FILLM | XXVI International Congress

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XXVI FILLM International Congress

Languages and Literatures Today

University of Nottingham Ningbo China

17-19 June 2014

To download the Call for Papers please press here.

THE CFP IS NOW CLOSED AND NO FURTHER PROPOSALS WILL BE CONSIDERED.

BUT ATTENDANCE IS STILL WELCOME IF TRAVEL AND VISAS CAN SECURED IN TIME AND A REGISTRATION FORM IS SUBMITTED.

NOTE THAT THERE ARE SOME PLACES LEFT IN THE CONGRESS PROGRAMME AND IT'S STILL POSSIBLE TO SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT.

SUBMISSION WILL BE POSSIBLE UNTIL THE PROGRAMME IS FULL.

The XXVI FILLM International Congress provides an opportunity for linguists and literary scholars from all over the world to compare notes about current developments. Human beings are now living, working and communicating in an increasingly global, interconnected world, with new forms and uses of language, and new ways for literature to be produced, disseminated and read, often enabled or promoted by new and rapidly developing technologies. At the same time there is a fairly widespread supposition that, within different macro- and microcontexts, globalization is experienced and understood in widely different ways. Hence the coinage ‘glocal’. Hence, too, the need to explore what such local-cum-global variation really means in practice for human individuals and societies.

The Congress will take the form of a number of Plenary Lectures by leading world experts, plus Parallel Sessions on the following seven subthemes (for more detailed information on the parallel sessions see below):

Local and global perspectives
Digital technologies and literature of the future
Language, literature, film
Human and environmental issues
Communicational ethics: Language, literature, translation
Education and internationalization
Chinese language and literature in international contexts

As a setting in which to debate such questions, China seems especially appropriate. It is a country whose international cultural significance is rapidly catching up with its obvious importance as a global economic player. By reaching out to Chinese scholars and professional organizations FILLM is hoping to consolidate its own international base and further enrich world-wide scholarly discourse.

The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) is ideally placed to host the Congress. UNNC is a pioneering experiment in internationalisation in global higher education. Its superordinate goal is to foster international and intercultural contact, cooperation, and the creativity and innovation needed for the future.

How to make a proposal

In order to propose a paper for one of the Parallel Sessions at the Congress, please send a 300 word abstract as an email attachment to FILLM(a)nottingham.edu.cn before 31 December, 2013.

NB! The deadline has been extended until the Congress programme is full.

At the head of your proposal, please supply the following information:-

your full name
your professional title
your professional affiliation and address
the title of your proposed paper
the number and name of the subtheme to which your paper is intended as a contribution

Registration and Congress prices

You will learn whether your proposal has been accepted by the middle of February 2014.

Registration will open on 15 February 2014. Information on how to register will be made available on the FILLM website.

The early bird registration is 2200 Renminbi (RMB) and applies until 31 March 2014. After that date, the late registration fee of RMB 2500 comes in to force. (RMB 1 = € 0.122 / US$ 0.163; € 1 = RMB 8.17; US$ 1 = RMB 6.12)

Guidelines for the parallel sessions

1. Local and Global Perspectives

Languages in general appear to be undergoing wide-ranging processes of blending, hybridisation, and vernacularisation, with code switching and styling often involving some use of English – or are we just more aware of all this than we used to be? There is certainly a growing appreciation of language ecologies. So much so, that the development of no one language can be considered apart from all the other languages with which its users come into various kinds of contact. Some of the most likely contact zones are virtual or urban, and through tourism, study, work, and migration. And literatures, similarly, increasingly transcend the traditional boundaries of the nation state and take new forms, including multimodal translations and appropriations, even if literary works also continue to be valued for the local specificities of experience, understanding and feelings they can offer. One of the implications of such a dynamic landscape is that new roles and methods are being developed within the practice of literary translation.

Some of the papers for subtheme 1 are likely to explore these issues through considerations that are either mainly linguistic or mainly literary. But participants are also encouraged to deal with the local and the global in ways that are interdisciplinary between linguistics and literary scholarship.

2. Digital technologies and literature of the future

Digital technologies (internet, e-books, digital books to download, tablets, networks, etc.) are dramatically transforming the universe of the book, making books accessible from any corner of the globe, revolutionizing distribution and publishing economics, and actually modifying the human being’s processes of cognition and reading. In addition, the new technologies could trigger a huge creative innovation within the field of literature. The book of the future will combine texts, inter-texts, meta-texts with an infinity of links, sounds (from music to noise) and images through different formats such as photo, video and films, so strengthening relationships between literature and the sister arts. And as if all this were not enough, literary texts are likely to be available in any language, with or without the help of any translation software, so that the world’s endangered languages may well have a better chance of survival. Literature may actually be able to encompass both modernity and heritage, bringing emergent literatures and their Weltanschauung face to face with long-established ‘classics’.

