Europa a Preto e Branco - Dialogos entre artistas e escritores sobre o multiculturalismo no espaco Europeu - Faculdade de Letras da Universidade da UL

EUROPE IN BLACK AND WHITE 

Lisbon, 12-14 May 2008 

(The conference is part of the project Dislocating Europe) 

Keynote Speakers: 
Ella Shohat (New York University) 
Paul Gilroy (London School of Economics) 
Robert Stam (New York University) 

CFP 
Europe in black and white intends to address conflicting definitions of 
what ‘Europe’ was, is and should be. 
We depart from the assumption that postcolonial Europe cannot ignore 
colonial histories on a national and transnational level. Thus there is 
the need to redefine priorities and identities in an increasingly 
multicultural space, taking at the same time into account the virulent 
conflicts that permeate contemporary interactions that cannot be 
understood as a mere “clash of civilizations” but rather as complex sites 
of conviviality (Gilroy), contact zones (Pratt), in which the unevenness 
of former dependencies are prolonged and contested. 
Such issues cannot be isolated from debates on the possibilities and 
limits of postcolonial theory, as recent developments in postcolonial 
studies show, and have been analyzed by several disciplines with 
different emphases and agendas. 
We wish to address and discuss these topics in a conference bringing 
together specialists from diverse disciplines and fields, located in 
different countries, and continents, thus hoping to promote a sustained 
discussion on a comparative basis in order to probe the limits and 
possibilities of postcolonial approaches to specific geographic and 
disciplinary contexts. 
 What is the relevance of such concepts as identity and 
difference, race and ethnicity, or hybridity, when applied to precise 
social or geographical contexts, disciplinary fields, and issues related 
to the politics of representation? 
 How are discourses on, and the production of difference (Gupta, 
Ferguson) to be articulated with the role of universals in human rights 
and citizenship claims? 
 How are representations of religion and secularism to be analysed 
according to the specificity of local contexts in contemporary Europe? 
How are the corresponding discourses to be read according to specific 
colonial histories? 
 What about the role of emergent forms of diasporic expressive 
cultures in music, film, and art? How are these to be considered in 
regard to other narratives such as those suggested by literature, history 
or anthropology? 
 How far are these tendencies able to contribute to an unthinking 
of Europe (Shohat/ Stam)?