Performing Identities: Embodying Knowledge CALL FOR PAPERS The Department of French Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, in collaboration with the Irish Centre for Transnational Studies, MIC, and members of the ‘Performance, Text and Context’ Research Cluster, UL, invites contributions for an interdisciplinary conference to be held at Mary Immaculate College on 20-22 June, 2014. In his influential work on The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), Erving Goffman highlighted the importance of routine actions and social relationships in the articulation of the self through daily performance. This interdisciplinary conference seeks to analyse performative constructions of the self by interrogating the concepts of performance, identity and embodiment in their broadest sense. Key questions for analysis include: 1. How are official and/or dominant narratives concerning identity interrogated, deconstructed and reconstructed through performative practices such as language, literature, politics, religion, art, music, dance and sport? 2. How is identity framed, formed, challenged, represented, understood, perceived through performative practices? 3. In what way are individual and collective identities mediated and influenced by performative practices, and to what extent are these practices perceived of as assets in the formation of local, national, international, transnational identities? Topics/areas of interest include but are not confined to: Political, historical, philosophical and literary performances Dance and Music Sub-cultures Minority identities Gender Landscaping and mapping identities Multilingualism and translation Museology and architecture Sporting events and traditions Cultural nationalism Emigration/immigration Otherness and exoticism Memory and commemorative practices Technological advancements and virtual identities Guest speakers include Dr. Philip Dine, National University of Ireland, Galway and Dr. Anya Royce Peterson, Indiana University, Bloomington. Abstracts of no more than 300 words in length should be sent to [log in to unmask] before 07 February , 2014. We also welcome proposals for panels of up to three speakers