Call for papers: Conference "(B)ORDERS. Re-Imagining Cultural, Political, and Media Spaces in a Globalizing World"

A globalizing world is characterized by continuous processes of constructing different worlds within one world, separated by boundaries. The act of breaking, erecting, and shifting borders enables a re-imagination of the established cultural, political, and media spaces. Apart from geographical (b)orders, metaphorical, and epistemological (b)orders are constantly redefined and resituated.

The conference particularly addresses doctoral students and post-doctoral researchers in History, Media and Communication Studies, as well as Literary and Cultural Studies. Historical research is refocused by emphasizing the development of spaces and their delineations in different time periods. In Literary and Cultural Studies, the formation of individual and collective cultural identities across borders constitutes a focal point of analysis. In a globalizing world, media cultures are created across established boundaries and distant locations are connected instantaneously. The transdisciplinary character of the conference aims at a multiperspectival understanding of the role of (b)orders in processes of globalization.

The conference will feature keynotes and panels, offering room for thorough discussion. There will be three interdisciplinary workshop panels. Papers should address one or more of the following questions:

1. (B)orders and Subjectivity: Hybridity, Liminality, and Experiences of Contingency
– What is the significance of border cultures, border zones, liminal margins, and hybrid spaces?
– What kinds of identity formations are triggered by shifting borders and emerging new spaces?

– How do borders provide order to subjective experiences of contingency?

2. (B)orders and Community: Integration, Exclusion, and Solidarity
– How resilient are established borders in (re)defining and (re)constructing communities and collective identities?
– Do international help and solidarity dissolve or consolidate borders between countries and continents?

– In what way have discourses on global integration shaped the social, economic, and political orders of the modern world?

3. (B)orders and the Polis: PR, Politics, and Public Spheres
– Does the trans-nationalization and interlocking of various mediated public spheres give rise to a „global polis“?
– How are public relations activities of companies, NGOs, and nation-states shaped by the challenges of cross-border communication?

– How do national political elites interact with a globalizing popular culture in structuring public discourses?

We invite one-page proposals to promotionskolleg@uni-mannheim.de by May 15, 2010. Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes.

Kloster Bronnbach (www.kloster-bronnbach.de) is located southeast of Frankfurt am Main, in the 'Taubertal' region. It is a former Cistertian cloister, which today hosts different types of events. The cloister can be reached from Frankfurt by car within an hour. For train connections please consult www.bahn.de. For presenters of accepted papers some travel funds are available upon request.

Contact:
Graduate Program
„FORMATIONS OF THE GLOBAL“
University of Mannheim
L 15, 1-6
68131 Mannheim
Telefon +49 (0) 621 / 181 – 3567
Telefax +49 (0) 621 / 181 – 2343
E-Mail: promotionskolleg@uni-mannheim.de