Unpacking Atlanta’s Prospective Growth: The Program for the 2018 Atlanta Studies Symposium
We are pleased to announce the program for the 2018 Atlanta Studies Symposium, which will take place at Emory University’s Robert W. Woodruff Library on April 20, 2018. This year’s symposium received an unprecedented number of proposals and features the broadest range of presenters yet. The symposium committee constructed the program drawing on nearly fifty proposals for individual papers or posters and twenty-four full session proposals, representing a record-breaking level of interest.
In keeping with the 2018 symposium’s theme of “Atlanta: City + Region,” speakers will address a number of issues critical to preparing for the metro region’s projected growth, as well as understanding its roots, and unpacking its impact on arts and culture. Topics will range from how disparities in access to food relate to migration and housing segregation to how faculty across the city are teaching FX’s show Atlanta. Panels on race in relation to the metro region’s changing geography include a session how international migration from across the African diaspora is impacting Atlanta’s status as a “black mecca.”
After welcoming remarks over pastries and coffee, the symposium will feature four sessions, each comprised of four or five concurrent panels. During a break for lunch at the middle of the day, the symposium will feature a poster session. The day will conclude with the Cliff Kuhn Memorial Keynote Lecture, given this year by Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, who will address how Atlanta’s booming suburbs are “retrofitting” themselves to offer services inspired by the city’s core and aimed at their economically diverse influx of new residents. A reception overlooking the city skyline at the tenth-floor Rose Library will follow the keynote lecture.
The Atlanta Studies Symposium is free and open to the public. Access the full program on the symposium page on our website.
