Topic: |
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What is Cultural Difference? |
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Date and Place:
2nd Internet-Conference: October 18 - November 5, 1999 |
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Deadline: October 4, 1999 |
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Send to:
duessel@mail.tku.edu.tw or Ulrich.Schoedlbauer@FernUni-Hagen.de |
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More Details: |
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| The Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Cultural
Difference at Tamkang University (ROC) and the Institute for European and Modern German
Literature at Hagen University (Germany) invite contributions to an internet-conference
followed by a colloquium at Stade (Germany). The topic of both events will be “What
is Cultural Difference?” With that internet-conference and the following colloquium we continue our long-term research project “Persecution and the Consolidation of Cultures”. The interplay between the consolidation of collective identities on the one hand and the formation and/or persecution of minorities on the other has been widely studied in various disciplines. Different from earlier expectations, there is no general process of rationalisation that would finally eradicate a potential for violence within collective identities. Such a potential seems to be a constitutive element of their formation, affirmation or reaffirmation. In a first phase of our project we plan to take stock. We want to explore, to compare and to test the conceptual tools designed and used by authors from different disciplines to study this topic. Our opening events last year were dedicated to the topic “Hermeneutics of Persecution.” At an internet-conference followed by the 1st Stade Colloquium we explored that topic by critically re-assessing the work of René Girard. In the present year we move on to a more systematic level of questioning. Still we are trying to take stock. What is cultural difference? Which tools are being used to think, conceive, and theorise cultural difference? In which contexts and to achieve what goals are we relying on that term, concept—perhaps myth? Which theoretical, practical, existential problems are we trying to solve by using that term? How are theories of cultural difference related to such problems? Are disputes between different theories of cultural difference theoretical disputes, are they perhaps practical, political ones? Is cultural difference conceivable without the factor of persecution? That is perhaps the most important question, leading directly into the debate on citizenship—multicultural, differentiated, cultural, transnational citizenship, to mention just a few terms that have been coined in this debate. And that again is only one of many debates tied to a particular understanding of cultural difference. Scholars from all related disciplines are invited to participate. All contributions will be made available on the internet. You can contribute to this project in one or more of the following formats: 1. Send a full length and unpublished paper. Pending funding and depending upon what we get, we will try to find a publisher for those papers after the conference. 2. Send a specific. That format would be shorter and less formal than a regular paper. A specific could be any form of reflection or remark you might consider of interest. 3. Send background material of any kind that could help us to get the discussion going. It could be a paper you may have written earlier, published or unpublished; it could be a chapter or section from a book; it could be a bibliography; it could be a report on some conference dedicated to a related topic. |
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