Cultural Literacy in Europe

Second Biennial Conference — Warsaw, 10-12 May 2017

Abstract submission for CLE2017 has now closed.

CLE 2017 is dedicated to the issue of motion, which is crucial for the contemporary human condition. The concept of motion captures the state of affairs in Europe today, where seemingly rock-solid arrangements, like the shapes of borders, are being nullified and apparently irreversible processes, like European integration, are turned around and dismantled. It marks our spatial relations, as is clearly visible in the challenges of migration, experiences of social and professional mobility, social movements or tourism. Mobility also has a temporal aspect, which is visible in the processual and performative character of identity, memory or history. The other key term, emotion, aims to contextualize this movement and localize it in human affectivity – feelings, motives and perceptions. Texts and other kinds of representations, the body in movement, forging personal links, living with memories – all these bring motion and emotion together. We believe that the notion of cultural literacy will help us read and comprehend these diverse, changeable phenomena.

In your proposal, you may wish refer to one or more of the following areas:

• How are ways of remembering and forgetting linked to mobility? Is cultural memory changing in the light of new forms of mobility?
• How does affect theory help us understand contemporary migration and its cultural representations?
• Migration and translation – how do either or both of these activities divide or unite national and linguistic groups?
• How are creative representations refreshed in a newly mobile world? What limits or empowers the representation of mobile lives?
• Is the contemporary body changing beyond recognition, into new forms of enhanced mobility – or depleted reality?
• How do mobile, ever-changing and fluid digital texts of news feeds, blogs, social media sites or artistic creations reshape our engagement with culture and identity-building processes?
• Do theoretical notions rooted in the experience of movement (e.g. travelling concepts, hospitality, centre and periphery) help us understand non-theoretical issues?

Submission Types

1. Individual academic papers: These must be 20 minutes long and will be grouped into parallel sessions: 3 papers followed by questions.
2. Poster presentations: These are presentations of projects which are successful examples of Literary-and-Cultural Studies research, relevant to the conference topic. They will be presented in a plenary panel as lightning talks (3 minutes per project), followed by a poster session.

Submission Procedure

Proposals must be submitted by 31 October on-line.

Your abstract must include a title & must not exceed 500 words (including bibliography if relevant). Please also supply a short bio (100 words).

All queries should be addressed to: CLE2017@ibl.waw.pl