Institute for Research in the Humanities, and is free and open to the public.

According to conference organizer Susan Friedman, professor of English and women’s studies, “We want to examine the broad borderlands where cultures blend and clash, where peoples resist and embrace the ‘other.'”

However, that is only the first of two missions of the conference, Friedman says. “We also plan to transgress the boundaries between disciplines that address questions of social difference and personal identity. We aim to bring people across the methodological divide of humanities and social sciences to establish a middle ground of dialog and exchange that looks forward to the 21st century,” she says.

Guest scholars will come from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, the University of Texas-Austin, the College of William and Mary and the University of California-San Diego.

In addition to Friedman, UW–Madison faculty participants will include Neil Whitehead (anthropology), Margarita Zamora (Spanish and Portuguese), Luis Madureira (comparative literature), Kirin Narayan (anthropology and South Asian studies), Roberta Hill Whiteman (English and American Indian studies), Thongchai Winichakul (history), Richard Flores (anthropology), Edward Friedman (political science), Mary Layoun (comparative literature), Rachel Brenner (Hebrew and Semitic studies), Jacques Lezra (English), Susan Bernstein (English and women’s studies), Amy Ling (English and Asian American studies) and Ronald Radano (Afro-American studies and music).

For more information or a complete conference schedule, contact Loretta Freiling, (608) 262-3855.

CONTACT: Barbara Wolff, (608) 262-8292, bjwolff@facstaff.wisc.edu