Conference announcement and call for papers

Second International 'Language - Communication - Culture' Conference

Beja, Portugal, November 24 - 27, 2004

Conference Venue: Polytechnic Higher Institute, Beja

Organised by the staff, students and associates of the 'Culture and Society'
Postgraduate Programme (University of Lisbon), staff of the College for
Technology and Management, Beja, and by Mundiconvenius

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Kirsten Drotner, University of Southern Denmark
Nick Couldry, London School of Economics
(Other speakers will be announced later)

The Conference Venue

This year the Second International ‘Language – Communication – Culture’
Conference will be held in Beja in November. As in 2002, when it convened in
Evora, it remains in the Alentejo region but moves further south to Beja,
where it will be hosted by the Polytechnic Higher Institute.

The decision to accept the Beja Polytechnic’s invitation for the Conference
to take place there was made for two main reasons: one is that the town,
with its remarkable castle and other monuments, combines the many pleasures
of everyday life with a quiet atmosphere which favours the intellectual
dialogues the Conference aims at; the other is that the town offers itself,
looking forward as it does to the dramatic changes an international airport
will bring, as an example of the complex development from an agricultural
past to the tertiary present and the informational future.

The ‘Language – Communication – Culture’ Conference Mandate

The world we live in has been aptly characterised as a modernity of risk,
with its ‘unholy trinity’ of uncertainty, insecurity and unsafety. It is
marked by precariousness, wasted lives and corrosion of character: how is a
future to be imagined without a grasp on the present? The transnational
relations of power, with their ever-growing inequalities between rich and
poor human beings and countries, make the phrase ‘the West and the Rest’
sound quaintly oldfashioned. Democratic rights, institutions and practices
are being curtailed and dismantled, human lives are being made over as
flexible, discardable tools for unregulated profit-seeking. The politics of
fear replaces the politics of hope, new capitalism fulfils the wildest
dreams of old capitalism.
What do intellectuals, and especially young intellectuals, in their
practices of teaching, study and research, have to say to the world we live
in? What work, and especially what new work, is being done all over the
world in the areas of language, communication and culture? How does that
work address the issues, problems and challenges of the world we live in?
The Conference’s mandate is to bring together scholars from all disciplines
and fields of the humanities and social sciences with contributions on
language, communication, social and cultural themes that analyse the
contemporary world, its vectors of crisis, its tensions and conflicts, its
lines of development.

The Conference

The Conference will be structured round themed sessions, proposed by members
of its organising committee, and panels proposed by participants. The
organisers of sessions will soon issue their cfp; panels will be proposed
with theme, brief description, names of participants and titles of papers.
Both sessions and panels are planned for 2 hours and will accommodate five
20-minute papers.

Deadline for panel proposals: May 31, 2004

Deadline for 150-word paper proposals: July 15, 2004

Visits to the town and its neighbourhood, an excursion (with a visit to the
Islamic Museum in Mertola), music events and a photography exhibition will
offer participants as many opportunities to enjoy their stay in Beja.

Full information about the Conference, its sessions, registration, hotels,
how to get to Beja, etc, will soon be available at www.mundiconvenius.pt