European Association for American Studies

The partnership between the French Association for American Studies and the Great Lakes American Studies Association will be furthered this year during the EAAS 2002 conference thru a lecture given by GLASA President Tony Edmonds and three FAAS-GLASA workshops. They continue the collaboration which began with the jointly sponsored FAAS-GLASA conference on "Community, Family, and Youth" held at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, March 16-18, 2001. They are open to all members of the French Association for American Studies, the Great Lakes American Studies Association, and the European Association for American Studies

Due to the exceptional nature of the EAAS conference the FAAS has chosen this year to restrict the size of its own annual conference, which will therefore be held on Thursday March 21 all day and Friday March 22 in the morning prior to the opening of EAAS 2002 at the Bordeaux Athénée municipale auditorium according to the following schedule:

The three FAAS-GLASA panels will take place on Saturday March 23 and Sunday March 24 on the Bordeaux 3 campus site along with EAAS workshops.

A. Oral History Technique and Visual Culture Analysis

B. The Formation of Identity and Minority Groups: Political, Cultural and Literary Perspectives

Chairs: Donna M. DeBLASIO, Dept. of History, Youngstown University; One University Plaza, Youngstown, OH 44555-0001 USA ; Lazare BITOUN, Dept. d'Anglais, Université Paris 8, 2 Rue de la Liberté, 93200 St Denis, France.
An emphasis on the persistence of group identity has eclipsed the traditional American notion of assimilation and integration in the work of most students of immigration and ethnic life in the United States. In an era of multiculturalism, few scholars are prepared to argue that past and present immigrants to the U.S. have transformed themselves into a single "American" mold as this is visible in social developments as well as in the literary production. Most historians, social scientists, literary scholars and practitioners of cultural studies now argue that immigrants and newcomers to the U.S. negotiated for themselves a complex set of identities that incorporated both old world and American elements. Noting the persistence of ethnic identities and cultures well beyond the period in which assimilation might be expected to have occurred, they have suggested that we reexamine our understanding of the immigrant experience and of assimilation. With these concerns in mind, we propose a workshop that explores, with the help of the social sciences as well as through the study of literature, the methods and approaches to the formation of identity and the constitution of minority groups, with particular attention to French and American perspectives. It seeks to answer several questions: 1) How do different methodological approaches -historical, literary, anthropological, sociological- differ and or converge in their treatment of minority group formation? 2) To what extent can we speak of a coherent American culture and identity in light of recent work and contemporary literary production focusing on the disparate experiences of various racial and ethnic groups? 3) Can we find similar patterns in the cases of France and America, or in the cases of French and American literature; is comparative work possible given the structural and cultural differences of the two countries? Papers may choose to focus on a diachronic or a synchronic approach.
 

C. Engendering Sport and the Nation (EAAS workshop #3)

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© J.-P. Gabilliet & L. Verley 2001