Culture and the State (2/1/03; 5/2/03-5/5/03)
UPDATE: Most plenary speakers are now confirmed for this conference, including Len
Findlay, Isobel Findlay, Rahim Jaffer MLA, Norman Nawrocki, Raj Pannu MLA,
and Jerry Zaslove, among others.
Culture and the State:
Past, Present, and Future
Edmonton, Alberta - Canada
May 2-5, 2003
For more details, please see:
http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cms/
Call for Papers:
In 1989 some proclaimed the imminent universal triumph of a particular state
form-the modern liberal state. Since then, others proclaim the imminent
demise of the modern nation state under advancing globalization. Yet modern
states continue to be formed-from the former Yugoslavia to the new East
Timor.
One thing is clear in these developments. Despite the global promotion of
science and commerce, culture in various forms had and has a major if not
central role in state formation, from ancient times to the present.
The Edmonton Conference on "Culture and the State: Past, present, and
Future" will address all these issues, and more. Organized around a set of
flexible themes, the conference will consider the role of culture variously
defined -- high and low, elite and popular, local and global, historical and
contemporary -- in the creation, maintenance, transformation, and demise of
states.
A broad range of themes will be addressed, including culture and commerce;
the state and cultures of sexuality; indigenous and industrialized cultures;
science and culture and cultures of science; culture and social difference;
culture and immigration and integration; the relations of different cultural
forms; culture and modernization, post-modern cultures and post-modern
states, and so on. Conference papers will be published.
The conference organizers invite proposals, panels, and presentations on
these or any other aspect of the relation of culture and the state, from
antiquity to the present.
The conference organizers especially encourage presentations in forms other
than read papers, though these too are welcome.
Proposals should be addressed to the conference co-ordinators, or to
particular theme co-ordinators (a list of theme co-ordinators is continually
updated on the conference website).
Conference co-ordinators:
James Gifford and Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux
Department of English
3-5 Humanities Centre
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada, T6G 2E5
gifford@ualberta.ca
Conference chair:
Gary Kelly
Canada Research Chair
Department of English, University of Alberta
