In celebration of its 30th anniversary as a department and the 45th anniversary of the founding of several programs (African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Center for Chicano Studies) that joined together to become the Department of American Ethnic Studies, AES is sponsoring a symposium that will provide participants with an opportunity to reflect on the department’s past, consider its present, and plan for its future. The symposium will give faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and community members an opportunity to engage in critical conversations on a range of current topical issues as they consider theoretical, curricular and methodological approaches grounded in the field of ethnic studies in general and the future trajectory of the department in particular. Symposium participants will discuss the field’s interdisciplinary past and present at the same time that they explore its potential transdisciplinary future—which necessarily calls for “continual reexamination of artificially drawn and contingent boundaries and that which they exclude” (Dolling and Hark).*

Proposals may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• Race, ethnicity & other axes of stratification
• Racism & other forms of institutional violence
• Borders, borderlands & border crossings
• Environmental and climate justice
• Migration, immigration, diaspora & transnationalism
• Ethnography, oral history & other methodological approaches
• Literature, film & other forms of representation
• Language, culture & education
• Social movements & social justice
• Identity, difference, power & citizenship
• Campus activism and community engagement
• Transformative changes in pedagogy, research, student body & administrative structures
• Influence of ethnic studies on the mission of institutions of higher learning

We invite anyone interested in presenting a paper at the AES symposium to submit a 100-word biography and a 300-word abstract of their proposal for a 15-minute presentation to aes@uw.edu for consideration. The deadline for submission is March 21, 2016. If you have any questions, please email aes@uw.edu or call 206-543-5401.

*Dolling, I., & Hark, S. (2000). She who speaks shadows speaks truth: Transdisciplinarity in women’s
and gender studies. Signs 25(4). 1195-1198.