The 2013 AHS Annual Meeting
Racism - Capitalism / Crisis - Resistance
will be held in October 9-13, 2013 at the Key Bridge Marriot in Arlington, Virginia, a five-minute walk from Georgetown in Washington, DC
Call for Papers, Presentations, and Sessions
In the USA, the wealth gap ratio between black and white families was eight to one just a few years ago. In 2012, it approaches nineteen to one. Anti-Latino immigrant bigotry and discrimination is increasing and Muslims have been targeted for hate crimes. The economic crisis of the past few years has generated much more interest in understanding how the political-economic processes of capitalism – not just “bad ideas” or “bad people”,but the political-economic processes of capitalism reward and reproduce exploitative, oppressive behaviors and institutions. Racism is often mistakenly considered only as a set of "bad ideas," this characterization trivializes what is a complex system of processes where particular types of exploitative, oppressive behaviors are rewarded and reproduced. Theoretically, one can have capitalism without racism and racism without capitalism, but here on Earth, the two are now fundamentally inseparable. Racist exploitation and oppression (in its many forms, including imperialism) cannot be fully eliminated as long as the profit system rewards them. Capitalist exploitation and oppression cannot be fully eliminated as long as the extra profits made from racist super-exploitation continue to flow and the divisions among oppressed people keep our struggles and our selves separated. A major goal of this conference is to help overcome these divisions and build genuine solidarity.
The symbiosis – more than just intersection – of racism and capitalism, and the ways that the contradictions of racist-capitalism/capitalistracism lead to crisis and resistance are topics that we need to collectively explore in deeper and broader ways. Washington, D.C. was chosen as the venue because it is, and has been, one of the major places where politically and geographically these contradictions have emerged. Its location makes it especially accessible by land transport to tens of thousands of faculty and hundreds of thousands of students and activists, including from the South and its many HBCU's. The cost of the hotel is reasonable, the location is accessible to highways, airports, the DC Metro subway, and the city itself.
As is always the policy of AHS, papers and sessions on topics other than the core theme are welcome.
Proposals for Sessions or presentations should be submitted to the Program Chair, David Embric dembric@luc.edu
or contact the AHS President, Alan Spector aspector2020@gmail.com
All submissions are due by July 15, 2013.
The 2012 AHS Annual Meeting Program, When Race and Class Still Matters, is available here.
