This panel is part of the biennial Conference of the International Society for Religion, Literature, and Culture (ISRLC), which will take place from 9-11 September 2016 at the University of Glasgow.
The conference them is ‘Lines in Sand; Borders, Conflicts, and Transitions in Religion, Literature, and Culture’ (See also http://isrlc.org/)
Deadline for all proposals: 18 April 2016
Please send proposals to: Hannah Marije Altorf (hm.altorf@stmarys.ac.uk)
Panel Description: Dialogue
The art of dialogue can create a space in which borders can be crossed, and fixed identities and answers challenged. Dialogues often take place at the border, just before or after a conflict, or before or after a situation in which no communication was possible. Dialogues can be border experiences themselves, determining what can and what cannot be said.
Dialogues create concrete examples of such border crossings and border experiences. In Teaching to Transgress bell hooks writes:
It is fashionable these days, when ‘difference’ is a hot topic in progressive circles, to talk about ‘hybridity’ and ‘border crossing’, but we often have no concrete examples of individuals who actually occupy different locations within structures, sharing ideas with one another, mapping out terrains of commonality, connection, and shared concern with teaching practices. (1994, pp. 129-30)
This panel invites 20-minute papers that present and reflect on a practice of dialogue at the border: dialogues in which borders are transgressed, and dialogues in or as border experiences.
Please send proposals of no more than 300 words to Hannah Marije Altorf (hm.altorf@stmarys.ac.uk) before 18 April, 2016.