INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

INSTITUTE OF CULTURAL IDENTITY STUDIES
SCHOOL OF MODERN LANGUAGES
UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS

VIOLENCE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY

27 - 29 JUNE 2003

CALL FOR PAPERS

Symposia

1. Violence in Foundation Myths and Iconography
Convenor: Malcolm Humble, meh1@st-andrews.ac.uk

2. Violence and Colonial/Postcolonial Identities
Convenor: Dr Lorna Milne, lcm2@st-andrews.ac.uk

3. Violence as Subversion and Oppression
Convenor: Dr Peter Read, pfr@st-andrews.ac.uk

4. Violence and Identity in Literature
Convenor: Dr Stefan Pugh, smp@st-andrews.ac.uk

5. Political Violence and National Identity
Convenor: Dr Will Fowler, wmf1@st-andrews.ac.uk

6. Linguistic Violence and Nation States
Convenor: Ronnie Ferguson, rgf@st-andrews.ac.uk

7. Gender, Violence and Identity
Convenor: Prof. Helen Chambers, hec@st-andrews.ac.uk

8. Ideology and Praxis of Violence
Convenor: Dr David Gascoigne, djg1@st-andrews.ac.uk

9. Thinking Out the Links Between Culture, Identity and Violence
Convenor: Prof. Paul Gifford, ppg@st-andrews.ac.uk

Proposals for Papers (a 300-word abstract) to be submitted to the Convenors by 30 September 2002

Conference Registration [Full-Board] 27 - 29 June - will probably be in the range of £160.00

Conference Organiser: Dr Will Fowler, Dept of Spanish, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL.
E-mail address: wmf1@st-andrews.ac.uk

VIOLENCE, CULTURE AND IDENTITY
27 - 29 JUNE 2003
WHAT ISSUES DO WE INTEND TO FOCUS ON?

The Modern Languages offer a particularly rich account of all phenomena connected with the centrally human theme of Violence. We scan across many culture zones (European, African, American); and, diachronically, over many time zones (from the pogroms and crusades of the Middle Ages to the conflicts of colonial and postcolonial times). We are interested in: history, politics, and ideologies; public and private life; literature and arts; religions, ideas , culture theory.... Our scanning is naturally interdisciplinary, as well as open to cross-cultural parallels and comparisons.

We aim to exploit this diversity and breadth, which is a strength of Modern Languages as a discipline, while yet focussing on major axes of significance and concentrating attention on specific thematic areas.

Our leading questions:

What is 'violence'? How is it related to 'culture' on the one hand, to 'identity' on the other?

VIOLENCE AND IDENTITY:

Violence seems to be well described as an occurrence or event in the relationship between subjects (individuals, groups, classes, nations, etc); it is one ever-possible mode or moment in the story of 'self-and-other'. It has to do with the alterity, difference, strangeness of the other and the conflicts these generate. It springs from the rivalry of mimetic desire in human subjects within a given socio-cultural space and between such spaces. 'Reading' accounts of violence or representations of violence, studying the functioning of violence, is always in the end a matter of deciphering that relationship. We can classify and elucidate on this axis most or all of the innumerable forms violence takes: war, persecutions, sexual violence, spiritual violence (despair), masochism, suicide etc. Violence also centres around, and is triggered by, the things that most define subject-identity (the powerful sense of 'I' and 'you', 'we' and 'they'): self-and-other perceptions, values, customs, symbols, desire, religious practices or beliefs.

We seek to address key questions on violence and identity such as:
- What relations are we observing between 'violence' and 'identity'?
- How are these portrayed and analysed?
- What general account is being given of self and other? Of the tearing or distortion of a relationship?
- Is violence a natural and/or inevitable outcome of conflicts of interest and identity?
- Is it always morally negative? …
- To what set of [theoretical-explanatory] anthroplogical perspectives does the account given of it refer explicitly or belong implicitly?

VIOLENCE AND CULTURE:

All human violence seems to engage the dimension of collective mind or psyche: symbolism, group organisation, practices, references, beliefs, cults of some binding and bonding 'transcendence' mapping out our moral freedom. In short, 'culture'. Within culture, violence is controlled: stylised (duels), codified (laws and penalties); regulated, repressed, disguised, re-channelled (cf. Freud and 'civilisation'); even legitimated (nation state wars, religious wars etc). It is also covertly institutionalised and culpably discharged (cf. Girard on the crisis and resolution of mimetic rivalries). Where culture institutionalises those controls confidently, we speak - albeit precariously - of 'civilisation'... But violence is also precisely a sign of that which eternally escapes and overflows all domestication-in-culture (cf. hooliganism, crime, war, pogrom, holocaust etc). Culture also represents violence: in words and images, in symbols - and in theoretical-critical reflection. And its representing is not neutral in respect of violence. Literature, the visual arts, theory, film, the media can reflect violence and resonate with it; they can also reflect upon violence, deconstruct and denounce it - and they can play with it and exploit its undoubted fascination voyeuristically. There are complex cases: plays and novels that sublimate and re-channel or exorcise a latent violence.

We seek to address key questions on violence and culture such as:
- How is violence represented and why?
- What type or form of violence is depicted?
- What is its functioning, its origin, nature, in a given historico-cultural (and ideological) context of reference?
- What type of representation of violence is being offered?
- How does it, in turn, function within the context of reference?
- Where is it 'coming from'?
- What are the implicit norms and values that declare it 'violence' and govern its presentation?
- What difference does the representation make?
- Can violence be deconstructed in representation? Can it be understood and modified by artists?
- How far and how well does the artistic representation counter the fascination of violence? Does the artist matter as witness or as actor vis-à-vis the violence(s) of private life or history?

It is the intention of the organisers to edit a series of books, region-based, using as a basis a selection of papers given at the conference (e.g., Violence, Culture and Identity in Germany, Violence, Culture and Identity in Latin America, Violence, Culture and Identity in Russia, etc.). Each is intended to profit from, and to exploit diversely, the overarching perspectives explored.

Please address general queries to:

Conference Organisers:
Dr Will Fowler, Dept of Spanish, University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL.
E-mail address: wmf1@st-andrews.ac.uk
Or
Professor Paul Gifford, Director, Institute of Cultural Identity Studies, School of Modern Languages University of St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL. E-mail address: ppg@st-andrews.ac.uk