Hellenic Association for American Studies
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
School of English

HELAAS Graduate Student International Conference
March 15-18, 2007

The conference, which is the first of its kind to be held in Greece, invites papers that address the concepts of de-centrism and ex-centrism within a globalized context where borders between the canonical and the other are being contested. Within this context, individual cultures and individual writers and artists are now viewed as participants in an intercultural and multiple exchange of experiences and perspectives in their attempt to move beyond “boundaries.” With the peripheral having now become the center of contemporary culture, this conference is interested in examining cultural and literary diversities that have emerged from the reciprocal traffic of ideas and influences between cultures, politics, aesthetics and disciplines with an emphasis on identity as a site of crisis and fragmentation.

Papers and /or panel proposals are invited for the investigation of this newly created political and socio-cultural reality in the fields of literature, history, film, language, pedagogy, psychology, music, art, politics, economics, and law.
Ex-centricity, identity and multivocality may be examined in relation to one of the suggested topics below, the list not being exhaustive:

• Personal Boundaries in the Negotiation of Identity.
• Locality and Belonging
• Place and Identity
• Contested Landscapes/ Contested Narratives
• Local v/s transnational politics
• Setting boundaries – Transcending Boundaries; Spatial and Social Organization
• Ethnic Groups--Minorities-- Immigration -– Alienation --Exile
• Local vs. Global: Shifting Borders and Hybrid Identities
• Doppelganger metaphor /Otherness
• Polyphony vs. Authorial voices in politics, history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, journalism, law.
• Gender-- Racial identity
• New Novels – Old Narratives
• Multileveledness – Politext - Hypertexts
• Intertextuality
• Peripheral/Marginal
• Postcolonial Narratives
• Cultural Preservations and Electronic Technologies
• Embodiment –Disembodiment
• World English
• Semantics
• Anglo-American Influences on Greek Literature, Culture and Politics

Plenary Speakers:
Barbara Godard (University of York, Canada)
Chris Gair (Birmingham University, UK)
Matthew Frye Jacobson (Yale University, USA)
Yiorgos Kalogeras (Aristotle University,Greece)