cfp.english.upenn.edu

Book Life

Print Culture and the Public Sphere

An International Conference in the Humanities and Social Sciences March 20-
22, 2008

Malmö University, Sweden

Confirmed Keynote speakers:

Dipesh Chakrabarty

_Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference_

Nancy Armstrong

_How Novels Think: The Limits of British Individualism from 1719-1900_

Nancy Fraser

_Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange_

Walter Benn Michaels

_The Shape of the Signifier: 1967 to the End of History_

The public sphere is an imagined, common space where members of society
come together to debate matters of interest and to establish consensus
about them. So fundamental is this space that it has even been argued to
define western modernity. Because of the historical significance of the
book in the public sphere, books have acquired the status of powerful
catalysts for cultural practices. Books are in this sense templates for
understanding the self and the world.

Recently, there has been a return to the idea of book culture as a leading
culture for the protection and dissemination of civic virtues and moral
mores. Governments and policymakers turn to book culture to formulate
social and cultural hierarchy. These thoughts are being raised in an
unfortunate connection to increased migration, particularly from Africa
and the Middle East.

How is reading and writing related to notions of self-understanding, both
collectively and individually? How is the book a catalyst for certain
cultural practices? How is the book related to changes in modern social
and political practices? How is modernity an effect of the imagined public
sphere?

Conference web site: http://www.mah.se/templates/Page____56073.aspx

Please send proposals for papers and panels to:

booklife_at_imer.mah.se

Deadline for panel proposals: October 21, 2007

Deadline for paper proposals: November 21, 2007

CONFERENCE TOPICS COULD INCLUDE:

The book and the public sphere

The book in the age of global migration

The globalization of the book

The book and democracy

The book and empire

The book and social/cultural practices

Books, discipline, didactics

Beyond books

Books and media technology

Books and intermedialization

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Received on Mon Aug 06 2007 - 04:14:59 EDT