Kategorie: Veranstaltungen

Colloque international de jeunes chercheurs – Culture et Littérature des Mondes Anglophones (CLIMAS)

Université Bordeaux Montaigne, March 11-12, 2016

Organizers: Remy Arab-Fuentes, Isabelle Gras, James Perosi-Doughty

An enclave is a portion of territory within or surrounded by a larger territory belonging to someone else. Access to this territory is difficult due to moral or social laws being different from those of the territory which it is isolated from. “Enclave” comes from the Latin root “to lock with a key.” This etymology conveys the idea that access is possible, albeit extremely restricted. Thus, the enclave provides its totally hermetic condition while simultaneously allowing for possibilities to enter. By virtue of its isolation from the rest of the world, the enclave is thus the privileged venue for particular phenomena that may only exist in this confined territory.

When the hermetic character of the enclave is exacerbated, whether or not the surrounding world has any influence on it, it is still possible to consider it an absolute alternative to the outside world. Thus, the enclave becomes the place for all fantasies; for all exaggerations. Since it is separated, sealed off, the enclave can serve as a place for experimentation — the radiant city or the laboratory of horrors; a utopia or dystopia. In any case, thanks to its isolation, the enclave has been able to claim the possibility of providing a new start. However, finding refuge in a utopian enclave brings up the question of escape or resistance. Behind this question lies another profound problem specific to the enclave: is the enclave a place in its own right, a removed place or a non-place? What relation links the enclave and the surrounding territory? Making a case of the enclave, taking into consideration a minority which takes its strength from opposing the surrounding majority is to acknowledge a territory in which its integration to a larger whole is problematic. Thus, the Enclave questions the notions of integration and rejection, especially if we consider ethnic enclaves which, due not only to their geopolitical but their social nature as well, have fluid borders which articulate these contradictory notions in a complicated way.

We have seen that enclaves create a gap between interior and exterior, and thus the possibility of a contrast which allows for magnifying certain aspects by comparison. The Enclave thus could act as a magnifying mirror. A paradox thus appears: is the Enclave the space of absolute difference, or does it simply reproduce societal phenomena in a finer and clearer manner, exacerbating these phenomena by smoothing out the surface of an exterior reality which is far too complex to be represented? The enclave does not only just bring about territorial ruptures, but above all it brings about a network of complex relations with its surroundings. Is it a privileged tool for representation or, on the contrary, a difficult place to chart due to its hermetic nature? Is it a refuge or a prison? What does it actually tell us on the concept of borders and affiliations? How does it develop its status of exception and claim its status as a minor territory in a larger and more united world? These geopolitical, ontological, and esthetic motifs of the enclave are what will be explored and developed at this conference.

Fields of Study :

Civilization: ethnic enclaves, reservations and concentration camps, transcendentalist societies

Literature: enclaves in the adventure novel/lost worlds, esthetic experience as enclaves

Linguistics: morphological and syntactical specificities, morphological specificities of dialects, mental spaces

We will consider the proposals in French and English from doctoral students and young researchers from all disciplines of English studies. Talks will discuss enclaves in the Anglophone world. Certain proposals will be selected to be published in Leaves: A Journal, Climas’s online review.

Please send all propositions (around 3000 signs including punctuation marks) along with a short CV to: remy.arab-fuentes@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr, james.doughty@u-bordeaux.fr and isabelle_gras@yahoo.com by November 1^st, 2015.

Further information (in French and English) can be found on the CLIMAS Website.

Conference, 21.-23.4. 2016, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Germany

Organizers: Caroline Rosenthal, Laurenz Volkmann, Uwe Zagratzki

Neighbourly relations frequently position a self against an Other. This is the case between individuals, nations or within various cultural groups of a nation. Our racial, ethnic, social, or gender identities are created in demarcating ourselves from others who differ from us in culturally significant ways. These processes of identity formation are often spurred by stereotyping the Other. Sometimes these stereotypes take the form of humorous teasing or satirizing critique. Often, however, stereotypes turn into petrified value judgements of others and lead to discriminatory acts, violence, and sometimes culminate in warfare and genocide.

Disrespect of the immediate neighbour based on stereotypical pre-conceptions and cultural bias may lie dormant for a long time and then, activated by changes in the economic and political macrocosm, surfaces instantly and fuels economic exploitation, political suppression, destructive propaganda and, ultimately, pogroms. What had up to this point been recognised as a familiar neighbour, who was defined through linguistic, cultural, and religious distinctions, now not only transmutes into the unfamiliar, but the disrespected and, finally, hateful, Other.

