The national historiographies of Latin America have emphasized processes that, from economic, political, societal and, to a lesser degree, cultural perspectives, have shed much light upon the formation of identities and concepts of nationhood. Notwithstanding the great contributions these approaches have provided, in this symposium we propose to discuss and debate said contributions with the goal of highlighting the transatlantic context brought to bear upon the construction of identities and nationhood in the so-called “other Occident.” This will allow us to set our national histories within an international context that will consequently lead to a broadening of their methodological, theoretical, and thematic scope.

The objective of this symposium is to approach the transatlantic context in relation to the formation of identity and nationhood in Latin America from a specific, cultural perspective. Based upon this idea, the specific themes to be approached are related to cultural contexts and relations in a broad sense: transcultural agencies and networks, literature, language, tendencies of thought, ideas concerning city planning as well as scientific transfers and exchanges, religious and metaphysical practices, and urban social and cultural phenomena, amongst other topics.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS
Scholars interested in participating in this panel should send their abstract by electronic mail to both coordinators (see above for addresses). The abstract should be a summary of less than 300 words and include the name of the presenter, email, degree, and academic institution. Abstracts must be received by January 31, 2008. Those whose papers were accepted will be contacted by February 29th, 2008.

Note: the panels have a 15 person limit and their configuration will be determined by the topic of the papers, the problems they consider, as well as the region of Latin America under consideration.
For more information please consult the conference’s official website: http://www.leiden.edu/ahila2008/