INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE LANDSCAPES OF THE SELF
Identity, discourse, representation
VENUE: UNIVERSITY OF EVORA – PORTUGAL
DATE – 24-26 November 2010
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS – TO BE ANNOUNCED
The Centre for the Study of Letters and the
research team of the project ‘Landscapes of the
self’ invite scholars, theorists, researchers,
and practitioners of autobiography in all media
to attend the 1st International Conference
LANDSCAPES OF THE SELF, proposing as its
inaugural theme IDENTITY, DISCOURSE, REPRESENTATION.
We envisage to develop discussion and to enhance
the appearance of edging theories and practice on the issue.
The conference aims to discuss the tangled web of
critical positions regarding the study of
autobiographical documents which has, over
decades, opened debates about the
autobiographical act, as well as about the range,
structure and essential features of the
autobiography. We would like to encourage
reflection on the process of representing the
self as a selective and imaginative construction
of who we have been and who we are.
Autobiographies are positioned within discourses
that construct identity and power, and inasmuch
as the individual is a discursive formation,
autobiography is one of the major discourses
through which it is produced. Autobiographical
representation is an act of interpretation, where
the lived experience is shaped, constrained and transformed.
Representing the self in a filigree of
ontological, epistemological and organizational
principles of identity, any autobiographical act
can be read as geography of the possible (Probyn
1993) where the self is represented by means of
several technologies of power, like memory, and
several trajectories, materializing itself
through discourse. To represent the self through
an autobiographical discourse can be considered a
political act where the autobiographer chooses to
draw a map of meanings of his life and of his/her
self, a self that is multiply coded in a range of
discourses and conditions and represented by
means of several metaphors and modalities,
asserting the right to speak rather than to be spoken for.
To read autobiographies as landscapes of the self
is to understand them as a canvas where the
images of the self are represented; it is to
understand autobiographies as a space of
communication, where author and audience
articulate meanings – where the audience has to
make sense of the identity of the author in a
simultaneously produced and productive
relationship; a relationship which is
constitutive of communication as a social
practice, and in which the audience has to
understand to whom the author is creating, why, how and when.
This conference invites 20-minute papers
addressing the topics of identity, discourse and
representation from a wide range of
interdisciplinary critical perspectives, as well
as self-referential works in all media. Although
other topics may be considered, we welcome papers
dealing with, but not being limited to, issues such as the following:
Discourse Analysis;
Autobiographical Studies;
Memory;
Place;
Referentiality vs. fiction;
The invention of the self;
Construction/representation of identity;
Individual and collective representations of the self;
Gender studies;
The self and the other(s);
Social and cultural identities;
Human geography;
Visual arts/visual culture;
Identity/Representation and genre;
Political Discourse/Political identity;
Ethnical issues;
The self in literature;
Egodocuments
Autobiographies in translation;
Theorizing identity and representation in life writing;
The emergence of the self in the social context,
The self and history
CONFERENCE LANGUAGES:
Papers may be presented in English or in French
Conference Convenors
Ana Clara Birrento – birrento@uevora.pt
Maria Helena Saianda – mhrs@uevora.pt
Olga Gonçalves – obg@uevora.pt
ENQUIRIES may be sent to the conference convenors
SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS to the conference
convenors – deadline – 15th June 2010
NOTIFICATION OF ACCEPTANCE – 15th July 2010
SUBMISSION OF FULL PAPERS – 30th September 2010
REGISTRATION
EARLY BIRD – Until 30th July 2010 – 150 Euros
AFTER 30th July 2010 – 250 Euros
ACCOMMODATION, SOCIAL PROGRAMME & FURTHER INFORMATION will be updated
