I INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE LANDSCAPES OF THE SELF
Identity, discourse, representation
VENUE: UNIVERSITY OF EVORA PORTUGAL
DATE 24-26 November 2010
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS TO BE ANNOUNCED
The Centre for the Study of Letters and the research team of the project
?Landscapes of the self? invite scholars, theorists, researchers, and
practitioners of autobiography in all media to attend the 1st International
Conference LANDSCAPES OF THE SELF, proposing as its inaugural theme
IDENTITY, DISCOURSE, REPRESENTATION.
We envisage to develop discussion and to enhance the appearance of edging
theories and practice on the issue.
The conference aims to discuss the tangled web of critical positions
regarding the study of autobiographical documents which has, over decades,
opened debates about the autobiographical act, as well as about the range,
structure and essential features of the autobiography. We would like to
encourage reflection on the process of representing the self as a selective
and imaginative construction of who we have been and who we are.
Autobiographies are positioned within discourses that construct identity and
power, and inasmuch as the individual is a discursive formation,
autobiography is one of the major discourses through which it is produced.
Autobiographical representation is an act of interpretation, where the lived
experience is shaped, constrained and transformed.
Representing the self in a filigree of ontological, epistemological and
organizational principles of identity, any autobiographical act can be read
as geography of the possible (Probyn 1993) where the self is represented by
means of several technologies of power, like memory, and several
trajectories, materializing itself through discourse. To represent the self
through an autobiographical discourse can be considered a political act
where the autobiographer chooses to draw a map of meanings of his life and
of his/her self, a self that is multiply coded in a range of discourses and
conditions and represented by means of several metaphors and modalities,
asserting the right to speak rather than to be spoken for.
To read autobiographies as landscapes of the self is to understand them as a
canvas where the images of the self are represented; it is to understand
autobiographies as a space of communication, where author and audience
articulate meanings where the audience has to make sense of the identity
of the author in a simultaneously produced and productive relationship; a
relationship which is constitutive of communication as a social practice,
and in which the audience has to understand to whom the author is creating,
why, how and when.
This conference invites 20-minute papers addressing the topics of identity,
discourse and representation from a wide range of interdisciplinary critical
perspectives, as well as self-referential works in all media. Although other
topics may be considered, we welcome papers dealing with, but not being
limited to, issues such as the following:
Discourse Analysis;
Autobiographical Studies;
Memory;
Place;
Referentiality vs. fiction;
The invention of the self;
Construction/representation of identity;
Individual and collective representations of the self;
Gender studies;
The self and the other(s);
Social and cultural identities;
Human geography;
Visual arts/visual culture;
Identity/Representation and genre;
Political Discourse/Political identity;
Ethnical issues;
The self in literature;
Egodocuments
Autobiographies in translation;
Theorizing identity and representation in life writing;
The emergence of the self in the social context,
The self and history
CONFERENCE LANGUAGES:
Papers may be presented in English or in French
Conference Convenors
Ana Clara Birrento (birrento /at/ uevora.pt)
Maria Helena Saianda (mhrs /at/ uevora.pt)
Olga Gonçalves (obg /at/ uevora.pt)
ENQUIRIES may be sent to the conference convenors
SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS to the conference convenors deadline 15th June
2010
NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE 15th July 2010
SUBMISSION OF FULL PAPERS 30th September 2010
REGISTRATION
EARLY BIRD Until 30th July 2010 150 Euros
AFTER 30th July 2010 250 Euros
ACCOMMODATION, SOCIAL PROGRAMME & FURTHER INFORMATION will be updated
___________________________________________________
Ana Clara de Sousa Birrento Matos Silva
Departamento de Linguística e Literaturas da Universidade de Évora
Directora da Biblioteca Geral
Department of Linguistics and Literatures
University of Évora
Director of the University Library
Assistant Professor
