Conferences of the Bavarian American Academy (BAA)

Since 1999 the Bavarian American Academy offers conferences on comparative and interdisciplinary questions on the general topic Formations of American Cultures in a Global Context.

 

 

19th BAA Conference, July 4-6, 2019

New Perspectives on Transatlantic Relations: Multidisciplinary Approaches

We invite applications for our 19th Interdisciplinary Annual Conference which takes place at the Amerikahaus in Munich, Germany.

Talk about the crisis of liberal democracy, the decline of the West, and the end of transatlantic relations as we knew them is ubiquitous these days. It is largely triggered by the election of Donald Trump to the office of U.S. president and the tumultuous turmoil European-American relations were thrust into by it.

A closer look, however, reveals that the much quoted „Atlantic Drift“ set in shortly after the end of the Cold War already, that the history of European-American relations during the Cold War was one of conflict and confrontation just as much as it was one of cooperation and unity, and that the further back in history one goes, the more ambivalent and contradictory European-American relations appear.

Taking the complexity, multi-dimensionality, and ambivalence of European-American relations throughout the ages as points of departure, and pursuing a historical perspective encompassing the early modern and modern periods, the Annual Conference of the Bavarian American Academy seeks to critically re-assess the topics, dimensions, processes, and problems of transatlantic relations from a multi-disciplinary angle.

It will thematize the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of European-American relations from the seventeenth century to today, and reflect them in categories of cooperation and conflict, convergence and divergence. Its overall scholarly aim is to arrive at a deeper and fuller understanding not only of transatlantic relations as such but also of the situation we are currently acting in.

The Bavarian American Academy invites relevant contributions from the fields of history, literary criticism, geography, the arts, and cultural studies addressing issues of transatlantic relations from the early modern period to today.

We are especially interested in papers dealing with

•    transatlantic (auto)biographies, person-to-person contacts, literary and social movements, institutions and networks
•    the circulation and transfer of knowledge, concepts and ideas across the North Atlantic
•    the multidirectional exchange of books, songs, movies, and material artifacts between Europe and North America
•    systems of meaning mapping the North Atlantic world and framing the relationships between Europe and America

Please send your abstracts of not more than 500 words by February 20, 2019 to:

Margaretha Schweiger-Wilhelm:    schweiger-wilhelm@amerika-akademie.de
Volker Depkat:         Volker.Depkat@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de

Overview over past BAA conferences

Please change to the German page to see the programs 2009-2017.

 

18th BAA Conference, July 5 - 7, 2018
The State of Human Rights: Historical Genealogies, Political Controversies, and Cultural Imaginaries

17th BAA Conference, July 6 - 8, 2017
The Comeback of Populism: Transatlantic Perspectives

 

16th BAA Conference, June 30 - July 2, 2016
Cultural Mobility and Knowledge Formation in the Americas

 

15th BAA Conference, July 9 - 11, 2015
Cultures of Inequality

14th BAA Conference, July 26 - 28, 2014

Cultures of Privacy

 

13th BAA Conference, July 5 - 7, 2012 

Cultures of Mobility

 

12th BAA Conference, July 9 - 10, 2010
Green Cultures: Environmental Knowledge, Climate, and Catastrophe

 

12th BAA Conference, July 2 - 4, 2009

Visual Cultures - Transatlantic Perspectives 

 

10th BAA Conference, May 29 - 31, 2008

Global Cities - Metropolitan Cultures: A Transatlantic Perspective (160KB)

 

9th BAA Conference, June 14 - 16, 2007

Scientific Cultures - Technological Challenges: A Transatlantic Perspective (112KB)

 

8th BAA Conference, 18.- 20. Mai 2006
Political Cultures and the Culture of Politics: A Transatlantic Perspective (156KB)

 

7th BAA-Konferenz, June 9 - 11, 2005
The Power and Politics of the Aesthetic in American Culture (72KB)

 

6th BAA Conference, June 17 - 19, 2004
Religious Cultures - Communities of Belief (464KB)

 

5th BAA Conference, May 15 - 17, 2003
Media Cultures (300KB)

 

4th BAA Conference, June 20 - 22, 2002
Cultures of Economy - Economics of Cultures (236KB)

 

3rd BAA Conference, May 17 - 19, 2001
Konflikt der Rechtskulturen? Die USA und Deutschland im Vergleich (104KB)

2nd BAA Conference, June 22 - 24, 2000
Transnational America: The Fading of Borders in the Western Hemisphere (108KB)

1st BAA Conference, March 5 - 7, 1999

German and American Higher Education in Comparison: Educational Philosophies, Political Systems, Funding (80KB)