Dear Colleague,

We cordially invite you to attend the graduate student conference
on

LITERATURES AND SPACES OF GLOBALIZATION
Hosted by the graduate students of the Department of Germanic
Languages at Columbia University in the City of New York
April 1-3, 2004
Held at Deutsches Haus, on the campus of Columbia University

The conference will include major keynote papers presented by Prof.
Andreas Huyssen (Columbia University) and Prof. William Rasch
(Indiana University) and several small-group panels.

Visit the conference website at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/german/
grads/grad_conference.html

Scholars from across the disciplines are encouraged to submit
proposals that attempt to explore the representation of space in
literature and the spatial organization of literatures.

Globalization has changed the way we think about space, and we
would like to raise the question if and how this re-organization of
space is addressed in modern literature, being aware that this has
been a pervasive theme in literature in the past.

Conceptions of space are now recognized to be an intricate part of
social, political, religious and cultural processes. The complexity
of spatial organization is inherent in the logic of inclusion and
exclusion, whereby a drive to include difference requires the
designation of difference. Also, if the contemporary re-
organization of space has had a major impact on literature, does
reading produce and transform social spaces?

Possible paper topics include, but are not limited to:

1. How is the complexity of spatial organization registered in
literature? Here one could consider literature of the city,
interior, exile, war, travel, etc.
2. How do literary theories such as hermeneutics, psychoanalysis,
discourse analysis, systems theory, deconstruction and
postcolonialism respond to the representation of space in
literature? Also, how do they demarcate local, national and global
spaces of literature?
3. How are the categories of world literature and national
literature challenged and worked out in particular texts/authors?
4. Does it make sense to talk about world literature today, as
Goethe introduced it in the German literary scene? If yes, which of
his presumptions (Enlightenment and Romantic universal humanism,
subjectivity of the author, national literatures, dialectics of the
particular and the universal) need to be revised? Or, if the idea
of world literature is misguided today, is there an alternative
besides the bookstand of “exotic world literature” in your local
bookstore? Does this bookstand exemplify the paradox of inclusion
via exclusion?
5. Given that a logic of inclusion and exclusion underlies the
concept of world literature, how are the anxieties about retaining,
losing or finding the individual and collective identity treated in
literature?
6. What is the relationship between the universal humanism and
postcolonial discourse of “the other”, as both are, within their
theoretical structures, that which is spoken for by authors and
literary critics?
7. The idea of world literature is based on the emergence of the
European book market and free intellectual commerce. Does the
discourse of the other inherit ideas from the enlightenment
humanist universalism?

The panels will include three or four papers and one or two
respondents. Presentations will be limited to 15-20 minutes. All
participants will have to submit the papers by March 15, 2004.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 1, 2004.
Please submit one-page abstracts with a separate coversheet
indicating the author's name, affiliation, address, phone number
and e-mail address to:

GERMAN GRADUATE STUDENT CONFERENCE
Department of Germanic Languages
Columbia University
319 Hamilton Hall
MC 2812
New York, NY 10027

Electronic submissions (attachment of word documents or text
included in message body) to [log in to unmask]

The organizing committee also encourages those who would be
interested in serving as respondents to submit their names,
affiliation, address, phone number and e-mail address.

A limited number of subsidies may be available for scholars
traveling from other universities within the U.S. or from Europe
and for graduate students, pending funding.


We do hope you will be able to attend our conference.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Cameron
Amra Dumisic
Simona Vaidean
Tomislav Zelic

*******************
The German Studies Call for Papers List
Editor: Stefani Engelstein
Assistant Editor:  Karen Eng
Sponsored by the University of Missouri
Info available at: http://www.missouri.edu/~graswww/resources/gerlistserv.html