Second Call for Papers
Atlantic Communities: Translation, Mobility, Hospitality
University of Vigo (Spain) 17-18 September 2015
Co-Organized by: University of Vigo/University of Porto/Queen’s University, Belfast
Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Michael Cronin (Dublin City University) & Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool)
The Atlantic Ocean has historically played a major role in the relationship between the “Old World” and the “New World”, both perceived as a geographical and cultural divide between continents but also functioning as a space of transit, mobility and hospitality. Accordingly, the history and culture of the diverse countries and continents that border the Atlantic tends to be studied either in terms of regional influence within the framework of geopolitics, or as a series of exchanges and encounters between the different people and territories on or near the Atlantic shores.
This conference seeks to bring together scholars from across the social sciences and the humanities in order to extend the focus of these approaches and to suggest new ways of thinking about what binds and what separates the communities and individuals that inhabit the complex social and cultural spaces on both sides of the Atlantic.
We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers that address these broad concerns. A suggested–though not prescriptive–list of questions that potential contributors may wish to interrogate and/or illustrate includes:
* The Atlantic as an itinerary rather than a bounded site.
* The movement of peoples and ideas.
* Enforced migration and its consequencs.
* Trans/Atlantic journeys and translational processes.
* Cultural exchange and encounter: contact, transfer and transformation.
* Representations in transit: the Atlantic in writing, images, and sound.
* “The rumble of tongues”: linguistic exchanges around/across the Atlantic.
* The tracing of an Atlantic identity: Atlantic communities and national/political organization.
300-word abstracts to be sent to the organizers at: atlantico@uvigo.es by 28 February 2015.
Further details may be obtained from the organizers, Teresa Caneda, Rui Carvalho Homem and David Johnston, by emailing atlantico@uvigo.es.