Call for Papers

Linguistic, Literary, and Cultural Diversity in a Global Perspective
 

Background

The Federation Internationale des Langues et Litteratures Modernes (FILLM), a UNESCO affiliate in charge of promoting languages, literatures, and cultures organizes an International Congress every three years. The last two congresses were held in Ningbo, China and New Delhi, India. The next FILLM Congress, the 28th in the series, will be held in Europe at the University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria from 26th July to 29th July, 2020 under the theme of Linguistic, Literary, and Cultural Diversity in a Global Perspective.

Main theme

Diversity is a key concept in many academic disciplines and in our everyday life. We live in a more and more complex world that brings people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds together in one place. Diversity implies understanding that each of the individuals from these different backgrounds are unique and different and these differences must be recognized, tolerated, and even celebrated. Diversity comes along various dimensions including language, culture, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic class, physical ability, religious belief, and political and ideological orientation, among many other differences.

Recognizing, understanding, tolerating, and even celebrating diversity is not just an end in itself; it can also be a means, a methodology to building, managing, and sustaining our common humanity, our common heritage in a global perspective. Diversity is essential if we are to achieve all-encompassing, global perspectives to addressing the problems that confront our common humanity. Globalization is truly global if it encompasses all these aspects of diversity mentioned above. As the time-honoured adage goes, there is Unity in Diversity. And this is especially so if we see diversity as a tool to helping us find solutions to the many global problems confronting us: socio-economic inequalities, terrorism leading to insecurities, upsurge in nationalism and populism leading to division and the erection of walls and other kinds strictures, and global warming, among a myriad of other problems.

Sub-themes

At the Vienna conference keynote and plenary addresses, panels, and individual papers will address the main theme of Linguistic, Literary and Cultural Diversity. However, papers and panels are also invited on the following five sub-themes which are ultimately related to the main theme:

1. Multilingualism and linguistic plurality in local and global perspectives
Globalization is scaling the world down into a global village. People speaking different kinds of languages are mixing more than ever before. This contact linguistic scenario is producing pidgins, creoles and other kinds mixed languages both within and across national boundaries. Multilingualism and plurality of communication are both local and global phenomena. Papers for this sub-theme would address how this plurality, how this diversity is managed locally and internationally at people-to-people and at government-to-government levels.

2. New genres of literature in the era of social media and new communication technologies
New technologies of communication are providing us spaces in which the spoken and the written word are mediated. Mobile phones, You-tube, Facebook, Instagram and many other products that rely on the internet have become media in which linguistic and literary texts may be produced, communicated, and analyzed. Social media and new technologies produce new genres and new ways of communication. We are in the era of open access publishing, e-books, cell phone novels, and video-clip messaging. Papers for this sub-theme should address aspects of these issues and beyond.

3. Cultural diversity in film
How does film, along with other kind of moving pictures, promote cultural diversity? Do the major film industries in various parts of the world such as Hollywood, Bollywood and Nollywood provide linguists and literary scholars with different arenas and perspectives for studying language and literature? Papers for this panel will address these and other questions towards our understanding of the role of film in promoting linguistic, literary, and cultural diversity.

4. Linguistic and literary studies in diaspora and migrant communities
In a world of globalization, people are constantly moving across national boundaries and forming new trans-national communities that may have strong links to their source and host countries. We therefore have different spaces in which languages and literatures can be analyzed. New subfields that may be called diasporic linguistics and diasporic literatures have emerged and are evolving. Papers for this sub-theme would address this emergence and this evolution of linguistic and literary studies in migrant and diasporic communities in the 21st Century.

5. German language and literature in global perspectives
As the congress takes place in a German-speaking country, we need to take the opportunity to understand the language of our host in global perspectives. Papers for this sub-theme should therefore address the past, present, and future of German language, literature, and culture in global perspectives.

Panel Proposals

Scholars are encouraged to make panel proposals. The topic of a proposed panel should fall within the broad theme of diversity and consist of four to five speakers. Apart from that, it is up to the panel organizer(s) to decide on the format (roundtable, normal individual paper presentation, etc.).

In particular, FILLM would like to encourage its Member Associations to propose panels that address their particular area of study or regional languages and literatures within the broad theme of diversity. The congress organizers encourage all Member Associations to take advantage of this possibility to ensure that their perspectives are well-represented at the congress.

The Call for Papers is closed

The Call for Panel Proposal is closed.

Publication

Following the congress, FILLM and the organizers will look to publish several collections of the papers as special issues of journals and in book series, which may include the FILLM Studies in Languages and Literatures. More details about the publication will be given at the congress in Vienna.