Our venue is the Westin Birmingham, which is in close proximity to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Birmingham Museum of Art, and the Uptown dining area.(The Westin, a 4-star hotel, is offering a great room rate of $139/night for conference attendees.)
We have two outstanding plenary speakers scheduled, Imani Perry (Princeton University) and Madeline Hsu (University of Texas).
The Southeastern American Studies Association is the largest regional chapter of the American Studies Association. SASA presents new developments and findings in American Studies scholarship, identifies and defines areas of debate about the nature of American culture and its study, and conducts cultural and historical programs on the Southeast and its communities. Our biennial conferences, including SASA2022 Birmingham, have broad and inclusive themes encompassing art and architecture, black literature and music, American Studies as cultural critique, the cultural uses of photography, Native American Studies, and popular culture, Southern literature, and women’s studies.
SASA 2022 theme is “Resistance and (Re)Generation.” With authoritarianism and nationalism on the rise in the US and abroad in recent years, “resistance” has become a keyword for activists, stressing the importance of organized, conscience-based opposition to governmental oppression. Resistance can take many forms, including traditional and nontraditional public protest, liberation pedagogy, and a variety of artistic expressions. Resistance responds not only to the actions of governments but also to broader power structures (economic, racial, gendered) that support violence and oppression. “(Re)Generation” signals the productive aspect of resistance — resistance as building, energizing, and creating, not simply opposing. “Generation,” of course, also brings to mind the demographics of age and the interactions (sometimes productive, sometimes fraught) among different “generations” of activists and scholars.