CfP: (B)ORDERS. Re-Imagining Cultural, Political, and Media. Spaces in a Globalizing World

(B)ORDERS. Re-Imagining Cultural, Political, and Media. Spaces in a Globalizing World
(Sep 3-4, 2010, Kloster Bronnbach)

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 AT 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.

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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 AT uni-mannheim.de

--
Tatjana Schäffner, M.A.
Koordinationsstelle Promotionskolleg
"FORMATIONS OF THE GLOBAL:
Welterfahrungen - Weltentwürfe - Weltöffentlichkeiten"
Philosophische Fakultät, Universität Mannheim
L 15, 1-6
68131 Mannheim

Telefon +49 (0) 621 / 181 - 3567
Telefax +49 (0) 621 / 181 - 2343

promotionskolleg AT uni-mannheim.de
www.phil.uni-mannheim.de/pk_globalisierung