INSTITUTE OF EUROPEAN CULTURAL IDENTITY STUDIES
SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS

International Conference

EUROPE AND ITS OTHERS.
INTERPERCEPTIONS PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE

6-8 JULY 2007
NEW HALL & THE GATEWAY

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

‘Europe and its Others’ is an international conference
in the area of literary and film studies, covering the
main European languages (English, French,
German, Italian, Russian and Spanish). It sets
decipherers of Europe’s cultural traditions in
interdisciplinary dialogue with historians, political 
scientists,social anthropologists, culture theorists,
and international relationists.
Through the mirroring representations of Europe’s
cultural production, we aim to explore a nexus of
particularly rich and complex self-and-other
relationships:  diverse in space, multiple in its
scenes, actors, dimensions; and evolving in time.  We
wish to understand something about how the
Other-encounters, perceptions and relationships of
Europe function - a ‘poetics’ of collective,
culturally formed and informed ‘identities’.

We welcome proposals for papers (a 300-word abstract)
to be submitted to the Convenors of the 10 symposia
that are being organised by 29 September 
2006.  We hope to have a definitive programme in place
by November.

It is the intention of the organisers to edit a series
of books, either region or discipline-based, using as
a basis a selection of papers given at the
conference. Each is intended to profit from, and to
exploit diversely, the overarching perspectives
explored.

The Conference Registration (Full Board) 6-8 July 2007
will probably be in the range of £200.00.

Please address general queries to:
Conference Organiser: 
Dr Will Fowler, 
Dept. of Spanish, 
University of 
St Andrews, 
Fife KY16 9AL. E-mail address: [log in to unmask] 
or
Professor Paul Gifford, Director, 
Institute of European Cultural Identity Studies,
School of Modern Languages, University of St Andrews,
Fife 
KY16 9AL.
E-mail address: [log in to unmask]



SYMPOSIA

Defining perceptions: getting a hold on ‘Europe’
Convenor: Prof. Paul Gifford, [log in to unmask]
This session retraces the movement of the entire
conference, but here 
in the
concerted search for an overview. It seeks to explore
the diverse and 
evolving
sense of 'Selfhood' implied by Europe's richly diverse
gaze upon, and 
dealings
with, its 'Others', and to question the images
inscribed in their
perceptions-in-return of Europe. Attending to how we
see others and how 
they
see us often throws up onto screen of awareness those
implicit and 
invisible
factors by which collective cultural personae are most
profoundly 
formed,
remembered and projected; the silent and
all-conditioning realities 
which, in
identity terms, are also the most organically
constituting.
Such defining perceptions may be sought and found in a
broad range 
imaginative
writing, film and cultural theory; and at all moments
and phases of 
European
culture history. The only qualifying condition of
pertinence for this 
session
is that these perceptions will lead us towards an
enlarged 
understanding of the
cultural bond that is Europe. What is 'Europeanness',
'Europeanicity'? 
What does
it owe to objective solidarities (like those of
geography, history, 
economic and
political systems or life-style). How far is it a
matter of common 
history and
experience? How does it reflect the more elusive
awareness of bonding 
attitudes
(values, ideologies, sacralities)? What versions of
are there or have 
there been
of 'Europe'? And, as it becomes more 'creolised', is
'Europe' still a
recognisable concept in the order of cultural
identity?

Agonistic encounters: war, civil war, and terrorism
Convenor Dr Michael Gratzke: [log in to unmask]
Focussing on interperceptions, this panel will explore
representations 
of
politically motivated violence within Europe and
between Europeans and
Non-Europeans. War, civil war and terrorism will be
the cornerstones 
but
contributions dealing with deportation, ethnic
cleansing, revolutions, 
revolts
and similar actions involving violence are equally
welcome. It is the 
expressed
aim of this panel to instigate discussion about the
interconnections 
between
aesthetic and historical/political/social issues.
Papers dealing with 
the full
range of artistic expression and aesthetic
representation will be 
considered.

Translating Cultures: Europe and Latin America:
Convenor: Dr Eleni Kefala, [log in to unmask]
According to Homi K. Bhabha’s theory of cultural
translation, cultures, 
when
taken out of their “original” context, are transformed
and 
misinterpreted by
the Other. This panel looks at cultural encounters and

interperceptions,
focusing on the dislocations, displacements and
appropriation of 
European
cultures in Latin America as well as on European
perceptions of Latin 
America.

Where the borders lay - Europe through its neighbours’
eyes.
Convenor: Dr Tanya Filosofova, [log in to unmask]
This interdisciplinary panel will focus on examining
various aspects of 
cultural
connections and political relations between European
countries and 
their closest
East Slavonic neighbours: Russia, Ukraine and Belarus
from medieval 
times up to
modern times. The panel will examine their perception
of Europe and 
Europeans,
for example, in folklore, literature, art, films,
media and popular 
culture as
well as complex political historical contexts.

