Call for New CSA Divisions for 2008-09

Dear Colleagues:

Below is the list of CSA divisions for the 2007-08 CSA Conference in New York City.   We are looking ahead to our next year as an association.  If you would like to propose a new division for the 2008-09 academic year (and the conference in 2009 in Kansas City), please send the following information to Janet Staiger, [log in to unmask], by December 10.

1.  Name(s) and e-mail address(es) of one (or two) people (you can include yourself) who agree to serve as the initial co-chairs(s) for the division for 2008-09
2.  A two- to three-sentence description of the proposed division to match the ones we have for the other divisions.

All proposed and current divisions will be posted on the CSA web site from January 15 through April 15 during registration for this year's conference and membership for the association for 2008-09.   As part of registration, people will be able to select 2 divisions in which to participate.   Divisions will need at least 25 members to function for the 2008-09 year.  Results of sign-ups will be announced prior to the New York City conference so that division members can discuss division business during the conference.


CURRENT DIVISIONS AND ORGANIZERS
 
Critical Feminist Studies
Critical Feminist Studies dedicates itself to work that builds upon, even as it critiques, the institutions and practices of Women's and Gender Studies, focusing in particular on transnational formations and movements, queer and sexuality studies, and politics, practices, and representations.
        Carla Freccero and Sarah Rasmusson (co-chairs)

Culture and War
The CSA Division on Culture and War is dedicated to scholarly and activist work on the cultural aspects of war and militarism, encompassing rhetoric and language, news and mass media, fictional texts and representations, documentary film and video, new media and other cultural forms. The Division welcomes interventionist and critical work on wars past and present, as well as on the everyday militarization of society, from historical, theoretical, global and interdisciplinary perspectives.
        Anthony Grajeda (chair) and Cynthia Fuchs (vice chair)
 
Cultural Studies and Film
The Cultural Studies and Film division pursues the history and cultural politics of cinema and of related media. Approaches include film theory, ethnography, political economy, and textual analysis.
        Ted Friedman and Evan Heimlich (co-chairs)
 
Cultural Studies and Literature

Socio-historical constructions of certain pleasures, knowledge, and experience in literature are often naturalized under the rubric of "fiction." As such, the section on Cultural Studies and Literature calls for a reading of literature that highlights its historical engagement in the social construction of knowledge and interpretation of experience.
        Helen Kapstein and Caroline H. Yang (co-chairs)

Globalisms
The CSA Division on Globalisms is interested in providing a forum for the voices of the globalized. With the awareness that we are beginning en media res and that we are working with a binary system that currently  is not capable of providing an accurate appraisal of either process nor product, this division hopes to be able to provide support and forum for those interested in constructing a model for thinking globally, and exploring what that means, that works without reifying old distinctions.
        Lesliee Antonette (chair)

Pedagogy
The pedagogy division includes a focus on culture and education, cultural pedagogy, and the curriculum of cultural studies.  Pedagogy, broadly conceived and critically understood in this context concerns a wide range of issues taken up in cultural studies including but not limited to mass media, popular culture, subculture, public culture, nationhood, postcolonialism, political economy, identity, race, class, gender, sexuality.
        Kenneth Saltman and Deborah Shaller (co-chairs)
 
Racial and Ethnic Studies
The purpose of the Racial and Ethnic Studies Division is to serve as a vehicle to mobilize the production and interrogation of research, theory, teaching, and activism directly concerned with race and ethnicity and their various dimensions (e.g., age, class, culture, economy, education, gender, history, labor, migration, nationality, politics, religion, and sexuality, among many others).  Toward these ends, the encouragement of scholarly collaboration across and between disciplinary, methodological, and theoretical boundaries shall be promoted.
        Matthew W. Hughey (chair)

Technology
The Cultural Studies Association Technology Division concerns itself with matters of post-humanism, post-evolution, trans-humanism, cyborgism, and cyberculture in all its manifesta-tions.  Technology related studies of mediated environments, gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, identity, information, prosthetics, pharmaceuticals, medicine, genomics, distributed consciousness, and embodiment are among the particular contexts investigated.
        Michael Filas (chair)

Theories of Cultural Studies
            The Division of Theories of Cultural Studies is interested in promoting a broad range of theoretical work that includes not only theories of culture and its practices but also theoretical work in other areas such as politics, philosophy, language and literature studies, art, etc. as they intersect with cultural studies.  We are also interested in work that thematizes cultural studies and its relation to other academic, institutional, and political practices.
        Henry Krips (chair)
 
Visual Culture
The CSA Visual Culture Division represents the multi- and inter-disciplinary study of the visual as a primary site for the production and contestation of meaning. The Division is thus concerned with visual forms and visuality, including images, visual media, image technologies, surveillance, theories of spectatorship, visual experience, and visual literacy.
        Kelly Dennis (chair)