Many contributors to subtheme 2 are likely to document the various aspects of this scenario in some detail. Other contributors may wish to consider the wider implications for scholarly definitions or concepts, and for educational goals and methods. In the future, what kinds of cultural production, if any, will be labelled as ‘literature’? What will happen to the notion of ‘authorship’? – the question raised in Antoine Compagnon’s provocative book, Towards a No Author Society. And at all levels of education, what, exactly, will be taught, and how?

3. Language, Literature, Film

The advent of cinema has resulted in a give-and-take between the spoken word, the written word and the word on screen. This in turn has promoted globalization, development and change. Language has been the inescapable basis for the construction of both literature and film, with literature long serving as a happy hunting ground for film. So the main challenge of Subtheme 3 is to address the impact of film on language and literature and vice versa.

Contributions to Subtheme 3 are likely to examine particular examples of these dynamics, and also to place them in particular historical contexts. What transformations take place when the literature of one country becomes a source for film in some other country, or when literature in one language is made into film in the same, or in another, language? More generally, what does film do to language? Does it perpetuate or change the linguistic status quo? Does it introduce positively new fashions of speech? And what about the linguistic and artistic impact of dubbing and subtitling? At a more theoretical level, are there common denominators between ways of ‘reading’ literature, language and film?

4. Human and Environmental Issues

In various ways literature and language contribute to the articulation, interpretation and transformation of the relationships between human beings and their environment, between nature and culture, and between the human and the non-human. This can involve particular genres and rhetorical modes, together with an explicit concern with ethical questions, sometimes involving parallels or contrasts between different historical epochs and civilizations. An awareness of organic links between living beings and their environment can also manifest itself as an approach to the reading of texts, or to the analysis of language, which focuses on the ways in which such bonds can be revealed.

The topics covered by Subtheme 4 include: environmentally oriented texts whose treatment of values and attitudes may have significant ecological effects; the support, strengthening, or destruction of individual or group identity through natural or enforced configurations of the environment; the part played by genres and texts traditionally not regarded as part of the literary canon (e.g. Science Fiction, Children’s Literature, Crime and Detective novels) in representing relationships between the human and the non-human; the function of narrated space and place in the identification of present and future conflict zones; and more generally, the ways in which text and language can challenge and change our preconceptions of being human-in-the-world.

5. Communicational ethics: Language, literature, translation

How, in various types of communication, do human beings treat each other as human beings? Do they respect each other’s human autonomy? Or do they try to get power over each other? Or is it six of one and half a dozen of the other? Especially in Western traditions of linguistic, literary, and rhetorical thinking, strong emphasis has been placed on types of situation in which one person tries to influence another person. But Oriental traditions have a different kind of approach, and Western scholars, too, are increasingly focusing on communication in which communicants respect each other’s differences and are not basically seeking to win dominance.

Subtheme 5 will cover these ethical questions as they arise (a) from ‘real-life’ situations, (b) from literary texts, where writers may well have more respect for their readers than characters ‘in the story’ have for each other, and (c) from translations, where there is the further dimension of the translator’s respect or lack of respect for the original writer.

6. Education and Internationalisation

Education is rapidly internationalising, both in terms of syllabus and programmes and in terms of increasing student and staff mobility across national and even continental boundaries. What are the costs and benefits of internationalisation? What of the role of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in internationalisation? Or is that question already a contradiction in terms? Are we all truly becoming citizens of the world now? Or is internationalisation just a cynical marketing ploy aimed at well-heeled student elites?

Subtheme 6 will give contributors a chance to report on their own experiences of international education, its highs and lows, its challenges and opportunities, as well as undoubtedly real difficulties in engaging with other people internationally on equal and equally beneficial terms. In our brave new world, where and how does internationalisation seem to work, and where are opportunities being missed or misconceived? How best can we research and learn from current practices and activities? In keeping with FILLM’s own sphere of interest, contributions to subtheme 6 will be particularly concerned with the world’s languages and/ or literatures.

7. Chinese language and literature in international contexts.

Chinese language and literature are increasingly visible internationally, diversifying, internationalising, and with growing numbers of readers and writers. As Chinese languages and literatures develop more of a global presence, they are also arguably becoming less national and more international.

Contributors to subtheme 7 are invited to examine the wide range of developments in this area, including: diaspora; languages and literature in greater China; Chinese literatures in other languages; and transnational and postnational change in the role and forms of Chinese.

