Academic Autobiography, Intellectual History, and Cultural Memory in the 20^th Century: An Interdisciplinary Conference
March 26-28, 2009, University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain)
Plenary Speakers:
Ihab Hassan, University of Winconsin-Milwaukee
Shirley Geok-lin Lim, University of California-Santa Barbara
Nancy K. Miller, City University of New York
Alun Munslow, University of Chichester
Robert A. Rosenstone, California Institute of Technology
Proposals are sought for an Interdisciplinary Conference entitled “Academic Autobiography, Intellectual History, and
Cultural Memory in the 20^th Century” to be held at the University of Navarra (Pamplona, Spain) on the 26-28 of March,
2009. This conference aims to engage the current paradigms of the debate on autobiographical writing by academics
(historians, literary critics, anthropologists, and sociologists, among others) and analyze these in the interdisciplinary c
ontext of the consciousness of the ways intellectual history and cultural memory may be developed, articulated, and
promoted in the twentieth century. Autobiographies by academics who have played important public roles and whose
scholarship have shaped the ways we think about disciplines, society, culture, or politics—such as Nancy K. Miller,
Eric Hobsbawm, Clifford Geertz, Leila Ahmed, Edward Said, Jill Ker Conway, Ihab Hassan, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim,
Yi-Fu Tuan, among others—may be explored as new approaches to the discourses of intellectual history and culture
in our age. We invite proposals that offer new ways to read these autobiographies and analyze their discursive
possibilities in the historical, cultural, and academic contexts in which they were written.
Specific topics may include, but are not limited to: the academic as author/historian; academic life writing as
history or cultural discourse; academic autobiography as intellectual history; life writing and the definitions of
academic disciplines; the intersection between private and public lives in academic autobiographies; academic
autobiography as a literary or historical genre; the ways in which the notion of literary or historical discourse
may be rethought in the context of this form of writing; the ways academic autobiographies challenge our
notions of historiography or literary analysis.
500-word abstracts and a 1-page CV must be submitted (email submissions preferred) before October 15, 2008 to the Conference Organizers at this address:
Prof. Rocío G. Davis
Modern Languages Department
University of Navarra
Pamplona 31080
SPAIN
Fax: 34-948-425636