XVII Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference
The Right to Write, Speak and Be in Times of Banning, Censorship and Persecution
April 25-27, 2024 · University of Houston-Downtown · Houston, Texas
We are pleased to announce the XVII Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Conference will convene April 25-27, 2024 at the University of Houston-Downtown campus. The meeting theme, “The Right to Write, Speak and Be in Times of Banning, Censorship and Persecution,” seeks to highlight the resistance to State oppression of ideology, identity, race, sexuality, language, immigration status, etc. Censorship has taken various forms since the colonial period through book banning, the imprisonment of activists and intellectuals, the segregating and underfunding of education, the polarizing of communities and the vilifying of the Spanish language, culminating in the erasure of Latino history. Efforts to establish printing presses, networks of readers and distribution systems circumvent and counter State-sponsored actions to create false narratives about the presence and contributions of Latinas/os/es in the United States.
Archivists, librarians, linguists, historians, critics, theorists and community members are invited to share examples of the legacy they are recovering, preserving and making available of Hispanic peoples—whether residents, immigrants or exiles—of the United States over the past centuries. We seek papers and posters in either English or Spanish that highlight these many contributions, but also offer critical ways to rethink issues of agency, gender, sexualities, race/ethnicity, environmental justice, class, power and others.
We encourage papers that make use of archival research that provoke a revision of established literary interpretations and/or historiographies from the colonial period to 1980. Presentations and posters on material between 1960-1980 must be focused on civil rights and the documentary legacy of Latinas/os/es.
We invite proposals on the following themes:
- 1960-1980 only movement(s)-related research
- Analytical studies of recovered authors and/or texts
- Collections and archives: accessioning and critical archive studies
- Critical, historical and theoretical approaches to recovered texts
- Curriculum development: integrating recovered texts into teaching at university and K-12 levels
- Documenting the fight for equality
- Environmental justice
- Feminisms
- Folklore/oral histories
- Gender and sexualities
- Historiography
- Language, translation, bilingualism and linguistics
- Library and information science
- Material culture
- Printing and publishing
- Religious thought and practice
- Social implications and cultural analyses
- US Latino digital humanities
Proposal submission guidelines:
All participants are required to register for the conference. Presenters must register and purchase Recovery membership. A limited number of student bursaries will be available.
The Program Committee encourages individual paper submissions. Individuals may present on only one panel.
Undergraduate students are welcome to submit proposals for poster presentations.
Submit your proposal at https://bit.ly/recoveryconference2024 by September 29, 2023.
Registration Fees
- Professional/Faculty: $100
- Students and community members: $50
Membership Fees
- Professional/Faculty: $75
- Students and community members: $35
- Lifetime: $1,000
Manos a la obra: Pre-conference Workshop on Digital Humanities and Archives (April 25, 2024, in person)
The US Latino Digital Humanities Center (USLDH; #usLdh) will offer a pre-conference workshop open to conference attendees and members of the public. The workshop will provide an introduction to US Latino Digital Humanities and the use of Recovery digital archives in the classroom. Registration is required and will open in January 2024. For more information, please visit: https://artepublicopress.com/product/manosalaobra/
For all questions, please contact us at apprec@central.uh.edu
Recovery/Arte Público Press and the University of Houston System are committed to creating and maintaining harassment-free communities of practice. By attending the Recovery Conference, you acknowledge your commitment to contributing to a safe and inclusive experience for all. Please read our Code of Conduct below.