Europe and its Others: Mediterranean Interperceptions
Convenor: Dr Lorna Milne, [log in to unmask]
This strand of the conference invites analyses of
national and cultural
interperceptions across and around the Mediterranean
Sea, from the 
Middle Ages
to the present day. How is the Mediterranean itself
represented in the
imaginaries of the littoral cultures? What effects do
such 
representations have
on perceptions of Self and Other, seen from any given
point around it? 
Does a
degree of shared Mediterranean history and culture in
any way transcend 
or
mitigate perceptions of national Otherness, for
example as between 
Spain and
Morocco, or France and Algeria? Within the littoral
nations themselves, 
to what
extent does the possession of a Mediterranean
coastline inflect the 
sense of
national cultural identity? And do interperceptions
between 
Mediterraneans and
northern Europeans have a distinctive shape of their
own?
From accounts of the Crusades to the debate about
Turkish membership of 
the EU;
from archeologists' and adventure narratives to
portrayals of 
contemporary
migrations; from the imagery of 'orientalism' to the
denunciation of 
colonial
oppression, this panel will study cultural
representations of Self and 
Other,
as shaped by Mediterranean-ness, in art, text, film or
other forms of
discourse. Pairs or groups of papers addressing the
same topic from 
different
perspectives will be considered for inclusion: please
give full details 
if your
contribution is proposed as part of a panel.

Gender and the Other
Convenor: Prof. Helen Chambers, [log in to unmask]
Gender is widely seen as a paradigmatic signifier of
Otherness: in the 
context
of the conference theme of Interperceptions between
Europe and its 
Others this
panel will focus on the role of gender in relation to
constructions of
identity. Investigations of gendered discourses,
whether of masculinity 
or
femininity, will illuminate the ways in which writers
and artists in 
other
media have, consciously or otherwise, used notions of
gender to 
represent
perceptions of the relationship between themselves and
Europe, or vice 
versa,
from the Early Modern period to the present.
Contributions on literary 
texts,
film, historiography, cultural journals in any of
French, German, 
Italian,
Russian and Spanish - and including comparative
discussions - are 
invited.
These will enhance our understanding of the part
gender has played in 
cultural
responses to the awareness of difference. A range of
theoretical and 
empirical
approaches is welcome.

Europe: The Alienated Self
Convenor: Dr Claire Whitehead, [log in to unmask]
This panel will focus upon literary portrayals of
madness from the 
eighteenth
century to the present day.  In post-Enlightenment
Europe and beyond,
depictions of alienation played a crucial role in
charting reactions to 
the
rise of rationalising civilisation.  Concomitantly,
developments in 
medical
science retrieved madness from its categorisation as a
purely spiritual
ailment.  This panel will welcome all critical
approaches to 
alienation:
historical, sociological, psychological,
narratological, etc.  It will 
also
particularly encourage comparative approaches in which
literary 
accounts of
madness from one or more countries (European and
non-European) are 
discussed.

Narratives of History and Memory:
Remembering and Re-imagining the European Past(s)
Across Media
Convenor: Dr Belen Vidal, [log in to unmask]
This session seeks papers on issues of history and
memory with especial
reference to the diverse modes of re-imagining the
past in written and 
visual
media. In which ways has the European past been
structured as a collage 
of
fragments, and a source of dialectic tensions between
Self and Other? 
Where can
we locate the points of transnational dialogue and
exchange that would 
allow for
the construction of a shared European past? This CFP
should be of 
interest for
researchers in the fields of literary studies,
cultural studies, film 
and media
studies, as well as to those working on approaches to
history and 
historiography
across media. Possible topics may include but are not
limited to:

•	The past as Other: nearness versus distance
•	Affective discourses around the European past
•	Highbrow, lowbrow, or middlebrow? The impact of
popular culture 
versus/ in
dialogue with European heritages.
•	Alternative histories re-written from the present
•	Constructing spatial and/or temporal displacement
through narrative
•	The Other’s claims on European history
•	Remembering/Forgetting: Trauma and displacement
•	The private and the public: intimate spaces as
memory spaces
•	National histories versus transnational memories


Europe and Its Others: Political and Cultural
Influence and 
Interference
Convenor: Dr Will Fowler, [log in to unmask]
This panel is concerned with the manner in which
European ideas, trends 
and
customs, as expressed in political and cultural terms,
have influenced 
and
interfered with those of other regions. It is also
interested in the 
way that
the ideas, trends and customs of Europe's ‘others’
have been equally
influential in challenging and changing Eurocentric
traditions. The 
focus of
the symposium will be inter-disciplinary and open to
studies concerned 
with
regions from across the world. Papers will typically
be expected to 
tackle
issues such as the impact of European
constitutionalist thought in its 
former
colonies, the influence of ‘peripheral’ literary
movements on European 
fiction,
or expressions of syncretism and hybridity that have
surfaced both in 
and
outside Europe.

The Macro and the Micro: Europe and the Province
Convenor: Dr Rossella Riccobono, [log in to unmask]
This panel will look at writers and film directors of
the last thirty 
years who
perceive themselves and their social, geographical,
cultural and 
literary
reality as regional, and therefore as marginal.
Nevertheless in their 
work the
province is often turned into a micro symbol of the
larger culturally
overpowering European tradition. How do these artists
express their 
marginal
self in terms of centrality? How is the representation
of the micro 
narrated as
significant in relation to the macro? Issues of
identity, nomadism, 
voluntary
exile (both linguistic, cultural, and geographical),
and travel will be
explored.





	

	
		
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