(x-post H-GERMANISTIK)

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers

"Arctic Discourses"

University of Tromsø, Norway

21.- 23. February 2008

Descriptions of the Arctic and Sub-Arctic provide a rich material produced
both in the Arctic and in other parts of the world. The extent of this
material has increased considerably since the Romantic period, hand in hand
with the systematic scientific investigation of these regions. These
descriptions will often correspond more or less to Arctic realities, but
also constitute their own reality: the way in which the Arctic has been
understood and imagined throughout history. Taken together, they make up a
discourse on the Arctic, formed both by actual Arctic experiences and its
own intertextual continuities- in addition to many other earlier and
contemporaneous discourses, including the discourse of literature.

This conference will concentrate on Arctic discourses after Romanticism and
up to the present day, using approaches to such discourses developed within
literary studies. It will focus both on Arctic discourse in literary texts
and literary discourse in non- literary descriptions of the Arctic. It will
examine the development of Arctic discourses; the use of narrative,
figurative and generic strategies in Arctic discourses; and the effect of
changing communication technologies on Arctic discourses. It will also focus
on contact zones between the European/American and the Arctic, and cultures
which identify themselves as both Arctic and European/ American. Suggested
themes for panels:

Romantic and post-romantic sublimes in Arctic discourses
Arcticism, Arctic counter-discourses and Arctic indigeneous
literatures
Gendering the Arctic
Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine discourses
From exploration to sport: the history of Arctic discourse
Arctic travel writing
Borders and limits in Arctic discourses
Living between the Arctic and the European/American
Subject positions and identities in Arctic discourse
The Arctic in art and film
Changing conceptions of Northernness and Arcticity
Nature's discourses in the Arctic
Arctic metaphors in fiction and poetry
Approaching the Arctic with literary, cultural, and discourse analysis
Changing technologies, changing media, changing Arctic discourses
Genre and the circulation of signs in Arctic discourse
Embodying/textualizing the Arctic in postmodern novels and popular
fictions
Narrative in Arctic expedition reports, travel writing and reportage

Please send abstracts for papers by 15 September 2007 to Silje
Gaupseth (silje.gaupsethhum.uit.no). The participation registration
deadline will be 1 November 2007.

"Arctic Discourses 2008", Tromsø 21-23 February 2008, is part of the
research programme of the Arktiske diskurser project, based at the
University of Tromsø and funded by the University and The Research
Council of Norway. For more information and updates on the
conference, see http://uit.no/humfak/arkdisk/.

-----------------------------------
Dr. philos. Marie-Theres Federhofer
Prodekan
Det humanistiske fakultet
Faggruppe Germanistikk
Universitetet i Tromsø
N-9037 Tromsø
Tlf: 0047/77 64 66 21