“Porosity and Reciprocity,” European Languages and Transcultural Studies Graduate Conference

Porosity and Reciprocity
1st Annual European Languages and Transcultural Studies Graduate Student Conference
Organized by the UCLA Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies
Date: October 24-25, 2019
Time: 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Location: Royce Hall
This conference explores issues of cultural borders and exchange and will feature a roundtable discussion featuring scholars who specialize in gender and women’s studies.
An ever-growing body of scholarship across disciplines and concentrations has underscored the long history of cultural exchange that challenges conventional notions of national and cultural sovereignty. Recent events, however, have challenged scholars to problematize, redefine, and expand upon prior attempts to register the ways in which national and cultural identity, and especially the perennial question of borders, are increasingly shaped by a protean political and social landscape. Bringing together graduate students and scholars from French, German, Italian, and Scandinavian studies, this conference aims to explore the notions of reciprocity and porosity as they are found within and/or between these cultures throughout history and in the present. Questions of interest include: How are the literary and artistic traditions of these cultures shaped by internal diversity? How have the encounter and exchange with other cultures contributed to the formation of these traditions? How do these cultures conceive of and represent their borders? How do they conceive of and represent the other? Mindful not only of the diversity that exists between these cultures, but also of the diversity that exists within them, how do each of these cultures belong to and shape historical and contemporary ideas of Europe?