7th Graduate Conference in Erlangen
November 3rd - 5th 2006
Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg
Kochstr. 4, 91054 Erlangen
Germany

Circular-Flows

Capillaries of World Culture

The 7th graduate conference "circular flows" takes up the theme of the 6th conference which was held under the title "border//crossings". Two years ago, in 2004, borders and border crossing was discussed, while this year's conference will focus on the topics of mobility and motility as constituents of new trans-cultural spaces. The crossing of traditional borders is considered as a necessary prerequisite of the emergence of "Circular Flows", but the main attention is drawn towards the genesis, modification and stabilisation of knowledge and culture in the course of border transgression - from "roots" to "routes" as Paul Gilroy put it. The conference deals both with questions of "blurring boundaries" on the level of international organisations, with discourses of new "transnational spaces", of new "ethno-, ideo- or mediascapes" and with discussions about "glocalization", "hybridisation" and "melange".

Processuality is the common ground of all these aspects. Their stability - as suggested by the title of the conference - stems from their circularity or recursivity in time. The conference addresses the debate about world culture und world society beyond global finance markets and geopolitics. Artefacts, bodies, people, social relations, institutions, figures, media, facts and cultures "on the move" are to be questioned about their bottom-up consequences for and in line with world culture.

This main issue can be specified in three dimensions:
1) Flows, transfer, blending and recursivity (de-constructions of global space)

Circuits of movement, perpetual streams of communication, flows of symbols, the mechanisms of transfer and diffusion are elements and expressions of "circular flows". Physical movement, the "movement" of meaning and media and the alteration of perspectives and world views do not necessarily coincide. They rather overlap substitute or interchange amongst each other and into the direction of their social and cultural environments. We can therefore ask for the terms of their recursivity as well as for their (de-)constructive effects in relationship to other both mobile and immobile life-forms.

2) Reflexivity, emergence of culture and of spaces (cos-mobility)

The second direction focuses space in a geographical and in a figurative sense: Space as an issue of discourse as well as the construction of its symbolic structure by actors. Being on the move involves the crossing of "traditional-modern" social spaces and may lead to the reflexive formation of symbolic structures of aesthetics, styles and self representations. These representations have a spatial dimension and touch questions of "home" and "identity". One could think of post-modern constellations of symbols, the intermingling of cultural codes etc. and of questions of cosmobility.

3) Regulation, inclusion und exclusion (new borderlines)

From a perspective of circularity the meaning of borders/frontiers becomes multidimensional: in terms of borders and the crossing of frontiers as a prerequisite for the constitution of new spaces and flows, in terms of insecure existence next or "on" borders and in terms of transcultural or global demarcations in the line of recursive stabilization of new spaces (exclusion/inclusion). We want to lay emphasis on the analysis of mechanisms of regulation, regimes and stabilization. One could think of studies which deal with the suppression of circular flows or with questions of unequal distribution of opportunity structures and the variance of abilities to capitalize on new spaces and their symbolic representation. Eventually, this topic touches questions of the conditioning of communication and movement by global regimes of money and power.

We would like to invite an international and interdisciplinary audience to the three-day conference. Graduates and postgraduates from philosophy, history, languages and literatures, media studies, social sciences etc. should post proposals to the issue of "circular flows", both theoretical work or concepts and empirical or literature studies.

Conference languages will be English and German. The publication of an anthology is planned. Please submit your proposal using the online registration form on this webpage (www.gradnet.de) until August, 31st . The conference fee will presumably be € 20,- (to be paid on arrival). Please contact us if you have any questions.

Office:
Department of Sociology
FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg
D-91054 Erlangen
Germany
0049-9131-8522092 (or: 0049-9131-8522792)

graconinfo@arno.franken.de