Call for papers:
Border Zones/Cultural Periodicals
in the Francophone World
Kentucky Foreign Language Conference, University of Kentucky (Lexington, KY, USA)
April19-21 2012
*Special Session*
Border Zones: Cultural Periodicals in the Francophone World
If a border zone is a “space in-between” where debates take place and global designs must be sorted out and adopted or rejected as Walter Mignolo suggests, then periodicals may reflect activity in the border zone. They allow researchers a glimpse of internal conflicts and negotiations at various levels, including at a cultural level. For example, as print culture of the French Empire came under close scrutiny by authorities, it is not surprising that colonized elites turned to cultural periodicals to express other agendas and hidden transcripts. Thus, border zones can be found in the flourishing press of the Empire that reveals political, cultural, and social struggles. The tug of war includes not only colonial and national identities and cultures, but, language and educational issues and women’s status as well.
Cultural publications also open a window upon periods of transition that may bring about social changes. Thus, the transition of moving from the colonial period to Independence and beyond may be documented in periodicals and cultural publications in the French Empire. Discourses of modernity, development, and nation-building surface. While nationalist historians eventually write a smooth-surfaced account of struggles for independence and the transition to a postcolonial era, periodicals reveal border zones, disputes and forgotten or erased issues.
Possible subjects:
Resistance through cultural publications
Nation building and national identity
Cultural pages in political newspapers
Modernity discourses in cultural publications
The Transition from colony to nation
French cultural publications in the Empire
Women’s emancipation and the press
Women’s magazines and women journalists
Please send 250-300 word abstract for 20-minute paper to Jacqueline Couti (jacqueline.couti@uky.edu) by November 1, 2011.
At a later date, accepted presenters will be asked to upload their papers at http://www.facebook.com/l/QAQBqoyBAAQBepPwjkJvEjAzcA-gkVLCPSkTvx0mnQ82ngw/web.as.uky.edu/kflc/ABSTRACT.html
For more information on the KFLC, see: http://www.facebook.com/l/cAQBIEzT-AQBRpcgaofcA_ETLJWxK8m0P2xt1U0JcHHBeTA/www.kflcabstracts.uky.edu/index.php/kflcabstractsite/kflc2012