Vampires, parasites and invaders in nature and society

Bloodsucking, parasitism and invasion have long haunted our human imaginations and played a crucial role in shaping our natural world. Proteus: A Journal of Ideas seeks essays and scholarly articles that explore the themes of parasitism and alien invasion from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives–including those of biology,cultural studies, sociology, philosophy, psychology, economics, and literary theory. Articles might analyze how authors and/or societies have represented vampires in literature, folklore, or the media. Or the biological processes underlying parasitism or alien invasion among individual or multiple species within an ecosystem. Articles that discuss the economic, social, and biological impact of parasites and invasive species on human populations are encouraged. Theme-related photographs, poetry, and creative writing are welcome. Preferred format uses in text citations and endnotes – no footnotes. Submit manuscripts to proteus@ship.edu.

Terry DiDomenico
Managing editor, Proteus
Shippensburg University
1871 Old Main Drive
Shippensburg, PA 17257-2299
717-477-1206
717-477-1253
Email: proteus@ship.edu

Henry David Thoreau: Environment

“Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth,” (Henry David Thoreau: The Quote Garden).

Why fighting ends: a history of surrender. Weetwood Hall, Leeds, 25-28 June 2009

The conference will analyze surrender from prehistoric times to the present, asking:

- How fighting ends?
- When, and why, do soldiers stop fighting?
- Is it possible to find an answer to this question for the different levels of combat, namely those of the individual soldier, of the military commander and of the parent society?
- Is it possible to compare surrender in different wars, epochs and cultures and to find some common patterns which allow us to make broader conclusions about the nature of warfare?

This international conference is organized by the University of Leeds and the University of Oxford and sponsored generously by the German Historical Institute, London; the Fritz-Thyssen-Foundation, the Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt, Potsdam, and the German Historical Society.

Conference convenors: Holger Afflerbach, Leeds and Hew Strachan, Oxford
Contact and registration: Patrick Bourne at:
conference-on-surrender@leeds.ac.uk

Mr Patrick Bourne
School of History
University of Leeds
Email: conference-on-surrender@leeds.ac.uk
Visit the website at http://ccw.politics.ox.ac.uk/events/index.asp

Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism

Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism

The Introduction to the Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism by Mary Kaldor, Ashwani Kumar and Hakan Seckinelgin is online available here:

http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook09.htm

Global Civil Society 2009 explores the framing, strategies and impacts of various actors in global civil society on poverty and its eradication. A centre for the Study of Global Governance (LSE) collaboration with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, and the Centre for Social Investment at Heidelberg University, this edition is published by Sage. Global Civil Society 2009 was launched on 6 May 2009 at LSE.

Ashwani Kumar, Jan Aart Scholte, Mary Kaldor, Marlies Glasius, Hakan Seckinelgin, Helmut Anheier (eds) (2009). Global Civil Society 2009: Poverty and Activism. London: Sage.

Fiona Holland
Managing Editor
Centre for the Study of Global Governance
London School of Economics
Houghton Street
London WC2 2AE
Visit the website at http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/yearbook09.htm

CFP: 1763 and All That

1763 and All That: Temptations of Empire in the British World During the Decade After the Seven Years’ War

Call for papers for a conference to be held on February 25th and 26th, 2010, at the University of Texas at Austin, sponsored by the Department of History’s Institute for Historical Studies.

The focus of the conference is the British Empire during its “decade of crisis” between the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763 and the passage of the Tea Act ten years later. Over the course of this decade, Britons drastically transformed the way they viewed themselves and their empire. For the first time, British imperial policy extended to the governance of the French Catholic inhabitants of Canada, the Native people of the trans-Appalachian interior of North America, Africans in the new colony of Senegambia, and the twenty million inhabitants of Bengal subject to the authority of the East India Company. In Britain itself, the governance of this vastly extended empire engendered an enormous amount of bitter debate and anxious discussion in the halls of power as well as in the popular press. Among historians of each of the different parts of the British World, this decade has long been seen as one of crucial importance. However, while invaluable work has been done to examine British and indigenous relations and exchanges in specific colonial contexts, as well to examine connections between the metropolis and specific colonial regions, there has been as yet few attempts to interrogate the links across and between the colonial regions and to set developments in particular regions into the context of the transformation of the British Empire as a whole. We aim to address this need by bringing scholars working on various aspects of the British World into dialogue and debate over the causes and character of the imperial transformation of the 1760s and early 1770s.

We invite submissions for individual papers on these themes. Please note that the conference will be organized around the discussion of pre-circulated papers. Accepted papers must be submitted for circulation to participants no later than February 1, 2010. Each proposal should include a brief précis of the paper topic and a clear indication of how the paper will undertake to connect the specific research subject to larger events and processes taking place across the British Empire. The deadline for receiving proposals is September 1, 2009.

