Emory University invites proposals for an interdisciplinary conference addressing lynching and racial violence in an American context. The conference will be held in conjunction with the first Southern exhibition of photographs and postcards from the Allen-Littlefield collection, which document nineteenth and twentieth-century lynchings in the US. Sponsored by Emory and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, the exhibition will run from May 1 through December 31, 2002. The specter of lynching, largely unacknowledged, continues to haunt the American landscape. Indeed, our present cultural context, traumatized by the shock of terrorist violence, calls for the painful reminder that many of our own citizens have been subjected to terrorist acts by their fellow citizens as a matter of course in their daily lives.

We seek humanistic, social scientific, legal and other cross-disciplinary perspectives, as well as explorations of ongoing community and activist responses to racial violence and its legacies. We invite 250-word, double-spaced proposals for individual papers, or for complete panels with chair and commentator on topics related to any aspect of the theme of lynching, and racial violence in the US. Please send the abstract, a one-page c.v., and contact information (complete mailing address, email, phone number, and affiliation) for all participants referenced in the proposal. We encourage submissions from activists and students as well as professional scholars.
Possible topics of consideration include, but are not limited to:

Completed proposals are due on March 1, 2002 and should be sent to Miriam Petty, Special Project Coordinator, 315 Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322-2870. Please indicate if you require specific resources to support your presentation. Inquiries may be directed via email to WITNESS@listserv.cc.emory.edu.