International Graduate Conference 2019
American Ambiguities: Is Now the Era of Our Disconsent?
Graduate Conference at the Graduate School of North American Studies
John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin – May 22-24, 2019
The conference was held at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Lansstr. 7- 9, 14195 Berlin-Dahlem.
Wednesday, May 22
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12.30 |
Registration |
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13.30 |
Introduction Fabian Eggers |
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Welcome Address Frank Kelleter |
| 14.15 – 15.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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The Life and Death of Theory Chair: Dominique Haensell (Freie Universität Berlin) |
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| Silvia Ammary (John Cabot University) | The Aesthetics of Ambiguity in the Modernist American Novel |
| Sonja Pyykkö (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) | “Hybridity” and Generic Ambiguity in Contemporary American Life Writing |
| Vedran Catovic (University of Michigan) |
Radical Relativism and Relative Radicalism in the US Humanities |
| 16.15 – 17.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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Representation and Race from the Harlem Renaissance to #BlackLivesMatter Chair: Birte Wege (Freie Universität Berlin) |
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| Anne Urbanowski (Université de Tours) | Fur Coats and Cadillacs: The Disambiguation of the Black Middle Class in James VanDerZee’s Photographs |
| Meili Steele (University of South Carolina) | Ambiguities of Race and Normativity: Ta Nehisi Coates’s Challenge to Barack Obama and the Brown v. Board of Education Paradigm |
| Sabine Elisabeth Aretz (Universität Bonn) | “We Are Expansive”: The Rhetoric and Aesthetic of Ambiguity in the #BlackLivesMatter Movement |
| 18.15 – 20.15 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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KEYNOTE I – Andrew Hartman (Illinois State University) A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars |
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| 20.45 | Buffet |
Thursday, May 23
| 9.30 | Snacks & Coffee |
| 10.15 – 11.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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KEYNOTE II – Laura M. Stevens (University of Tulsa) Longing for Salvation, in Early and Late America |
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| 12.15 – 13.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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Flickering Enlightenment: Ambiguity in Early America Chair: Cameron Seglias (Freie Universität Berlin) |
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| Nicole Hirschfelder (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen) | Great (Un)Equalizers? A Re-Consideration of Early American Quakerism |
| Lee Flamand (Freie Universität Berlin) | Dark Enlightenment? Charles Brockden Brown’s Gothic Novels and the Riotous Young Republic |
| Christine Marie Koch (Universität Paderborn) | “He can take everything away from me, but he can’t take my heritage!” Ambiguous Representations of Colonial Georgia, Identity Constructs, and Exclusion through Memory Politics |
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14.15 – 15.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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Reassessing Liberalism in the American Century Chair: Maximilian Klose (Freie Universität Berlin) |
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| Ben Zdencanovic (Yale University) | “It Would Be a Strange Paradox”: US Global Economic Power, the End of New Deal Reform, and the Birth of the British Welfare State,1944-1951 |
| Heleen Bloomers (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) | Changing the Narrative: Assessing Legacy-Writing on the War on Poverty |
| Salvador S. F. Regilme Jr. (Universiteit Leiden) |
Human Rights in Distress Amidst American Decline and Trumpism |
| 16:15 – 17:45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
|---|---|
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Negotiating Space in the Country and the City Chair: Sönke Kunkel (Freie Universität Berlin) |
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| Eugénie Clément (EHESS) | Protecting the Territory: Practices, Ontologies, and Dialectics of Diné Resistances |
| Laura Kettel (Freie Universität Berlin) | Freedom and Constraint: The Ambiguities of Public Space |
| Laura op de Beke (Universiteit Leiden) | Ecoambiguity in Walden, a Game, and Other Environmental Video Games |
| 18.15 - 19.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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KEYNOTE III – Jared Farmer (Stony Brook University) Tree-rings and Empire in the Late Holocene |
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Friday, May 24
| 9.30 | Snacks & Coffee |
| 10.15 – 11.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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KEYNOTE IV – Anne Driscoll (Brandeis University) The Ambiguities of Losing Innocence and Finding Justice in the Age of the Internet |
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| 12.15 – 13.45 | John F. Kennedy Institute |
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Not Just Fun and Games: Popular Culture and the American Self-Image Chair: Annelot Prins (Freie Universität Berlin) |
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| Meike Robaard (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) | What’s in a Game? Playful Puzzling Histories and the Cultural Symbolism of Monopoly, 1900-1950 |
| Gizem Tellioğlu (İstanbul Üniversitesi) | The Ambiguity in Social Roles of Women in 1950s American Advertisements |
| Ilias Ben-Mna (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) | Post-Imperial Ambiguities in Hollywood Superhero Movies |
