2013 PAAS Conference
Polish Association for American Studies Conference
Eating America:
Crisis, sustenance, sustainability
Department of English Studies
University of Wrocław, Poland
October 23-25, 2013
Call for papers
Crisis seems to be one of the most popular words nowadays. Whether the subject is economics, politics, social attitudes, culture, or nature, sooner or later the reference to crisis the critical point, the turning point is made. In American studies, the discussion may focus on the role of the United States as a country that has had a tremendous influence on the contemporary condition. Its long-lasting economic and cultural hegemony, now apparently waning with the ascendance of Asian countries, raises a number of questions: Has America been literally and metaphorically eating, appropriating, exploiting, and molding the world (including American indigenous nations) in its own image, or has it been eaten, appropriated, and exploited as a (frequently criticized or disdained) source of ideas, ideology, and knowledge? What is the relation between the ecological crisis and America’s consumerist economy and its practices (for example, in the areas of food production and consumption, the use of natural resources, mass tourism)? What is America’s role in the ongoing crisis of modernity? And, if the crisis continues, where are the sources of sustenance?
We invite a wide array of papers that
(a) discuss the nature of crisis and the sources of sustenance
(b) provide a historical dimension thereof
(c) explore the dialectic of exploitation and sustainability
(d) discuss the ecological crisis and sustainability from the perspective of ecocriticism or ecolinguistics
Please, send abstracts (ca. 300 words) and panel proposals to eatingamerica@ifa.uni.wroc.pl by July 31, 2013.
The program and abstracts of the Polish Association for American Studies Conference in Wroclaw (October 23-25, 2013) can now be accessed at: