RE-VISIONING TERRORISM
An Interdisciplinary and International Conference
SEPTEMBER 8-10, 2011 - Purdue University
An Interdisciplinary and International Conference
SEPTEMBER 8-10, 2011 - Purdue University
Funded by the College of Liberal Arts Enhancing Research in the Humanities and the Arts Grant and by the Purdue University Office of the Vice President for Research
Papers and/ or panel proposals are invited for a three-day conference on re-visions and re-presentations of Terrorism from antiquity to the present, to coincide, roughly, with the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack directed at the World Trade Center in New York on September, 2001. Proposals for panels and individual papers (250-word abstract) are due by March 20, 2011. Refereed proceedings will be published.
The attack against the World Trade Center Towers was tragic for its victims and traumatic for our nation. We all watched those horrifying images time and time and time again. We now all know what terrorism is given, the clear images we have in our mind's eye of the airplanes crashing into New York's Twin Towers. And we all know what terrorists look like. Or at least we think we do. For the past decade we have seen the pictures of Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda followers on countless TV shows, newspapers, and magazines. Those are the visions we have. It has not always been thus. The fortunes of terrorism have waxed and waned over the centuries. While established governments have always railed against "terrorists," frequently at least significant portions of local populations have sympathized with them. With the attack on the Twin Towers on what has come to be known as 9/11, suddenly terrorism came to be considered the manifestation of evil incarnate. It was no longer a subject which could be studied objectively and dispassionately. Its destruction, whatever it was and is, became, as President Bush called it, a "crusade" and as such warranted the expenditure of limitless resources and the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives, most of which were unquestionably innocent. After a decade of war against an enemy we are no closer to being able to identify today than we were in 2001 and having achieved none of our original stated objectives, with the exception of the removal of Saddam Hussein and the Bath party in Iraq, it is perhaps finally time to "re-vision" terrorism.
The aim of this interdisciplinary conference is to look at terrorism to see how it has been perceived and represented over the centuries in literature, art, theater, and most recently, in the audio-visual media in the hope of arriving at a better understanding of this phenomenon. While we do not expect to find a unitary definition of and/or explanation for terrorism, we do hope to begin a discussion with scholars from across the humanities and social sciences which will encourage a more flexible response to one of the most serious problems confronting the world today.
For further information please contact Elena Coda and Ben Lawton (Conference Co-Directors) at lawton@purdue.edu or visit our website: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/fll/main/news/Terrorism/
Correspondence MUST include ReVisioning Terrorism in the subject line.
