CALL FOR PAPERS
Everyday Racism in Transnational Perspective
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX
31.10.-1.11.2013

It has long been commonplace to claim that racism has become one of the defining ideologies of the modern world. Although its historical roots stretch back centuries, racism in a modern sense, especially in terms of its direct links to politics, political parties and institutions, is little more than a century and a half old. The last century witnessed the radicalization of race as an “imagined community” across the political spectrum and in a variety of violent forms, ranging from social segregation to full-scale genocide. But while racism itself is fundamentally transnational in both theory and practice, abetted by the development of mass media to help forge racist networks and activists across the globe, research on racism has remained surprisingly national in orientation. Indeed, most scholarship to date has concentrated almost exclusively on how racism and racial politics operate within the confines of territorial states.
This workshop is devoted to reconsidering the ideas and everyday practices of racism in a broader interdisciplinary and transnational context. In what ways, for example, are the Jim Crow American South, pre-war Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa comparable? How were they related to each other in terms of shared ideology and political activity? Or more generally, how does a explicitly comparative international framework expand and/or revise our understanding of racism and racial politics in various historical settings? Such questions will be the main departure points for the workshop, and we invite scholars working in specific fields to submit short proposals to the organizers.

We invite abstracts around the following topics:
Racism and Education
Racism and Family
Marketplace Racism
Racism and Popular Culture
Racism and Religion
Racial Violence

The Deadline for the submission of proposals is 30 April 2013. Applicants will be contacted by 15 May 2013. Subject to available funding, travel costs may be reimbursed.
Please email a proposal of 300 words to: everydayracism@sussex.ac.uk
For any questions or further information please contact Dr Gideon Reuveni, Dr Claudia Siebrecht or Dr Gerhard Wolf, Department of History, University of Sussex at: everydayracism@sussex.ac.uk