Call for Papers for the Panel:
The European Way – Identitarian Representations of Europe in Visual Arts, Performing Arts and Literature

(As part of The 4th Euroacademia Global Conference 'Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeaness Exposed to Plural Observers', Athens, Greece, 23-24 May 2014)

Panel Description

In contemporary Europe some of the main indicators of the lack of a unitary identity come from the deficit of symbols, images, artistic representations or literary writings that would pin-point towards a unity of sensibility and of artistic perception. Europe appears through visual representations as a divided continent coming from an extremely diverse universe of imaginary indicators that act through difference and often in contra-point to the claimed unity. The creation of national identities often involved an increasing differentiation through localized symbols and foundational representations.

However, identifiable traces of Europeaness can be recovered through specific representations like the visual repetition of European denominators in paintings, photography and literary characters that are often considered as part of the European imaginary patrimony. The visual representations of the Myth of Europa in paintings are a part of the many signs of looking at a common European inheritance. Sometimes the European unity of representation and the Europeaness in arts and literature are better observed from outside Europe by artists that named, indicated or differentiated from the symbols of Europe. This panel seeks to bring into discussion the visual and literary representations of Europe and search into the imaginary universe for identifiable signs of a real or imagined Europeaness.

The panel welcomes contributions on the following topics (you by no means limited to):

- Performing a European Identity in Arts and Literature
- Identities and artistic representations of Europe
- What does the label 'European art' means?
- The Divisions of Europe – building national identities through difference: popular art, visual representations of nations and the role of foundational myths
- The role of visual arts in expressing a European identity
- Challenges to European traditions through arts
- Expressions of liberation and difference through performing arts
- Visual arts and personal European stories
- Immigrants and the cultural identity of cities
- European history, historicity and its impact on artistic representations
- European capitals of culture and European identity
- Literature and European narratives, characters and biographies
- Urban cultural heritage as identity-anchor
- Arts and community making in Europe
- Symbols, signs and visual myths of Europe
- The European Imaginary in Arts and Literature
- Ugliness, kitsch and value in shaping contemporary European art
- European ways of portraying the other
- Memory and art in Europe

Please apply on-line or submit abstracts of less than 300 words together with the details of affiliation by 11h of April 2014 to application@euroacademia.eu

For complete details before applying please see:
http://euroacademia.eu/conference/fourth-europe-inside-out/