Paper proposals (as well a brief C.V.) should be submitted via e-mail to the conference organizers, Robert Olwell and James Vaughn, at: historyinstitute@austin.utexas.edu. Please send all queries to the same address.

For more information on the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, see: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/insts/historicalstudies/

2009 ISA-RC21 Conference: Inequality, Inclusion and the Sense of Belonging

International Sociological Association, Research Committee 21 Sociology of Urban and Regional Development

Sao Paolo Conference Theme: Inequality, Inclusion and the Sense of Belonging

Date: 23-25 August 2009 Call for Papers: 02.02.2009 until 15.05.2009

Proposed Sessions: http://www.centrodametropole.org.br/ISA2009/html/sessions.html

Submission for paper proposals: http://www.centrodametropole.org.br/ISA2009/html/inscriptions.html

Eduardo Marques
Department of Political Science – University of São Paulo (DCP/USP

Email: ecmarq@uol.com.br
Visit the website at http://www.centrodametropole.org.br/ISA2009/

2009 Irene Ledesma Prize

For Ph.D graduate student research in western women’s history. The Coalition for Western Women’s History Deadline for submission: June 1, 2009. The $1,000 prize supports travel to collections or other research expenses related to the histories of women and gender in the American West. Applicants must be enrolled in a Ph.D program and members of the CWWH. The prize honors the memory of Irene Ledesma whose contributions to Chicana and working-class history were ended by her untimely death in 1997. the CWWH will award the prize at the CWWH Breakfast during the 49th Annual Western History Association Conference in Denver, Colorado, October 7-10, 2009. The recepient will be the CWWH’s guest at the breakfast. Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria: *How well the applicant stated her/his research question and the significance of the overall project. *How well the applicant demonstrated her/his knowledge of the primary source materials related to the proposal. *How well the applicant framed her/his project in terms of the broader theoretical/historiographic issues significant to the topic. *How well the proposal addressed issues of gender and/or women’s history in the U.S. West. *How well the proposed budget dovetails with the applicant’s stated research agenda. To apply submit three copies of the following: a C.V.; a brief description of the research project and an explanation of how the prize funds would support the research (nor exceeding three pages, double-spaced), a line-item budget, and a letter of support from the student’s major advisor by June 1, 2009 (postmark) to: Maria Raquel Casas Chair, Ledesma Prize Committee University of Nevada, Las Vegas 4505 S. Maryland Parkway Box 455020 Las Vegas, Nevada, 89154-5020 For more information, contact Dr. Casas at maria.casas@unlv.edu

Maria Raquel Casas
Chair, Ledesma Prize Committee
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4505 S. Maryland Parkway
Box 455020
Las Vegas, Nevada, 89154-5020
Email: maria.casas@unlv.edu

Casey Robinson: Overcoming Obstacles

“It’s when you run away that you’re most liable to stumble,” (Casey Robinson: The Quotations for Inspiration).

Lester Robert Bittel: Decision-Making

“Good plans shape good decisions.  That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true,” (Lester Robert Bittel: QuoteWorld).

Latin America Today: International Symposium on Inequality and Identity

Auditorio Alberto Carvalho da Silva, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Theme:
Through an interdisciplinary analysis of a region with extreme inequality, the symposium hopes to provide a stage for a debate on the relationship between inequality and identity in contemporary political, economic and social processes. The specific purpose of the symposium is to bring together active researchers from different research fields and countries to discuss the impact of unequal power relations on personal and social identities in contemporary Latin America, as well as to shed light on the consequences of these complex identities.

The symposium welcomes scholars from the fields of politics, economics, international relations, philosophy and social psychology. The concepts under discussion may not at a first sight be obvious ones, but they are crucial to the understanding of today’s Latin America. These include: theorizations of power, disadvantage, recognition and indifference, mimicry, post-colonial subjectivities, power relations in international affairs; they will help us understand the various ways inequality determines who we are, and who we think we are, when we relate to ourselves and to others in unequal power relationships. It is hoped that through the better understanding of these notions and relationships it will be possible to counteract the oppositions between the weak and the powerful in local, regional and international relations, and to oppose the world-view in which the struggle for domination is the crucial determinant of social life.

Speakers:
Jonathan Wolff (University College London, Philosophy)
Julia Buxton (University of Bradford, Center for International Cooperation and Security)
Vladimir Safatle (University of Sao Paulo, Philosophy)
Szilvia Simai (University of Sao Paulo, Institute of Advanced Studies)

Margarita Palacios (Birkbeck College, Psychosocial Studies)

James Copestake (University of Bath, Economics and International Development)

Armida de la Garza (University of Nottingham, International Communication)

Derek Hook (London School of Economics and Political Science, Social Psychology)

All welcome! Registration is free, but space is limited – please register as soon as possible.
Contact: szilvia@universia.com.br

Szilvia Simai, Ph.D
Email: szilvia@universia.com.br