A more detailed look at the rhetoric of recent conflicts around the globe related to religious fanaticism, economic crises, racism, or sexism reveals deeply entrenched pre-conceptions of the gendered, ethnic, or social Other. Such stereotypical representations of the Other are shaped and disseminated through fictional and non-fictional texts, television, films, and the internet as well as in everyday cultural practices. As a result, media products feature prominently in producing, propagating, and maintaining cultural difference in ideologically effective ways. Degrees of covert or overt forms of disrespect range from conventional hetero-stereotypes (e.g. Southern laziness, African inertia, Polish cunning, Greek economy, Scottish meanness, Irish drunkenness) in everyday encounters to open de-humanisation (axis of the evil, unbelievers, terrorists) in times of heightened ideological or military tensions.

The conference aims to probe the liminal spaces of construction and perception in literary and media representations. It aims to lay open the interplay of textual and media representations and other ways of producing stereotypes; and it intends to shed light on the issue of how such representations both react to as well as impinge on the spheres of cultural, political, and economic practice.

The focus of this conference will be on discourses in four geographical areas: (1) North America, (2) Europe, (3) UK/Ireland/Scotland/Wales (4) the Commonwealth. We are interested in, e.g.:

• nation states and their “neighbourly relations” (e.g. Poland and Germany, Europe and Russia; Europe and Greece, the US and Canada; England and Scotland; India and Pakistan)
• tensions between regions, cities, neighbourhoods, and cultural groups within a nation as represented in literary and media discourses (e.g. TV series and shows, pop culture, fiction).
• linguistic and cultural encounters/clashes between main- and non-mainstreams/regions and nation states (e.g. Sorbians in Germany, Turkish suburbia in Berlin, Bretons in France, Catalans in Spain; Irish in Glasgow, Scottish Highlands in the UK, Atlantic and Central Canada) as created/reflected by media and literature parameters of gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, etc. that contribute to processes of stereotyping beyond and in connection with national and regional strategies of creating cultural meaning.

We invite abstracts of app. 300 words by December 1st, 2015. Please send them to Laura Burger, Universiät Jena.

The language of the conference will be English. This is the third conference under the heading “Us and Them – Them and Us. Constructions of the Other in Cultural Stereotypes” and the first one co-organised by the English Departments of the universities of Jena, Germany and Szczecin, Poland.

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Colloque « Le Québec dans les Amériques »

(Washington, 15 et 16 janvier 2016)

L’Association internationale des études québécoises organise son premier colloque de jeunes chercheurs en études québécoises et comparatives dans les Amériques sur le thème « Le Québec dans les Amériques. » Le colloque se tiendra les 15 et 16 janvier 2016 à Washington, DC. Cet événement se déroulera en partie dans les locaux du prestigieux Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars et en partie à Georgetown University, nos institutions partenaires pour cette initiative.

À l’instar du colloque organisé par l’Association des jeunes chercheurs européens en études québécoises (AJCELQ) en Europe, cet événement offrira aux jeunes chercheurs une occasion unique de partager, toutes disciplines confondues, leurs travaux récents sur le Québec autant comme société distincte que dans ses rapports aux Amériques. Les perspectives comparatives seront évidemment bien accueillies.  Les communications pourront se faire en français ou en anglais.

De 20 à 30 participants seront retenus par un jury composé de professeurs et spécialistes sur la base d’un résumé de 200 mots et d’un curriculum vitae abrégé comprenant adresse, numéro de téléphone et adresse de courrier électronique. Les candidatures doivent être soumises avant le 14 septembre 2015. La ou les meilleures communications seront admissible à une publication éventuelle dans la Revue internationale d’études canadiennes (RIEC), à la suite d’un travail de révision et de soumission, encadré par des spécialistes du jury. Le transport et les repas du midi seront pris en charge. Un hébergement à coût modique sera proposé aux participants.

Les chercheuses ou chercheurs de 3^e cycle, de niveau postdoc, ou en emploi dans le milieu universitaire depuis moins de 3 ans, sont cordialement invités à soumettre leur communication avant le 14 septembre 2015, à Madame Miléna Santoro, présidente de l’AIEQ et professeure à Georgetown University, à l’adresse électronique.