|
An international conference hosted by the departments of
Archaeology and Art History, English Literature and
Humanities, and History at the Eastern Mediterranean
University, Northern Cyprus
Famagusta,
May 27 - 29, 2009
There are and have been many Mediterraneans! The
Mediterranean is variously seen as a specific geo-strategic
space, generator of intellectual and social theories, an
economic hub, place of “origin”, tourist destination and
unstable backwater. However the region is characterized, it
is a complex assemblage of identities, histories, beliefs,
territories and languages. It is a space coveted by empires,
revolutionaries, traders, politicians, intellectuals,
indigenous peoples and tourists alike. The Mediterranean may
be seen as a space of desire, confirmed by the name itself;
“Middle-earth” places the inhabitants of the Mediterranean
at the centre of the world, or, omphalos, less as monumental
egotism than self-conscious act of interpretation.
Eastern
Mediterranean University
invites participation in an interdisciplinary conference on
the narratives of this remarkable region. What is of express
interest to this conference is the way in which
civilisational shifts, fusions, faultlines and oscillations
of the Mediterranean world have given rise to extraordinary
interpretations, life-world strategies and symbolic
constructions. Such activity is manifested in the remarkable
literature and art, philosophies, religions, archaeological
readings, political theories and economic practices of the
region. We seek thought-provoking papers exploring the
symbolic/ideational dynamics of changing perceptions in and
of the Mediterranean world.
Please send a 250-word abstract, clear contact details,
academic affiliation and title of paper. Please indicate
which panel you would like to participate in. Proposals for
panels gladly accepted. Deadline for submission of
abstracts: November 15, 2008.
Contact email:
medworlds@emu.edu.tr
|
|
Suggested Panels:
Mapping the Mediterranean—soft centres and shifting borders
Occupation, Imperialism and Territorialisation—pilgrims,
guns, genes
Discourses of power—institutions, money, words,
Trafficking—humans, drugs, antiquities
Postmodernist and modernist discourses in and on the
Mediterranean
Maritime cultures—crossings, coastlines, transitional spaces
Memory and dream—writing, reading, imaging, tuning the
Mediterranean
The contestation of identities—gender, sexual, ethnic,
regional
Historical disjunctions and archaeological readings
Practices and discourses of space— landscape, city, sprawl
Clubbing in the Med—consumption of excess
Contact zones—the Afro-Europa-Asia dynamic
Technology—cyberspace, the public sphere, technologies of
the soul |