Culture Lines: Emerging Research on Ethno-Racial Boundaries

Culture Lines: Emerging Research on Ethno-Racial Boundaries

November 4-5, 2005

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference Sponsored by the Committee for Ethnic Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

This national conference will bring together graduate students from the social sciences and the humanities who research ethnic, racial, and cultural boundaries. Sessions will be organized thematically to allow comparisons of boundaries from diverse regions and historical periods, as well as different disciplinary approaches. With this conference, we aim to shift attention toward the dynamics of boundaries: how they are created, imposed, defended, bridged, subverted, and transformed. Possible themes might include: Properties of boundaries: permeability, permanence, salience, etc. Boundary processes: exclusion, bridging, imposition, etc. Historical research on racial and ethnic formations over time. Ethnographic findings on how boundaries are negotiated in everyday life. Boundaries in cultural production and reception: contesting authenticity, dynamics of collaboration and competition, etc. Imagery of boundaries in cultural artifacts and performance How boundaries operate in the expression of collective identity, through cultural and linguistic practices. Keynote Speaker: Fredrik Barth, Department of Anthropology, University of Oslo Faculty Sponsor: Michele Lamont, Department of Sociology, HarvardUniversity

All graduate students in accredited AM or PhD programs are invited to submit titled abstracts of no more than 300 words to no later than August 1. For more information, please visit the conference website at http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/boundaries.