Nineteenth-Century Studies Association Conference 2021
March 13, 2021
Seeking discussants for the roundtable “Theory and Scholarship” on Diversity and Inclusion at the Nineteenth-Century Studies Association (NCSA) virtual conference on March 13, 2021 from 1:30-3:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. The panel co-chairs invite discussants from a wide variety of fields working on nineteenth-century research that speaks to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion or “undisciplining” Victorian studies. The co-chairs will ask discussants to answer a series of four questions (included below). The discussants will have 10 minutes to chat amongst themselves for each question. The organizers will then open it up so the audience can discuss these topics or the participants and audience could converse together in an inclusive conversation.
Please contact Indu Ohri at io3jc@virginia.edu by Friday, March 5 if you’re available to join the roundtable and interested in participating, especially current NCSA members or conference presenters. This and several other roundtables at the conference are the work of the newly-created NCSA Diversity Committee. Roundtable participants will be required to register for the NCSA Virtual Conference here: https://ncsaweb.net/current-conference-2021-cfp/.
Roundtable Questions for Discussants:
1. How would you introduce yourself as a scholar, academic, teacher, and human in the context of this roundtable? We're looking to interrogate the form of the scholarly intro within the context of conferences.
2. What set of terms do you use to signal your diversity, equity, and inclusion work, and what are your thoughts about specific terms or the various sets of terms that we currently use in academia? Examples might be: critical race studies; migration studies; center and periphery; global anglophone; postcolonial studies.
3. Can you talk specifically about "unlearning" and "decolonizing"? What does it mean to "unlearn" and "decolonize"? A lot of these terms are circulating but it can be fuzzy what they mean. Can we come up with a set of theorists, think pieces, etc? Critical bibliography.
4. Can you speak about your understanding of and ideas about the current state of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across campuses, such as committees and officers? Meta-theorizing the concept of, and the implementation of, diversity and inclusion itself?