CASCA2015: Panel Call for Papers/Appel à communication - Contemporary Landscapes of Difference. A Critical Assessment of Keywords

CASCA 2015 Panel CFP / Appel à communication: Contemporary Landscapes
of Difference. A Critical Assessment of Keywords


Organizers:
Phillip Rousseau (IRTG Diversity, Université de Montréal)
Marie-Claude-Haince (University of the Witwatersrand, IRTG Diversity)

***an International Research Training Group Diversity (IRTG) Diversity
initiative***

Constantly ostracized or celebrated, suppressed or hyped up, rejected
or embraced, difference is
replete with ambiguities in our contemporary worlds. Oscillating
feverishly between promises of
open process and closed fixity, it is enthusiastically hailed as both
a problem and a solution, as its
numerous uses and abuses firmly embed themselves in much of the
surrounding social
fabric. Idealized and regulated, it is at the basis of the
establishment of many institutionalized
mechanism of social cohesion, through processes of inclusion and
exclusion. Considered at times
a fundamental feature of any social order or a simple epiphenomenon of
other dynamics,
difference is constantly on the verge of being 'it' and dissipating
into thin air.
In order to think difference today (and what is different today), this
panel proposes to critically
engage with some of the traditional and emerging keywords with which
knowledge is
consistently attempting to apprehend, accentuate or minimize the
presence and pretences of
difference (its meanings, practices, politics, and effects). By
tackling both empirical and
theoretical dimensions of this crucial issue, we wish to draw a few
lines in the highly complex
contemporary landscapes of difference. Concretely, this panel seeks
original conceptual and
interdisciplinary contributions that critically analyze
difference-related keywords such as culture,
diversity, ethnicity, race, civilization, tolerance, mediation,
cultural industries, translation,
creolization, religious pluralism, multiculturalism, interculturalism,
secularism, citizenship,
agency, the Other, racism, xenophobia, stereotype, intersectionality,
ontologies, etc.*
* These are a few suggested concepts, others can, of course, be proposed.

Proposals should be no more then 150 words in length, include 5
keywords and sent to
both: philliprousseau@yahoo.ca and mchaince@hotmail.com.