International Conference Home lands and the borders of America

Dates and Venues: September 27, 2016: University of Lisbon, School of Arts and Humanities (Room 5.2.)

Since the creation of the ‘Department of Homeland Security,’ the homeland has become a staple word in political discourse and popular imagination alike, raising questions about its meanings and roles. What are the boundaries of the American homeland? Where do, within this compound noun, connotations of ‘home’ end and visions of ‘land’ begin? Of what images and roles is a ´homeland’ made of? What can different approaches to the notion of “homeland,” drawing on different geopolitical discourses and positions, tell us about past and current strategies of reterritorialization and deterritorialization? What are the borders of that place/space/fantasy called ‘America’ and what is the reach of its projections worldwide?

This one-day seminar is graced by the presence of two prominent international Americanists, Amy Kaplan (Univ. of Pennsylvania) and Paul Giles (Univ. of Sydney), and gathers researchers, teachers and postgraduate students from five leading universities in English Studies in Portugal (ULisboa, U.Porto, UC, UNL, UTAD).