German Studies Association Conference, October 1-4, 2015, Washington, DC Theme: Ethnography and German Studies

At the 2013 GSA meeting, a seminar on the topic of “Ethnography in German Studies” brought together specialists from various fields. A rich conversation ensued, and a community began to crystallize around the realization that ethnography is an unacknowledged ubiquity in our field. At the 2015 GSA, we wish to expand the community and continue the conversation to raise to visibility the uses to which German Studies scholars already do and potentially might take up ethnography in their research and teaching. This includes not only ethnographic methods of research and writing, but also ethnographic or anthropological modes of questioning culture and the ethical implications of ethnography vis-à-vis the people, places, and artifacts that are the basis of such research.
For the 2015 GSA conference, we invite paper proposals for a panel series on ethnography, cultural anthropology, and folklore in German Studies. The papers will ideally focus on how ethnography and cultural anthropology inform and influence research done in German Studies. “Case studies” are welcome.
Topics can include, but are not limited to:
- Ethnographic methods (oral history, interviewing, fieldwork, multi-sited designs, etc) in German Studies research
- Researcher reflexivity and the “ethnographic I/eye” in German Studies research
- Resonances of emerging anthropological theory in German Studies research
- Reading ethnographic texts in German Studies teaching
- Reading literature as ethnography
- Literature and historiography as ethnographic fields
- German-speaking folklore studies
- Connections (historical, potential, current) between US-based German Studies and cultural anthropology in German-speaking countries (personal networks, joint research projects, shared research design)
- The history of German(-speaking) cultural anthropology (Ethnologie / europäische Ethnologie)
Please submit abstract of no more than 250 words and short bio statement to Dr. A. Dana Weber, Florida State University (aweber@fsu.edu) and Amanda Z. Randall, The University of Texas at Austin (azrandall@utexas.edu) by 31 January 2015.