Languages of Internationalism
Conference to take place at Birkbeck College,
University of London25-26 May 2017
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 September 2016
Scholars have in recent years re-energized the study of how peoples, cultures, and economies came, over time, to be linked and entangled across all manner of borders. Transnationalism and internationalism continue to be the watchwords of much humanities and social sciences scholarship. Yet insufficient attention has been paid to the crucial politics of language in historical scenarios of internationalism as a lived or imagined human enterprise. Organised by the Reluctant Internationalists research group at Birkbeck College London in collaboration with Dr. Brigid O’Keeffe from Brooklyn College, CUNY, this conference will bring together historians, anthropologists, literary scholars, linguists, and scholars in related fields, to debate the languages of internationalism.
The goal of the conference is to shed light on the centrality of language to people’s past pursuit and experience of internationalism. Historians must better understand the linguistic realities that their subjects confronted in their various global networks and endeavors. For any agents of internationalism, language presented a wide variety of challenges and opportunities. It imposed obstacles and provided avenues to mutual understanding and collaboration among diverse peoples. The relative successes and failures of past internationalist projects in large measure owed to participants’ ability to effectively communicate across not just linguistic, but also political, cultural, economic, and professional boundaries. This fundamental and literal question of (mis)communication has dramatically shaped the lives of peoples variously confronting the global realities or pretensions of their milieus.
Conference participants will consider the frustrations and triumphs of human beings, in a wide variety of historical contexts, as they deployed language in their efforts to communicate across borders. In this way, the conference seeks better historical appreciation and understanding of language as a linchpin of transnational and international histories.
Submissions of individual papers on the following themes and topics are especially encouraged:
- Languages of Internationalism: When and why have languages helped or hindered internationalist projects? Roles played by lingua francas; bi-lingualism and multi-lingualism in border areas, cities, schools, refugee or POW camps; sign languages and deaf histories in global perspective; artificial languages as international auxiliary languages
- Language in Global Diplomacy and Cross-Cultural Exchange: Language politics by and within international organizations, including the League of Nations, United Nations, and others; (mis-)communication and international diplomacy; roles of interpreters and interpreting; connections between language and diplomatic failure; the role of language in educational, scholarly or artistic exchange programs
- (Mis-)Communicating Expertise in Science, Medicine, and Scholarship more generally: languages of technocracy; experts’ views on and uses of language and strategies of communication; international scholarly communities and the transmission of knowledge; differences between different fields of expertise; experts’ changing conceptions of ‘the public’ and how it can be reached
- Language Politics During and After Empire: Communication and questions of (linguistic) authority in colonial contexts; language and interpersonal relationships within and across empires; language and colonial diplomacy; language and postcolonial critique
- Linguistic Rights and Endangered Languages: Linguistic Rights; standardization and imposition of official or national languages; endangered languages and globalization
- Mass Media, Language, and Idea Transmission on the Global Stage: Communication and linking technologies such as the post, telegraph, radio, tv, and internet; language and global marketing; international publishing and translation projects
Please send paper titles, abstracts (300 – 400 words), and a brief academic biography (200 words) by 1 September 2016 to Brigid O’Keeffe (Brooklyn College, CUNY), bokeeffe@brooklyn.cuny.edu
There will be no conference fee. There will be limited funding available to contribute to the accommodation in London of junior scholars and those from institutions without research funds.
Call for Papers: Languages of Internationalism
Call for Papers: Gender, Peace and Security Post-2015: Challenges and Opportunities
The 3rd Women in War and at War Conference, organised by The Open University Law School, The University of Warwick and Aberystwyth University will be held on 15th and 16th September 2016 at The Open University, Milton Keynes.
Call for Papers
Abstracts of a maximum of 250 words should be submitted by 30th June 2016 to the organising committee. Authors of selected abstracts will be informed by 25th July 2016. Conference registration will open on 25th July 2016.
31st October 2015 marked the 15 year anniversary of the adoption of the landmark UNSCR 1325. The Resolution formed the basis for the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda at the United Nations Security Council. Over the years, UNSCR 1325 and subsequent resolutions gave recognition to a variety of issues associated with women, modern armed conflicts and security. These included the recognition of the impact of conflict-related sexual violence on women and girls, various roles played by women in armed conflicts; calls for a greater accountability for crimes committed against women and girls in conflicts; the need to include women in all stages of conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction.
Despite these advances, modern armed conflicts provide a challenge to the effective protection of women and girls, but also unveil various roles and representations of women in conflict and post-conflict settings. For instance, the reports of enslavement and mistreatment of Yezidi women and girls are contrasted with the examples of active support and participation of women in ISIS operations. In addition, the protracted nature of the conflict in Syria resulting in mass conflict-related migration brought back the debates about the effectiveness of protection afforded to persons fleeing armed conflict or situations of gross human rights violations. Furthermore, the inclusion and active involvement of women in peace processes and post-conflict reconstruction remains a major challenge.
How does international law as well as other disciplines respond to these developments? What do recent conflicts tell us about the contemporary representations of women in and at war? What lessons did we learn from the first 15 years of the WPS Agenda?
We invite proposals for papers in the following or related areas:
- Gender and conflict
- Women and conflict-related migration
- Women and ISIS
- WPS Agenda post-2015
- International Humanitarian Law: effectiveness and challenges
- International Criminal Law and the prosecution of gender-related crimes
- Representations of women in and at war
- Women, war and the media
- Women in post-conflict settings.
Event details
Start date: 15 September, 2016 at 09:00
End date: 16 September, 2016 at 17:00Location: Michael Young Building, The Open University, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA
Event booking details
Conference registration will open on 25th July 2016.
Contact details
Name: Claire Wylde
Email: oubs-research-admin@open.ac.uk
Phone: 01908 332311
Conference: ANZSIL 24th Annual Conference
