[Commlist] CFP: "Heartland: U2's Looking For American Soul," The U2 Conference

Call for Presentations

Heartland: U2’s Looking For American Soul
An International Virtual U2 Conference For Scholars And Fans
October 18 – 24, 2020
CFP Deadline: August 31, 2020

U2 has journeyed – at times uneasily – through an America of pulsating 
metropolis, rugged heartland and shining sea. It long ago fell under the 
spell of America, but for just as long has felt it still hasn’t found 
America. U2 loves, lives in and leverages America, all while feeling 
free to critique, correct and create America. We invite fans, students 
and scholars to a week of online conversations and critical inquiry into 
U2’s complicated history of looking for American soul. We’ll be planning 
multiple formats for attendees to engage in presentations, connect with 
each other and enjoy the conference community at different times 
throughout the week.

Full CFP online here <http://u2conference.com/u2con-2020-cfp>and below.

_________________________

U2 has journeyed – at times uneasily – through an America of pulsating 
metropolis, rugged heartland and shining sea. It long ago fell under the 
spell of America, but for just as long has felt it still hasn’t found 
America.

When U2 talks about America, it often describes it in terms of an idea, 
a dream or an experiment rather than a physical reality. Bono sings in 
“American Soul” (ft. Kendrick Lamar) on /Songs of Experience/:

    It’s not a place / This country is to me a sound / Of drum and bass.
    … It’s not a place / This country is to me a thought / That offers
    grace / For every welcome that is sought.

In the liner notes for /Songs of Experience/ in 2017, Bono expressed:

    ‘American Soul’ is a letter to America. A country still inventing
    and reinventing itself that has been a muse for this band since we
    first toured in the ‘80s we all read Sam Shepard’s /Motel
    Chronicles/, heard Patti Smith and got to know the great poet Allen
    Ginsberg. For years I’ve been boring the arse of whoever will
    listen, trying to explain that America is not just a country, it’s
    an idea. It’s a great idea too. But as we recorded these 12 songs we
    felt the idea of America was being challenged, maybe even twisted,
    in newly problematic ways. The rise of the alt right is not
    surprising – it’s happening all over the world – but to see it in
    the USA, to see the Ku Klux Klan marching the streets of
    Charlottesville, without the silly costumes and pointy hats, that
    was a new level of absurdity and danger. Edge described it as ‘the
    mental illness of racism’ unmasked. Why did they feel so emboldened?
    And so we watched the betrayal of those words of Emma Lazarus, at
    the bottom of the Statue of Liberty, great words ‘Give me your
    tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …’.
    Yes, it felt like a betrayal.

Indeed, U2 has long found itself under America’s spell, as a /place/ not 
only for this Irish band to find its commercial, critical and conceptual 
success, but also as a /space/ to work out its identity as an exponent 
for the idea of America and as a sometimes critic of the reality of 
America. But for all U2’s embrace of and messaging about America, the 
band assents to a shared idea that what America means and is remains as 
dynamic and up-for-grabs as what defines rock ‘n’ roll.

As U2 performed in front of the Lincoln Memorial at President Obama’s 
inauguration celebration, an election Bono declared to be Dr. Martin 
Luther King Jr.’s dream coming to pass, Canadian writer Randy Boyagoda 
was examining Salman Rushdie’s fiction as a space that “seeks to imagine 
America as embodying a set of practices. This is an extraterritorial 
gesture that playfully dismisses organic connections between identity, 
place, and history” (/Race, Immigration, and American Identity in the 
Fiction of Salman Rushdie, Ralph Ellison, and William Faulkner/. 
Routledge, 2010, 23). U2 and Rushdie have a history of artistic 
dialogue, with an affinity for the performed, provocative gesture, so 
it’s not surprising that ten years after dedicating “Pride (In the Name 
of Love)” to usher in the Obama era, U2 again sought space for a 
statement at the outset of President Trump’s term in office with 
/American Soul/.

Following Boyagoda, Rushdie and U2 (who all, interestingly, constitute a 
set of non-Americans articulating America), the U2 Conference takes up 
the notion of an /extraterritorial America /— that is, of America as 
better understood not as a place, but as a sound and practice. Our call 
for a conference comes at a pivotal, tense political moment in which the 
United States confronts its racist past and present, and from a site of 
asking, along with Bono, if “the idea of America [is] being challenged, 
maybe even twisted, in newly problematic ways”? Not only do we ask 
/“What does it mean to identify America as a sound and practice?”/ but, 
“/What has come of U2’s engagement with American culture and politics?”/

We invite scholars, students and fans to a week of online conversations 
and critical inquiry for more fully exploring the American soul and 
dream by examining U2’s place, space and sound in the American 
socio-political experiment (broadly conceived). We welcome comparisons, 
as well, between U2 and other musicians who have demonstrated an active 
interest in shaping the American political discourse. As we examine the 
intersection of U2’s sound, art and media messaging in American culture, 
we seek a critical examination of U2’s contribution to engaging, 
energizing and defining “the American dream.”

