Misfit Politics is a one-day conference to be held April 10, 2015, on the University of Michigan Campus. The conference gathers a multi-disciplinary group of graduate students whose research takes up unconventional sites, materials, and methods of political inquiry. By focusing on the broad theme of “misfit politics,” the conference creates a platform for those whose work requires some disciplinary border-crossing or emphasizes the unsettled terrain of politics and its study. Professor Kathy Cramer, of the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, will give the keynote address.
This conference, sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School and the University of Michigan’s Department of Political Science, will be a forum for junior scholars across disciplines to present their research, exchange ideas, and develop scholarly networks. We invite papers on a broad range of topics and innovative methodological approaches related to the theme of “misfit politics,” including, but not limited to:
- New accounts of core political concepts, such as citizenship, representation, sovereignty, accountability, resistance, violence, and their implications for policy
- Reproduction, negotiation, or contestation of political concepts in popular culture
- Intersectionality in coalition building, activism, social movements
- Politics at the border, the politics of space and geography
- Reflections of politics in artistic productions and art as a site of politics
- Biopolitics, trauma, and the politics of personal or public health
- Empathy, emotion, affect, and intersections with embodiment
- Technology, new media, and the politics of the digital age
Please submit abstracts of 250-400 words and a brief bio of no more than 100 words to misfitpolitics@umich.edu by 5 pm on FEBRUARY 27th, 2015.
