“Life and Death in Latinx Literatures” 5th Biennial U.S. Latinx Literary Theory and Criticism Conference
5th Biennial U.S. Latinx Literary Theory and Criticism Conference
“Life and Death in Latinx Literatures”
April 5th-April 7th, 2023
Abstracts Due: January 9th, 2023
This conference explores the material and symbolic impact of life and death in Latinx literatures. Latinx writers address the distortions produced by the afterlives of colonial inheritances, blurring the borders between life and death. The aberrant logic of (neo)colonial practices aim to close the distance between life and death, bringing the two states into uncanny proximity by instituting death where life should flourish. These precarious states, from anti-immigration policies to carceral and racial capitalism to environmental catastrophes and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Latinx communities, serve, for Latinx writers, as anti-colonial preoccupations informing narratives intent on writing themselves back to life. Drawing from the ruins of capitalist society, therefore, Latinx literature re-presents and re-envisions social, political and historical legacies in an attempt to resignify life in anti-colonial and decolonial terms. In so doing, Latinx literature explores animate forms and practices, recuperating and expanding experience to offer alternate modalities of existence. This conference asks: How does systemic violence assert forms of death that haunt the lives of peoples of color? How do the aberrant hierarchies of gender and sexuality circumscribe the potentiality of women, non-binary folx, and queer forms of power? And how does the predatory emphasis of capitalism feed off peoples’ lives, destroy ecologies for profit, and promote wars that tame and forge markets? But also, how do Latinx writers imagine otherwise and create alternate ways of living? Moreover, how do Latinx imaginaries inform political movements and other forms of resistance intent on reconfiguring consciousness? How do utopic or anarchic visions, environmental awareness, disability and corporeal and neural diversity insist on the radical openness of social formations? How do Indigenous and African traditions suggest new epistemologies from which to organize life, philosophize being, and complicate aesthetic engagements?
** To facilitate wider participation in the conference and accommodate those who cannot or choose not to travel, we will be arranging hybrid panels and livestream options. More information will be forthcoming.
Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Richard T. Rodríguez, Professor of Media & Cultural Studies and English, University of California, Riverside
Date: Thursday, April 6, 2023
Poetry Roundtable
Dr. Alan Pelaez Lopez, Poet and Assistant Professor of Queer Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University
Dr. Lara Mimosa Montes, Poet and Instructor at the University of Minnesota
Dr. Deborah Paredez, Poet and Professor of Creative Writing and Ethnic Studies, Columbia University
Dr. Melissa Castillo Planas, moderator, Poet and Associate Professor of English at Lehman College, CUNY
This year’s conference will be held at The City University of New York Graduate Center. Located in the heart of midtown Manhattan and blocks away from the Empire State Building and Times Square, The Graduate Center is a vibrant setting perfect sharing scholarship and building community.
Topics May Include:
Systemic Violence and Social Death
Biodiversity and Multispecies Environments
Engendering Futures
Disability and Bodily Forms
Endurance: Labor and Alienation
De/animating languages
Aesthetics or Reconceptualizing Subjects and Objects
Soundscapes and Animated Beings
Latinx Gothic and Horror Imaginaries
Queering Life
Vital Materialities
Fetishizing Life
Affect and Ugly Feelings
Killing, Dying and the Costs of War
Melancholy and Race
Sensory Life
Reimagining Life and Death
Legal Violence and Slow Death
Ontologies of Vulnerability and Resistance
Biopolitical and Necropolitical Governance
We also encourage panels on the following topics:
Pedagogy workshops
Syllabus exchanges
Digital Humanities in Latinx Literature
Mentorship
Program and curricular development
Submit 150-250 word abstracts to this proposal submission link on or before January 9, 2023, by midnight. Proposed panels should include a short description (150 words) and abstracts for each presenter. Notification of acceptance will be mailed out by January 13th.
Conference Fees for In-person Presentations:
Professors: $150.00
Late registration after March 6th: $200.00
Graduate students: $70.00
Independent scholars: $70.00
Undergraduate students: $20.00
Conference Fees for Virtual Presentations:
Professors: $120.00
Late registration after March 6th: $150.00
Graduate students: $50.00
Independent scholars: $50.00
Undergraduate students: $15.00
For all inquiries, please email us at latlitconfny@gmail.com. We hope to see you in April!
