IMAGES V – Images of (Cultural) Values
A 2-days international and interdisciplinary conference

IMAGES project director: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck)

After the conferences IMAGES (I) – Films as Spaces of Cultural Encounters (2011), IMAGES (II) – Images of the Poor (2012), IMAGES (III) – Images of the City (2013) and IMAGES (IV) – Images of the Other: Istanbul-Vienna-Venice (2014), the IMAGES project is planning to focus on images of (cultural) values in its 2015 conference.

Contrastive culture studies for example by Geert Hofstede, Helen Spencer-Oatey, Edward Hall, Fons Trompenaars, and Shalom H. Schwartz have set the theoretical grounds to a structural understanding of (intercultural) communication processes by defining cultural categories. It is these cultural categories which determine individual actions and reactions to the actions and reactions of others. In turn, this can both pave the ground for disastrous circles of misunderstanding and violence (when values clash), or enable constructive and fruitful cultural encounters and (inter)cultural learning (when values are in harmony or awareness of the others’ values leads to a mutual intercultural respect).

The potential list of identified cultural categories is extensive and includes for example, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, time (e.g. monochronic vs. polychromic cultures), context-orientation (the relevance of context in communication of high context vs. low context cultures), information transfer speed, space ( i.e. personal space vs. territory/ proximity vs. distance), universalism vs. particularism, individualism vs. collectivism, neutrality vs. affectivity, precision/ specification vs. vagueness, performance vs. status, attitude towards time, attitude towards the environment, conservativism, intellectual and affective autonomy, hierarchy, mastery, egalitarism, and harmony, These categories link to sets of relevant cultural values; sets of values which shape these categories and are at the same time shaped by them.

Studies on acculturation (for example John Berry’s work on migrant attitudes towards native and receiving culture, old and new identities) have also broadened our understanding beyond simple categorization to a more diverse understanding of the processes involved.

Though many of the studies mentioned above seem largely informed by the concept of nation cultures and/ or cultural regions, the categories defined may, nevertheless, apply to non-nation and/ or non-regional cultures as well, i. e. to all cultures in a cultural studies understanding of the term, thus including cultures defined by age/ generation, professional, social and religious affiliations and else, in short, by all communities who define themselves by their individual sets of (cultural) values.

Our focus within the IMAGES project is on the ways in which the cultural values involved in the cultural categorizations of our world have been visualized, i. e. turned into images and/ or symbols present in the several fields of our everyday lives. Hence, the IMAGES project’s 2015 conference IMAGES (V) – Images of (Cultural) Values will discuss the (historically) changing representation and perception of images of (cultural) values; the representations of (cultural) values being seen as documentations of cultural concepts and also of cultural approaches. This creates an unlimited number of potential cases of both cultural encounters and conflicts, elaborated by an academic discourse within socially relevant research fields such as politics, communication, culture and migration.

In order to discuss issues like the above mentioned IMAGES (V) – Images of (Cultural) Values invites scholars, but also architects, photographers, writers, artists and filmmakers to propose papers in the following fields of research and interest:

• The relativity of cultural values and their communicational relevance (theoretical approaches and/ or case studies)
• The relevance of cultural values symbols in constructing images of the (cultural) self and the (cultural) other (theoretical approaches and/ or case studies)
• The psychology of a felt affiliation to images/ symbols of (cultural) values (theoretical approaches and/ or case studies)
• Images of (cultural) values in public space as a statement
• The impact of the media (news, internet, daily soaps) on the images of (cultural) values
• Images of cultural values in feature films (present and past)
• Images of cultural values in the Arts (present and past)
• Images of cultural values as seen by photographers (present and past)
• Images of cultural values in literature (present and past)

The conference IMAGES (V) – Images of (Cultural) Values is planned as a 2 days interdisciplinary international conference with a minimum of 25 and a maximum of 35 speakers.

The conference will be open to the public.

The conference will bring together senior scholars with PhD students, postdoctoral academics, and members of the artistic community without following the classical keynote speaker pattern but rather inviting all speakers to present their research findings in 20 minute (paper) presentations plus 10 minutes for discussion.

There will be no parallel sessions. All sessions will be plenary sessions.

The conference language is English.

Selected articles of each session/ field of research will be published as a volume of conference proceedings. Münster, Berlin, Vienna and New York based LIT Verlag has already declared strong interest in publishing the conference proceedings. The publication will provide space for black-and-white illustrations.

Please note: that due to the increasingly restrictive national funding policies we are not able to cover any travel and/ or accommodation expense of conference speakers. For the first time in the now 5-years history of the IMAGES conference series we will also need to charge a registration fee in order to cover expenses for the conference venue. As this has to be booked (and paid for) well in advance of the conference, the registration is non-refundable in case the registered speaker/ participant cancels her/ his participation in the conference.

Registration fees:
35 Euro for PHD students (who are not employed by their universities or not part in a grants program)
40 Euro for PHD students (who are employed by their universities or part in a grants program)
50 Euro for all others
Registration fees are due 1 week after we have confirmed that the paper proposal has been accepted and will be put on the conference program. If the registration fee has not reached us by this date the paper/ the speaker will be deleted from the program again and will be informed of this. Registration fees are non-refundable in case registered speakers/ participants cancel participation in the conference.

Entrance fee for the public:
20 TLY (per half-day)
The entrance fee is due on entering the conference venue and will be collected at the entrance.

Conference site and date:
Istanbul, Supa Business Salon by Manzara Istanbul, Istiklal Caddesi

Deadline for paper proposals: 30 April 2015 (24.00 MET)

Please, send paper proposals to images-1gmx.at and cc them to veronika.bernarduibk.ac.at, smerrellbrookes.ac.uk and otuzunhotmail.com

Deadline for paper submission (for publication in conference proceedings): 1 month after conference

Planned date of publication of conference proceedings: July 2016

For more on the IMAGES project go to: http://images-1.over-blog.org

IMAGES (V) – Images of (Cultural) Values organizing committee (in alphabetical order):

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Veronika Bernard (University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck/ Austria)
Research Associate Steve Merrell (Institute of Public Care, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford/ UK)
Ass. Prof. Dr. Hatice Övgü Tüzün (Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul/ Turkey)

The logistic partner of this conference is Manzara Istanbul (conference venue, recommended accommodation)