INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
INSTITUTE OF CULTURAL IDENTITY STUDIES
SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS
VIOLENCE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY
27 - 29 JUNE 2003
CALL FOR PAPERS
Symposia
1. Origins, Myth and Iconography
Convenor: Malcolm Humble, [log in to unmask]
2. Violence and Colonial/Postcolonial Identity
Convenor: Dr Lorna Milne, [log in to unmask]
3. Violence as Subversion and Oppression
Convenor: Dr Peter Read, [log in to unmask]
4. Violence and Identity in Literature
Convenor: Dr Stefan Pugh, [log in to unmask]
5. Political Violence and National Identity
Convenor: Dr Will Fowler, [log in to unmask]
6. Linguistic Violence and Nation States
Convenor: Ronnie Ferguson, [log in to unmask]
7. Gender, Violence and Identity
Convenor: Prof. Helen Chambers, [log in to unmask]
8. Ideology and Praxis of Violence
Convenor: Dr David Gascoigne, [log in to unmask]
9. Thinking Out the Links Between Culture, Identity and Violence
Convenor: Prof. Paul Gifford, [log in to unmask]
Proposals for Papers (a 300-word abstract) to be submitted to the Convenors
by 30 September 2002
Conference Registration [Full-Board] 27 - 29 June - will probably be in the
range of =A3160.00
Conference Organiser: Dr Will Fowler, Dept of Spanish, University of St
Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL. E-mail address: [log in to unmask]
WHAT ISSUES DO WE INTEND TO FOCUS ON?
The Modern Languages offer a particularly rich account of all phenomena
connected with the centrally human theme of Violence. We scan across many
culture zones (European, African, American); and, diachronically, over many
time zones (from the pogroms and crusades of the Middle Ages to the
conflicts of colonial and postcolonial times). We are interested in:
history, politics, and ideologies; public and private life; literature and
arts; religions, ideas , culture theory.... Our scanning is naturally
interdisciplinary, as well as open to cross-cultural parallels and
comparisons.
We aim to exploit this diversity and breadth, which is a strength of Modern
Languages as a discipline, while yet focussing on major axes of
significance and concentrating attention on specific thematic areas.
Our leading questions:
What is 'violence'? How is it related to 'culture' on the one hand, to
'identity' on the other?
VIOLENCE AND IDENTITY:
Violence seems to be well described as an occurrence or event in the
relationship between subjects (individuals, groups, classes, nations, etc);
it is one ever-possible mode or moment in the story of 'self-and-other'. It
has to do with the alterity, difference, strangeness of the other and the
conflicts these generate. It springs from the rivalry of mimetic desire in
human subjects within a given socio-cultural space and between such spaces.
'Reading' accounts of violence or representations of violence, studying the
functioning of violence, is always in the end a matter of deciphering that
relationship. We can classify and elucidate on this axis most or all of the
innumerable forms violence takes: war, persecutions, sexual violence,
spiritual violence (despair), masochism, suicide etc. Violence also centres
around, and is triggered by, the things that most define subject-identity
(the powerful sense of 'I' and 'you', 'we' and 'they'): self-and-other
perceptions, values, customs, symbols, desire, religious practices or
beliefs.
=0BWe seek to address key questions on violence and identity such as:
=85 What relations are we observing between 'violence' and 'identity'?
=85 How are these portrayed and analysed?
=85 What general account is being given of self and other? Of the
tearing or distortion of a relationship?
=85 Is violence a natural and/or inevitable outcome of conflicts of
interest and identity?
=85 Is it always morally negative?
=85 To what set of [theoretical-explanatory] anthroplogical
perspectives does the account given of it refer explicitly or belong
implicitly?
VIOLENCE AND CULTURE:
All human violence seems to engage the dimension of collective mind or
psyche: symbolism, group organisation, practices, references, beliefs,
cults of some binding and bonding 'transcendence' mapping out our moral
freedom. In short, 'culture'. Within culture, violence is controlled:
stylised (duels), codified (laws and penalties); regulated, repressed,
disguised, re-channelled (cf. Freud and 'civilisation'); even legitimated
(nation state wars, religious wars etc). It is also covertly
institutionalised and culpably discharged (cf Girard on the crisis and
resolution of mimetic rivalries). Where culture institutionalises those
controls confidently, we speak - albeit precariously - of 'civilisation'...
But violence is also precisely a sign of that which eternally escapes and
overflows all domestication-in-culture (cf. hooliganism, crime, war,
pogrom, holocaust etc). Culture also represents violence: in words and
images, in symbols - and in theoretical-critical reflection. And its
representing is not neutral in respect of violence. Literature, the visual
arts, theory, film, the media can reflect violence and resonate with it;
they can also reflect upon violence, deconstruct and denounce it - and they
can play with it and exploit its undoubted fascination voyeuristically.
There are complex cases: plays and novels that sublimate and re-channel or
exorcise a latent violence.
We seek to address key questions on violence and culture such as:
=85 How is violence represented and why?
=85 What type or form of violence is depicted?
=85 What is its functioning, its origin, nature, in a given
historico-cultural (and ideological) context of reference?
=85 What type of representation of violence is being offered?
=85 How does it, in turn, function within the context of reference?
=85 Where is it 'coming from'?
=85 What are the implicit norms and values that declare it 'violence'
and govern its presentation?
=85 What difference does the representation make?
=85 Can violence be deconstructed in representation? Can it be
understood and modified by artists?
=85 How far and how well does the artistic representation counter the
fascination of violence? Does the artist matter as witness or as actor
vis-=E0-vis the violence(s) of private life or history?
It is the intention of the organisers to edit a series of books,
region-based, using as a basis a selection of papers given at the
conference (e.g., Violence, Culture and Identity in Germany, Violence,
Culture and Identity in Latin America, Violence, Culture and Identity in
Russia, etc.). Each is intended to profit from, and to exploit diversely,
the overarching perspectives explored.
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 Cultural Identity Studies,
School of Modern Languages University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL. E-mail
address: [log in to unmask]
=0B
---------------------
Prof.Helen Chambers
Department of German
The University
St Andrews KY16 9PH
Tel 01334 463659
=46ax 01334 463677
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