Of possible interest to some Histarchers - forwarded from the H-AMSTDY list

John

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Date: 15 December 2002 7:39 AM
From: Anna Williams <[log in to unmask]>


My colleague Greig Crysler and I are organizing a panel proposal for the 2003 American Studies Conference for a session tentatively entitled
"Theorizing Meat." We're interested in proposals from a range of disciplines (e.g. American Studies, Environmental History, Visual Studies, Sociology,
Geography) that address the topics outlined below.

Please feel free to send either completed abstracts or inquiries about the suitability of potential
project.

"Theorizing meat: animals, food and and cultural identity in the contemporary US." Pioneered in the nineteenth century Midwest, the industrialization of meat production has had enormous consequences for the cultural construction of animals but the nature
of these effects remains underexplored. The simultaneous development of work on culinary culture and the depiction of animals in the U.S. suggests
that this topic is ripe for investigation. Recent analyses of the relationship between meat production and the representation of animals has generated two
conflicting theoretical models: arguments based on commodification (e.g. William Cronon) stress the spatial, temporal and semiotic invisibility of
animals; symbolic economy approaches (e.g. Carol Adams and Cary Wolfe) emphasize the social legibility of animal disposability as the basis
for the oppression of human others on the basis of their supposed animality.

We invite papers which explore these models and/or their relationships to each other. Possible topics include: the built environments of production and
consumption, and their global influences; the (symbolic, material, regulatory) presence/absence of animals in urban and architectural spaces; red meat, "exotic" meats, humans as meat; images of
cannibalism in popular culture; the social and spatial paradoxes of 'humane' slaughter; legal and
popular constructions 'food animals.'

By 1/10/03 e-mail us an abstract, short vita and your AV needs. Greig Crysler, UC Berkeley: [log in to unmask];

Anna Williams, Eastern Mediterranean U: [log in to unmask]


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