Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Original Call for Papers to Nanjing

Originally, this came from b2, hoping to build political critical links; it has been honored more in the breach. to read draft click on Comment.

1 comment:

PAB said...

International Symposium on Culture, Politics, and the Humanities
Call for Papers

Date: May 26-29, 2004
Venue: Nanjing University

Submission of abstracts is now open.


Organizers:

English Department, Nanjing University
English Department, the University of Hong Kong
Editorial Collective, boundary 2

Background:

“September 11th” and the “War against Terrorism” have profoundly changed and redefined international politics and remapped the geo-cultural configurations. How are we to understand the emergent new international conditions? How do we position ourselves both as intellectuals and as members of international academic communities? Overtaken by these momentous events, intellectuals and academics perhaps no longer have the confidence in thinking of themselves as in the vanguard of things to come. It remains, however, the responsibility of intellectuals to understand and, if possible, to define the emergent structure of a new global consciousness. This symposium is a manifestation of a collective effort to engage with some of important international issues that humanistic intellectuals cannot and should not evade. While the symposium is more broadly concerned with the shifting political paradigms on a global scale, it will pursue a more in-depth discussion of the China-US relations in order to give itself a sharper focus.
The recent transition in US foreign policy from hegemonic leadership to military domination requires that we promote an emerging dialogue among US and Chinese intellectuals about a range of topics central to the emerging relations between these two cultures, states, and societies. Furthermore, since each country is in a condition of rapid transformation, political and cultural intellectuals need each other to provide clear descriptions and analyses of each nation’s conditions and forces. Given that recent US state documents explicitly indicate that the US government sees China as a future competitive threat, humanists, artists, and intellectuals in each nation who hope to avoid this looming conflict must find ways to illuminate each other’s difficulties to provide alternatives to the American neo-conservative vision.
China and the US have created common economic ties and have common but conflict-ridden geo-political relations. Governments, political parties, and corporations have built institutions to strengthen these relations and to provide the ideas needed for their continuing development—even in competition. By contrast, institutional relations that might support alternative lines of new thinking barely exist. We propose this conference as a possible beginning for such establishing enduring relations that would fertilize the needed alternative new understandings and languages.
We propose this symposium to address areas of concern common to American and Chinese humanists, intellectuals, and cultural workers in hope that shared discussion can cast new light and lead to new ways of sharing resources that promise a future that is not conflict-ridden or defined by national competition. We believe that through a meaningful dialogue, US and Chinese intellectuals can learn from each other in the new, surprising, and rapidly emerging situations in which we find ourselves.

Orientations:

1) Literature, Culture and Institutions
Rewriting Nation in Contemporary Literature
Paradigms of Multiculturalism
Cultural Clashes and Cultural Compromises
The Humanities in Globalization

2) Religion, Politics and Ethics
Traditions and Values
Responsibilities of the Intellectual
Mass Media and Intellectuals
Ethics and International Politics in the 21st Century

Please send abstracts of 500-800 words by March 31, 2004 as an email attachment in MS Word format. All abstracts, registrations and inquires should be addressed to:

Professor Wang Shouren
School of Foreign Studies, Nanjing University
Nanjing 210093
China
Email: srwang@nju.edu.cn
Tel: 025-83592352
Fax: 025-83594737


Organizing Committee