[ecrea] CfP: Questioning Transnationalism: Culture, Politics & Media - graduate conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

 

CONFERENCE: QUESTIONING TRANSNATIONALISM: CULTURE, POLITICS & MEDIA

 

17 December 2010

Royal Holloway College, University of London

The Departments of Media Arts and Politics and International Relations (PIR)

 

Keynote Speakers:

Prof. Thomas Diez -Political Science, University of Tübingen

Prof. Deniz Göktürk -Department of German, University of California, Berkeley

Prof. Randall Halle -Department of German, University of Pittsburgh

 

This interdisciplinary postgraduate conference focuses on transnationalism and securitisation, issues of increasing relevance in both Politics and International Relations, and Media and Film Studies. In both disciplines, there is currently a prevailing tendency to conceive of borders as ever increasingly permeable elements in a globalising world. The new communication technologies have certainly reinforced the image that the world becomes a single place. However, a ‘borderless world’ proves to be illusionary as witnessed in the global rise of securitization practices after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Since then, even a bottle of water -at the airport- has started to be perceived as a potential security threat. ‘Transnationalism' thereby becomes a useful lens through which issues such as securitization, borders, legitimacy, citizenship, memory and solidarity can be re-examined from a fresh theoretical perspective.

 

Within this framework, the major aims of this international conference are threefold: to question the extent and limitations of transnationalism; to analyse the cultural and political functions of transnational actors and the impact of new communication technologies such as the internet in the contemporary world; and finally to encourage interdisciplinary approaches and critical perspectives in the studies of transnationalism.

 

This conference will be organised by and run for postgraduate students from various disciplinary backgrounds. It aims to give all participants the opportunity to develop and broaden our knowledge in this area of research. In this respect, the Departments of Media Arts and Politics and International Relations would like to collaborate to highlight the interdisciplinary character of transnationalism as a phenomenon within a context whereby a diverse range of techniques such as paper presentations, poster exhibitions and plenary discussions are combined.

 

In order to disseminate the research findings, selected papers will be considered for publication in the Journal of Critical Globalisation Studies, a fully peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal published by Royal Holloway, University of London.

 

The topics include but are not limited to:

·         Current restrictions over the free movement of people, goods and ideas

·         Border policies

·         Communication policies

·         Political freedoms and cultural diversity

·         National, religious, ethnic and gender issues

·         The role of media in framing transnational terrorism, conflicts and humanitarian crises

·         Power of transnational media

·         Power of transnational non-governmental actors

·         Soft/hard power

·         Multiculturalism, pluralism, cultural diversity

·         Cosmopolitanism

·         Post-colonial or post-national; centres versus margins/periphery

·         Hybridity

·         Glocalisation

·         Representation of transnational identities

·         Transnational cinema

·         Diasporas and diasporic cinema

 

Submission of abstracts: by 10  September 2010

Official Acceptance: by 1 October

Early registration: by 15 October 2010

For submission guidelines, registration and further details please see: http://royalhollowayconference.wordpress.com/

 
 
 
Dr. Ben O'Loughlin
Reader in International Relations
Royal Holloway University of London
Department of Politics and International Relations
Egham
Surrey TW20 0EX
 
Tel: +44 (0)1784 443153
Email: (Ben.OLoughlin /at/ rhul.ac.uk)
 
Homepage: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/politics-and-IR/About-Us/OLoughlin/
Blog: http://newpolcom.rhul.ac.uk/npcu-blog/
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