Fourth International English Culture Conference
Theme: CULTURE AND NATION
Dates: November 28, 29, 30, 2000
Venue: Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon
Organized by the English Culture Studies Group, with the support of the
Department of English and the Centre for English Studies
Our main objective is to (re)examine the complex relations of Culture and
Nation in Modernity and Late Modernity. But we are equally interested in
class, gender and ethinicity as concepts and practices centrally relevant
for our theme.
Call for papers
Session theme: Revolution, Citizenship and Nation Formation
Session organizer: Valdemar A. Ferreira ([log in to unmask])
Nation as a form of group consciousness based on a variable range of shared
cultural traits and the causes and character of revolutions in modern
Europe and America have been among the most widely theorized and debated
topics in the history of the social sciences since the beginning of the
20th century.
Until recently, the belief that a group of people sharing common cultural
ties should be(come) citizens living under one common law and represented
by the same legislature predominated under the impact and influence of the
liberal political tradition of the Enlightenment. However, contemporary
scepticism about (or disavowal of) overarching explanations of society has
greatly eroded the acceptability of this close historical connection
between the process of nation formation and/or consolidation and the
successful revolutionary movements of the past four centuries.
Even if the so-called Third World revolutions may be said to have prolonged
this radical horizon of national liberation well into the second half of
the 20th century, the fact is that the emergence in recent decades of an
ethos based on the idea of world capitalism as the end of History
contributed, not only to an understanding of nations as self-justifying
ideological constructs, but also to the ebbing of the revolutionary
tradition itself.
Predicated on such working assumptions, this session will try to address a
wide range of issues focussing on the evolution of national identities in
an era of globalization and on social movements of a post-revolutionary
kind as vehicles of personal, cultural and political change.
250/300-word abstracts should be e-mailed to the session organizer.
Submission deadline: June 30, 2000.
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