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>From: Helge Wendt <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: CFP: Mapping Globalization (Germany) (9/30/05; 5/18/06-5/20/06)
>
>
>Promotionskolleg ÑGlobalisierung aus
>kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektiveì, Universit”t
>Mannheim
>
>5/18/06- 5/20/06, Schloss Universit”t Mannheim
>
>Deadline: 9/30/05
>
>Call for Papers
>International Conference
>
>Mapping Globalization
>
>The term ëglobalizationí has certainly not yet been
>completely exhausted, its inflationary usage
>notwithstanding. Consequently, the asserted goal of
>this conference is to go beyond the
>descriptive-diagnostic uses and test its analytical
>suitability in cultural research.  The implications of
>the title are twofold: Globalization on a meta-level
>is to be the focus of reflections within cultural
>theory enabling an analysis of possible modes of
>perception and observation of global processes in
>different areas of (world) society.  ìMapping,ì
>however, also refers to the semantics of cognitive
>navigation systems and is to be understood as a
>concrete method of organization and classification, of
>mapping, determination and translation, which
>transcends conventional territorially and nationally
>coded borders of meaning and (re-)contextualizes
>globality as a non-linear space-time-continuum of
>breaks, overlaps and contemporaneity.
>In this context, globalization does not primarily
>refer to the phenomenological reality of the global
>flows of communication and commodities or to global
>network and exchange processes. Rather, it is assumed
>that globalizationís actual explosive potential stems
>from a fundamental unsettling of formerly reliable
>categories. The vocabulary of such rigid signifiers as
>nation, state, ethnicity, territory and sovereignty
>becomes increasingly slippery. ìMapping Globalizationî
>is particularly interested in the potential for
>disquiet and irritation that globalization represents
>for the semantic repertoire of modern cultures. The
>conference thus centers on the question of which
>mental spaces are opened up when members of binarily
>coded bodies of knowledge start to mistrust their own
>modes of cultural perception and observation. The
>erosion of cultural certainties ñ frequently diagnosed
>as crisis ñ does, however, not preclude rigorously and
>aggressively stated assertions of identity
>(Nationalism, Regionalism, Fundamentalism).
>Globalization as a reflexive term could provide a
>perspective on the surplus, on the oscillation at the
>borders of traditional structural pairs of opposites.
>Moreover, it could focus on their productive and
>functional mechanisms, which usually lie in the blind
>spots of differentiated socio-cultural sub-areas.
>Thus, the main research question the conference
>focuses on is not what globalization is, but how
>globalization is generated and negotiated in different
>discourses and systems.  Besides an approach to this
>operative dimension of culture from the perspective of
>cultural theory, the respective specific mediality,
>presentational options, avenues of approach and rules
>of cultural knowledge generation in relation to the
>global are also to be focused on. Thus, social and
>cultural semiosis in a continuing period of
>globalization can be observed at the interfaces
>between epistemology and aesthetics, between the
>political and the imaginary, between science and
>poetry. We are looking for contributors that are
>willing to walk the tightrope of ëbetween,í a place in
>which what can be said and thought is re-negotiable.
>The contours of such a space of reflexive globality
>can be seen in the popular imagination of movies,
>television and best-selling literature, as well as in
>the boundaries between the determinations of
>classifications and genres (specialized book,
>documentary fiction, science fiction) and cultural
>demarcations (world literature, world music), in
>medial and communicative transfer and translation
>activities, and finally at the threshold of
>differentiated sciences and cultural poiesis. The
>conference is fundamentally concerned with questions
>of ruptures and continuities in the epistemic
>configurations of historical associations and seeks to
>contribute to the complex and open debate on the
>epochal attempts at periodizing and dating
>globalization.
>
>Topics may include, among others:
>
>- Periodizations: Globalization as break and  
>transition (post-modernity, modernity turned
>reflexive)
>- Structural metaphors of the global: network ñ
>rhizome ñ system
>- Concepts of particularity and totality: the whole as
>conspiracy?
>- Facets of a geo-political realm of the imaginary in
>politics and culture
>- (Trans-)Formations of time / Time-Forms: the
>temporality of globalization
>- Between order and chaos: culture as complexity and
>potentiality
>- Outlines of a cultural theory of the global
>- Organisations and locations of space. Topographical
>routing semantics of globalization.
>- The poetics of world literature
>- Hybridity and cosmopolitanism as dimensions of
>cultural translation
>- The media ëhardwareí and user interfaces in an age
>of globalization
>- Regimes of territoriality and sovereignty
>- World society and metaculture
>
>Papers are limited to 30 minutes. Abstracts (300
>words) and a brief academic Curriculum Vitae should be
>sent to [log in to unmask] by September 30.
>
>ÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖ.
>Promotionskolleg ÑGlobalisierung aus
>kulturwissenschaftlicher Perspektiveì
>Sprecher: Prof. Dr. Ulfried Reichardt
>Schloss, Ehrenhof West, Zimmer EW 261
>68161 Mannheim
>Tel. ++49 621 - 181-2363
>http://www.phil.uni-mannheim.de/pk_globalisierung/index.html
>
>

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