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6th Annual Conference in Citizenship Studies: Representing Citizenship
March 27-28, 2009
WSU Law School
The theme for the 2008 - 2009 year is Representing Citizenship. Depictions and descriptions of citizenship serve important purposes in a society: among them, they embody membership in the community; they provide models, positive or negative, for civic behavior; and they disseminate and propagate ideas about citizenship. But how citizenship is depicted and described is contingent and historical, situated in specific times and places, articulated by different agents, and expressed and constituted through specific media. For example, is a modern-day Kurd a citizen first of Iraq, the nation, or of his tribal community? How is he represented in literature, news media, film, art, and government records? Is she a citizen of a moral/religious as well as a social/political community? What features of each community stand out in representations of her? However depicted and described, citizens cannot always act for themselves, and thus must be represented in another sense; that is, a proxy—such as a lawyer, a member of congress, a civil rights group—represents his or her interests instead. What forms over time and in different communities, societies, and nations has this kind of representation taken? The Center invites examinations of the many dimensions of representation and citizenship.
▪ Keynote Speaker
▪ Program
▪ Listen to the Keynote
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