We acknowledge our inheritance of various critiques of the Academy, in
which the Academy has been conceived multiply: as an ideological
instrument bent on creating capitalist workers, as the technological
bedfellow of the military-industrial complex, as a site that
systematically elides alterior narratives and reinscribes hegemonic
processes, as a location predicated on a disassemblage of the
'theoretical' from the praxical. We seek in this conference to
provide a dialogic space in which to critique and reconfigure these
radical analysis of 'knowledge-production,' as well as to engage
knowledges and epistemic formations which have been deemed
illegitimate or simply supplemental, and as a result have been
concomitantly tokenized, ghettoized, or ignored altogether.
For, despite the thorough deconstruction of a notion of the University
as a politically neutral site, we have also mythified the moments of
student revolt that have sought to introduce radical political praxis
in the space of the University. This mythification fails to move us
to rethink and concomitantly enact effective resistances to current
politico-economic conditions, while additionally forcing a
re-membering of student revolt which elides instantiations of
resistant strategies and radical pedagogical practices both
historically and currently taking place in terrains which fall either
'beneath' or 'beyond' the radar of the Euro-/Westo-centric Academy.
A rethinking of Politics and the University, we suggest, entails a
consideration of 'disciplinarity' which takes seriously the specific
violences which attend the institutionalization of 'knowledge' –
violences which both open up and close off certain ways and modes of
knowing.

We seek submissions that both implicitly and explicitly engage these
issues. Topics to consider include:

• How does violence invest knowledge-production, and what are the
(unintended) productivities of this relation?
• What is at stake in the contemporary 'redisciplinarization' of and
'tokenization' within the university?
• How do we understand/combat the instrumentalization and
militarization of knowledge in the context of an increasingly
'entrepreneurial' academy?
• What are the contemporary possibilities of forming inter-, intra-,
and para-institutional collectivities, or of political engagements
that reside in but transcend the space of the University? How do
these current possibilities relate to many legacies of resisting
violence and transforming not just the academy but the social at
large?

Workers/writers/thinkers of all different disciplinary,
inter-disciplinary, and non-disciplinary stripes welcome. Submissions
may be textual, performative, visual.

*This year's keynote is Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. She has
performed her spoken word all over North America , in front of
audiences at Yale and Oberlin and at immigrant rights rallies and
benefits for queer youth resource centers. She is the author of
Consensual Genocide (TSAR, 2006), is a frequent contributor to Bitch
and Colorlines magazines and has had work anthologized in Colonize
This!, With a Rough Tongue: Femmes Write Porn, Without a Net,
Dangerous Famillies, Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws , and A Girl's Guide
to Taking Over the World . She works to create a Sri Lanka free from
war, multinational corporations and queer, women's and cultural
oppression with Blood Memory: A Sri Lankan Storytelling Project. Leah
has taught writing to queer, trans and Two Spirit youth at Supporting
Our Youth Toronto's Pink Ink program for the past four years, work
that won her a City Of Toronto Community Service Award in 2004. She
produces queer of color spoken word shows through her company,
brownstargirl productions, and is the co-creator of the Asian Arts
Freedom School , an arts/activism school for API youth in Toronto. Her
website: http://brownstargirl.com.

Submission Guidelines

Submission deadline: Monday, January 21, 2008.

Please submit a 300-500 word abstract along with a cover letter that
includes your name, academic affiliation, contact numbers, complete
mailing address, and e-mail address, as well as information regarding
any technological equipment you may need for your presentation. Papers
will be considered for a 20 minute presentation, followed by
discussion, so please limit the length of paper to 10-12 pages.
Email address for inquiries and electronic submission of abstracts:
pic.conference.2008@gmail.com