Updated: 9 June 2014

	FILLM Fédération Internationale des Langues et Littératures Modernes International Federation for Modern Languages and Literatures
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	XXVI FILLM Congress News Call for Papers Registration Programme Travel and Accommodation Location and Venue Contact Information	Return to new FILLM website here. XXVI FILLM International Congress Languages and Literatures Today University of Nottingham Ningbo China 17-19 June 2014 To download the Call for Papers please press here. * THE CFP IS NOW CLOSED AND NO FURTHER PROPOSALS WILL BE CONSIDERED. BUT ATTENDANCE IS STILL WELCOME IF TRAVEL AND VISAS CAN SECURED IN TIME AND A REGISTRATION FORM IS SUBMITTED. * NOTE THAT THERE ARE SOME PLACES LEFT IN THE CONGRESS PROGRAMME AND IT'S STILL POSSIBLE TO SUBMIT YOUR ABSTRACT. SUBMISSION WILL BE POSSIBLE UNTIL THE PROGRAMME IS FULL. * The XXVI FILLM International Congress provides an opportunity for linguists and literary scholars from all over the world to compare notes about current developments. Human beings are now living, working and communicating in an increasingly global, interconnected world, with new forms and uses of language, and new ways for literature to be produced, disseminated and read, often enabled or promoted by new and rapidly developing technologies. At the same time there is a fairly widespread supposition that, within different macro- and microcontexts, globalization is experienced and understood in widely different ways. Hence the coinage ‘glocal’. Hence, too, the need to explore what such local-cum-global variation really means in practice for human individuals and societies. The Congress will take the form of a number of Plenary Lectures by leading world experts, plus Parallel Sessions on the following seven subthemes (for more detailed information on the parallel sessions see below): Local and global perspectives Digital technologies and literature of the future Language, literature, film Human and environmental issues Communicational ethics: Language, literature, translation Education and internationalization Chinese language and literature in international contexts As a setting in which to debate such questions, China seems especially appropriate. It is a country whose international cultural significance is rapidly catching up with its obvious importance as a global economic player. By reaching out to Chinese scholars and professional organizations FILLM is hoping to consolidate its own international base and further enrich world-wide scholarly discourse. The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) is ideally placed to host the Congress. UNNC is a pioneering experiment in internationalisation in global higher education. Its superordinate goal is to foster international and intercultural contact, cooperation, and the creativity and innovation needed for the future. How to make a proposal In order to propose a paper for one of the Parallel Sessions at the Congress, please send a 300 word abstract as an email attachment to FILLM(a)nottingham.edu.cn before 31 December, 2013. NB! The deadline has been extended until the Congress programme is full. At the head of your proposal, please supply the following information:- your full name your professional title your professional affiliation and address the title of your proposed paper the number and name of the subtheme to which your paper is intended as a contribution Registration and Congress prices You will learn whether your proposal has been accepted by the middle of February 2014. Registration will open on 15 February 2014. Information on how to register will be made available on the FILLM website. The early bird registration is 2200 Renminbi (RMB) and applies until 31 March 2014. After that date, the late registration fee of RMB 2500 comes in to force. (RMB 1 = € 0.122 / US$ 0.163; € 1 = RMB 8.17; US$ 1 = RMB 6.12) Guidelines for the parallel sessions 1. Local and Global Perspectives Languages in general appear to be undergoing wide-ranging processes of blending, hybridisation, and vernacularisation, with code switching and styling often involving some use of English – or are we just more aware of all this than we used to be? There is certainly a growing appreciation of language ecologies. So much so, that the development of no one language can be considered apart from all the other languages with which its users come into various kinds of contact. Some of the most likely contact zones are virtual or urban, and through tourism, study, work, and migration. And literatures, similarly, increasingly transcend the traditional boundaries of the nation state and take new forms, including multimodal translations and appropriations, even if literary works also continue to be valued for the local specificities of experience, understanding and feelings they can offer. One of the implications of such a dynamic landscape is that new roles and methods are being developed within the practice of literary translation. Some of the papers for subtheme 1 are likely to explore these issues through considerations that are either mainly linguistic or mainly literary. But participants are also encouraged to deal with the local and the global in ways that are interdisciplinary between linguistics and literary scholarship. 2. Digital technologies and literature of the future Digital technologies (internet, e-books, digital books to download, tablets, networks, etc.) are dramatically transforming the universe of the book, making books accessible from any corner of the globe, revolutionizing distribution and publishing economics, and actually modifying the human being’s processes of cognition and reading. In addition, the new technologies could trigger a huge creative innovation within the field of literature. The book of the future will combine texts, inter-texts, meta-texts with an infinity of links, sounds (from music to noise) and images through different formats such as photo, video and films, so strengthening relationships between literature and the sister arts. And as if all this were not enough, literary texts are likely to be available in any language, with or without the help of any translation software, so that the world’s endangered languages may well have a better chance of survival. Literature may actually be able to encompass