CFP: Urban Fragmentation(s)

GWZ Berlin 

16.03.2015-19.03.2015, Berlin

Deadline: 12.09.2014 

The Centers for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (GWZ) will jointly host the 3rd Borders & Identity conference (BIC) from March 16th to 19th, 2015, at the Humboldt University in Berlin (Germany). BIC2015 provides a meeting place for researchers interested in interdisciplinary approaches to exploring Urban Fragmentation(s) from linguistic, literary, sociological, and historical points of view, or a combination thereof. The conference will be organized in three parallel strands, each chaired by a corresponding GWZ-center (ZAS, Center for General Linguistics; ZfL, Center for Literary and Cultural Research; ZMO, Center for Modern Oriental Studies). 

There will be three plenary talks (speakers to be announced) - organized by the respective centers. 

-- Literature & Translation (ZfL) 

-- Language & Linguistic Creativity (ZAS) 

-- Society & Governance (ZMO) 

We invite abstracts for presentations and posters on topics including, but not limited to, the following areas listed below. Interdisciplinary submissions are highly welcome.

1. Literature & Translation (ZfL) 

Writing the city 

-- Urban soundscapes: Fragments, collages, remixes 

-- Literary interventions in urban society: Cutting across town 

-- Multilingual literatures in pluricultural cities 

-- Plural topographies in urban literatures and cultures

"The 'translation' is the message" 

-- Translating the self: Writers in exile and migration 

-- Translating the other: Appropriating foreign forms of cultural expression 

-- The role and function of cultural mediators (artists, publishers, teachers, etc.) 

-- New subjectivities 

-- Suburban subjectivities: Figurations of the self in recent post-socialist literature 

-- (Urban) cultures of affect: Fragmented memories, distorted belongings, violent riots 

2. Language & Linguistic Creativity (ZAS) 

Linguistic diversity in the city 

-- Multilingualism in the classroom 

-- Multilingual cities as loci of language contact and change

-- Migration patterns and linguistic fragmentation 

Citylects 

-- Linguistic creativity / Multiethnolects 

-- Language change / Language decay 

-- Language variation and social networks 

Language attitudes / Linguistic stereotypes 

-- Perceptual ethnolectology 

-- Language ideologies 

-- Linguistic expressions of style 

3. Society & Governance (ZMO) 

Negotiating diversities 

-- Cultural, ethnic, and religious fragmentation in the city 

-- Governance of plurality 

-- Spaces of interaction, spaces of fragmentation 

Contesting visions

-- Splintering urbanism in networked cities 

-- Urban contestations and violence 

-- Unifying and fragmenting visions of urbanism 

-- Fragmented authenticity of urban heritage 

Rethinking Marginalities 

-- Urban centrality and marginality: Concepts and terminologies 

-- Urban centrality and marginality: Case studies