44th Annual Conference on the Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS)

Deadline Extended to Monday, October 7th
Call for Papers: “World-Systems Analysis in a Critical Juncture”

44th Annual Conference on the Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS)
Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
The Arrighi Center for Global Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
April 10-11, 2020

The 44th Annual Conference on the Political Economy of the World-System takes place during a critical juncture for both the field of world-systems analysis and for the world-system itself. In this time of escalating systemic chaos, we seek papers that utilize a world-systems perspective to analyze the social, political, and economic challenges of the current juncture. To more effectively grapple with these challenges, this conference also aims to reconstruct the foundations of world-systems analysis and to develop useful synergies with other critical perspectives within the social sciences.

1. Global Crisis and Systemic Chaos. A world-systems perspective can provide unique insights into the multiple system-level problems facing the world today—for example, xenophobic nationalism, militarism, neo-fascism, the refugee crisis, and environmental degradation. We seek papers that use the tools of world-systems analysis to shed light on the current global crisis.
2. Reconstructing the Lineages of World-Systems Analysis. While some of the foundational contributions of world-systems analysis continue to be well-examined by its practitioners today, others have fallen outside the main corpus of the perspective. We seek papers that evaluate the contemporary relevance of contributions such as Terence K. Hopkins’ methodological essays in World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology; Giovanni Arrighi’s Geometry of Imperialism; Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa; Ruy Mauro Marini’s Dialética da Dependência; Samir Amin’s Accumulation on a World Scale; and Janet Abu-Lughod’s Before European Hegemony.
3. Epistemological Inclusion and Exclusion in World-Systems Analysis. In what ways has world-systems analysis succeeded (or failed) to incorporate major insights from other critical perspectives that share key epistemological premises? How can world-systems analysis develop new synergies with these other critical perspectives? Of particular interest are papers that enter into a dialogue with analyses focusing on race, gender, sexuality, and/or kinship.

Submissions and Support: Please send paper proposals (less than 500 words) by Monday, October 7, 2019 to [pews-2020@umd.edu<mailto:pews-2020@umd.edu>]. Please include affiliations and contact information for all authors. Conference presenters will be provided lodging and meals during their stay. Papers selected for the conference will be considered for publication in a peer-reviewed edited book.

Conference organization:
Patricio Korzeniewicz, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, College Park
Beverly Silver, The Arrighi Center for Global Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Corey Payne, The Arrighi Center for Global Studies, Johns Hopkins University