both modernity and heritage, bringing emergent literatures and their Weltanschauung face to face with long-established ‘classics’. Many contributors to subtheme 2 are likely to document the various aspects of this scenario in some detail. Other contributors may wish to consider the wider implications for scholarly definitions or concepts, and for educational goals and methods. In the future, what kinds of cultural production, if any, will be labelled as ‘literature’? What will happen to the notion of ‘authorship’? – the question raised in Antoine Compagnon’s provocative book, Towards a No Author Society. And at all levels of education, what, exactly, will be taught, and how? 3. Language, Literature, Film The advent of cinema has resulted in a give-and-take between the spoken word, the written word and the word on screen. This in turn has promoted globalization, development and change. Language has been the inescapable basis for the construction of both literature and film, with literature long serving as a happy hunting ground for film. So the main challenge of Subtheme 3 is to address the impact of film on language and literature and vice versa. Contributions to Subtheme 3 are likely to examine particular examples of these dynamics, and also to place them in particular historical contexts. What transformations take place when the literature of one country becomes a source for film in some other country, or when literature in one language is made into film in the same, or in another, language? More generally, what does film do to language? Does it perpetuate or change the linguistic status quo? Does it introduce positively new fashions of speech? And what about the linguistic and artistic impact of dubbing and subtitling? At a more theoretical level, are there common denominators between ways of ‘reading’ literature, language and film? 4. Human and Environmental Issues In various ways literature and language contribute to the articulation, interpretation and transformation of the relationships between human beings and their environment, between nature and culture, and between the human and the non-human. This can involve particular genres and rhetorical modes, together with an explicit concern with ethical questions, sometimes involving parallels or contrasts between different historical epochs and civilizations. An awareness of organic links between living beings and their environment can also manifest itself as an approach to the reading of texts, or to the analysis of language, which focuses on the ways in which such bonds can be revealed. The topics covered by Subtheme 4 include: environmentally oriented texts whose treatment of values and attitudes may have significant ecological effects; the support, strengthening, or destruction of individual or group identity through natural or enforced configurations of the environment; the part played by genres and texts traditionally not regarded as part of the literary canon (e.g. Science Fiction, Children’s Literature, Crime and Detective novels) in representing relationships between the human and the non-human; the function of narrated space and place in the identification of present and future conflict zones; and more generally, the ways in which text and language can challenge and change our preconceptions of being human-in-the-world. 5. Communicational ethics: Language, literature, translation How, in various types of communication, do human beings treat each other as human beings? Do they respect each other’s human autonomy? Or do they try to get power over each other? Or is it six of one and half a dozen of the other? Especially in Western traditions of linguistic, literary, and rhetorical thinking, strong emphasis has been placed on types of situation in which one person tries to influence another person. But Oriental traditions have a different kind of approach, and Western scholars, too, are increasingly focusing on communication in which communicants respect each other’s differences and are not basically seeking to win dominance. Subtheme 5 will cover these ethical questions as they arise (a) from ‘real-life’ situations, (b) from literary texts, where writers may well have more respect for their readers than characters ‘in the story’ have for each other, and (c) from translations, where there is the further dimension of the translator’s respect or lack of respect for the original writer. 6. Education and Internationalisation Education is rapidly internationalising, both in terms of syllabus and programmes and in terms of increasing student and staff mobility across national and even continental boundaries. What are the costs and benefits of internationalisation? What of the role of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in internationalisation? Or is that question already a contradiction in terms? Are we all truly becoming citizens of the world now? Or is internationalisation just a cynical marketing ploy aimed at well-heeled student elites? Subtheme 6 will give contributors a chance to report on their own experiences of international education, its highs and lows, its challenges and opportunities, as well as undoubtedly real difficulties in engaging with other people internationally on equal and equally beneficial terms. In our brave new world, where and how does internationalisation seem to work, and where are opportunities being missed or misconceived? How best can we research and learn from current practices and activities? In keeping with FILLM’s own sphere of interest, contributions to subtheme 6 will be particularly concerned with the world’s languages and/ or literatures. 7. Chinese language and literature in international contexts. Chinese language and literature are increasingly visible internationally, diversifying, internationalising, and with growing numbers of readers and writers. As Chinese languages and literatures develop more of a global presence, they are also arguably becoming less national and more international. Contributors to subtheme 7 are invited to examine the wide range of developments in this area, including: diaspora; languages and literature in greater China; Chinese literatures in other languages; and transnational and postnational change in the role and forms of Chinese. Updated: 9 June 2014

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