Infectious Democracy: Histories and Cultures of American Politics

New England American Studies Association (NEASA)
September 19-20, 2008
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

The 2008 Conference of the New England American Studies Association will examine the histories, complexities, and nature(s) of American political culture and its contentious relations to democracy as expressed both at home and abroad. From the debates about governance between indigenous peoples and settlers, to the pivotal moment in which many of the ideals of American democracy were crystallized in the Declaration of Independence, to the 2008 presidential election, the meanings of democracy in American political cultures have been far from self evident. NEASA's 2008 conference asks how democratic practices and rhetorics can be attractive, contagious, invigorating, and debilitating. The ideals of the early republic, the icons of the founding fathers, the symbolic power of democracy, and the power of democracy to engage and motivate an electorate operate in tandem and in tension with the abuses of settler colonialism, histories of disenfranchisement, the US war and occupation in Iraq, and the belief that the US can and should determine the sovereignty of other nations.

Schedule (Click to download PDF)