ACLA 2006 Annual Meeting: The Human and Its Others

Many twenty-first century European Institutions and individuals deploy symbols of the past to represent themselves in the present. In order to portray Europeans, for example, as democratic successors of the Greek City-States, descendants of the open-minded Renaissance man, or defenders of the Declaration of Human Rights, European Community officials use symbols to represent these values and explicitly or not to exclude others. So as to construct a new transnational identity, the European Union has an anthem and a flag, as well as joint cultural and economic ventures, such as the Erasmus Program and the Airbus industry. The proposed conference panel examines how European and diasporic artists, writers, journalists, filmmakers, and singers use and interpret these and similar symbols of European unity. Some, certainly, may embrace them; others may interrogate or even subvert them, revealing inherent contradictions in the construction of a new European identity. Panelists themselves will stake out different positions on the general topic and discuss a wide range of source materials from or about the European Union’s member states (or candidates for membership). Basing their inquiry on concepts of national identity formation (such as Anderson’s “imagined communities”, Hobsbahm’s “invention of tradition”, Nora’s “lieux de mémoire”, Habermas’ “concepts of New Public Sphere”, Balibar’s “Marxian” analyses of “Europeanness”), and other analytical tools, panelists will examine European fictions (novels, theatre, films) and essays produced in the national and regional languages and cultures of Europe to better understand how an imagined community in the making defines itself and its Others.

Friday, March 24

Caroline D. Eckhardt, The Pennsylvania State University
“Precursors of European Union: Europe and Its Others in Medieval Historiography”
Sidney Donnell, Lafayette College
“Quixotic Storytelling, Lost in La Mancha, and the Unmaking of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”
Temenuga Trifonova, University of New Brunswick
“European Cinema and European Identity in Cinema”
Nicole Fayard, University of Leicester
“Returning the Human to the Stage: Images of Europe in Contemporary European Theatre”

Saturday, March 25

Seminar meets from 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Cesar Dominguez, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela
“European Literature According to Google”
André Bénit, Universidad autónoma de Madrid
“The Meanings of Belgian National Symbols in a Country Situated in the Heart of the E.U.”
Rares Piloiu, SUNY Buffalo
“Central European humanism in György Konrád’s novels”
Cris Reyns-Chikuma, Lafayette College
“Besson’s Cinema, a Case Study for a European Identity in Progress?”