Presentation formats could include and are not limited to:

  * A solo presentation of a complete paper or a work in-progress
  * Speaking on a panel presentation that you create of 2-3 panelists
  * Speaking on a panel the conference organizers create
  * Interviewing a person of interest to the U2 community on a topic
    relevant to the conference theme
  * Presenting a poster in real-time or as pre-recorded
  * Creating and narrating a gallery or similar media presentation
    either in real-time or as pre-recorded
  * Leading a chat room or roundtable discussion on a topic you propose
    about U2 that’s relevant to the conference theme
  * Leading a book or film discussion after the attendees experience the
    media
  * Presenting a creative performance or demonstration relevant to the
    conference theme in a real-time or pre-recorded session, then
    participating in a live Q&A
  * We welcome other formats that work well in a virtual environment

Presentation topics could include and are not limited to:

  * U2 and the “two Americas.” How has the band critiqued and celebrated
    America on /The Joshua Tree, /other albums and tours? What messaging
    from U2 has persisted? What has changed?
  * U2 and Black Lives Matter. How does the U2 songbook engage American
    Black lives in myriad forms, including in the context of structural
    racism, political protest and musical contributions?
  * How do U2 fans of color forge a sense of belonging in U2 fan
    communities?
  * U2 in the Time of Trump. How has U2 shifted its strategy for
    engaging U.S. presidents then and now?
  * When critiquing America, how does U2’s non-American perspective
    compare with critiques from, for example: Bob Dylan, Public Enemy,
    Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Childish Gambino, Gary Clark Jr. and
    others?
  * 1987 in 2007: How did U2 revisit and make relevant /The Joshua Tree
    /on its 30th anniversary tour?
  * Wim Wenders once claimed America “colonizes the subconscious.” Has
    America colonized U2? Has U2 colonized America?
  * Teaching U2 in the American cultural history classroom
  * How and why is a U2 tour in America different from a U2 tour in the
    rest of the world?
  * U2 and:
      o the American economy and consumer
      o American literature and art
      o American popular culture
      o American film
      o America’s musical heritage
      o American icons, iconography and symbols
  * What would U2’s America look like?
  * Bono’s shifting advocacy/diplomacy strategies as a change-agent in
    American political culture
  * America First?: Does U2 have a privileged relationship in the
    American Music Industry?
  * We welcome other topics related to the conference theme

*The deadline for all proposal materials is August 31, 2020.* Proposals 
should be 250-300 words of description or a 3-4 minute video clip, 
followed by the presenter’s CV. Submit all proposals to 
*(U2Con2020proposals /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(U2Con2020proposals /at/ gmail.com)>*.

Attendees who wish to chair or host a session not their own should 
submit a separate proposal of about 100 words expressing your interest, 
including full name, affiliation, status as fan, student, scholar or 
other, experience in virtual event formats, and contact information.

Decisions and replies from the conference committee will be made on a 
rolling basis as proposals come in, with all decisions made by September 
10. All presenters are expected to pay the registration fee. Please send 
all questions about proposals to *(U2Con2020proposals /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(U2Con2020proposals /at/ gmail.com)>*.

Conference Coordinators:

  * Dr. Scott Calhoun, Professor of English, Cedarville University,
    Director, The U2 Conference <http://u2conference.com/director/>
  * Rabbi Daniel Bogard, Central Reform Congregation
    <https://www.centralreform.org/rabbidaniel/>, St. Louis. Senior
    Rabbinic Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute
  * David Comay, Independent Scholar <https://twitter.com/comay>
  * Nathan Frank, Doctoral Candidate, Department of English, University
    of Virginia <https://english.as.virginia.edu/people/profile/ndf3cb>
  * Sherry Lawrence, Staff Writer and podcast contributor, atu2.com
    <https://www.atu2.com/>
  * Karen Lindell, Independent Writer <http://www.karenlindell.com/>
  * Dr. Kimberly Mack <https://kimberlymack.com/>, Assistant Professor
    of African American literature, The University of Toledo
  * Angela Pancella, Director of Development and Parish Life at St.
    Francis Xavier (College Church), St. Louis. Contributor to /U2 and
    the Religious Impulse: Take Me Higher/

<https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/u2-and-the-religious-impulse-9780567690210/>
  * Dr. Christopher Wales, Associate Professor of Organization and
    Leadership, NLA University College Oslo, Norway

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