CALL FOR PAPERS

(Deadline: October 31, 2007)

Graduate Program "Formations of the Global: Globalization and Cultural
Studies"
School of Humanities / Philosophische Fakultät

Universität Mannheim, June 12 - 14, 2008

International Conference

The Thrill of the Still - Analyzing Global Processes between Immobility and
Mobility

Mobility is one of the key terms used in the explanation and description of
processes of globalization. The contrary moment of stability, of the
persistence of traditions and structures in general, that is, of immobility,
has so far been mostly neglected. Manifestations of both the mobile and the
immobile frequently imply and rely on each other. Change often settles into
stable patterns just as equilibria are the result of the interaction of
dynamic processes. It therefore seems necessary to consider mobility and
immobility and the rich variety of opposing meanings each of these terms
evoke not only as complementary factors but as mutually determining
categories.

The conference will analyze mobility and immobility with respect to their
mutually constitutive relationship. It will attend to the wide array of
meanings of both negative and positive connotations that are ascribed to
both terms. It will be crucial to fundamentally re-examine the categories of
time and space as the principal determinants of mobility and immobility
(time-space compression, disappearance and reappearance of space, etc.), the
relationships of structure and process as well as of continuity and
discontinuity. While the main focus will be on research from the fields of
the cultural and social sciences (“Kulturwissenschaften”), we welcome
contributions to theoretical questions and to concrete phenomena from a wide
spectrum of areas such as art, literature, music, historical and political
processes as well as from the sciences and engineering.

The conference will be structured around three main areas:

1. Agents, Objects, Practices of (Im)Mobility

- People: migrants, merchants, travelers, tourists
- Products, goods, commodities: channels, circulation, disposal
- Technologies of (Im)Mobility: cars, planes, rockets, computers
- Places of (Im)Mobility: the global city, airports, museums
- Rituals of motion and rest: travel, traffic, station, arrival,
departure

2. Representations of (Im)Mobility

- WWW: global interconnectedness
- Popular culture: between throwaway society and authenticity
- Arts & Literature: themes, poetics of (Im)Mobility

3. Logics of (Im)Mobility:

- Acceleration and Standstill: philosophical-historical reflections
on time in a global context
- Static and Dynamic Space: philosophical-historical reflections on
space in a global context
- Cosmopolitans and Citizens: sociology / anthropology of global
society
- Cultures in Contact: hybridization / creolization / assimilation

The international conference will allow participants from different
disciplines and contexts to enter into a dialogue. Contributions from
doctoral and post-doctoral candidates are welcome. The conference language
will be English. Papers: 30 minutes; discussion: 30 minutes.

Proposals in English of one page maximum as well as a CV (incl. list of
publications) to be sent to the coordinators of the graduate program
(Christian Knirsch and Claudius Werry: promotionskolleguni-mannheim.de).
Deadline: October 31, 2007.

Graduate Program "Formations of the Global: Globalization and Cultural
Studies"
Philosophische Fakultät / School of Humanities
University of Mannheim
Schloss, EW 261
68131 Mannheim
Tel.: 0621 / 181 2363

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Koordinationsstelle Promotionskolleg
"FORMATIONS OF THE GLOBAL: Globalisierung aus kulturwissenschaftlicher
Perspektive"
Philosophische Fakultät, Universität Mannheim
Schloss EW 261
68131 Mannheim
Telefon +49 (0) 621 / 181 - 2363
Telefax +49 (0) 621 / 181 - 2343
promotionskolleguni-mannheim.de
www.mappingglobalization.de <http://www.mappingglobalization.de/>
<http://www.mappingglobalization.de>