Conference Announcement
"Colours/Lights of the North"
International Laboratory for the Comparative Multidisciplinary Study of
Representations of the North
21-23 April 2006
Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday, 11 November 2005
For further information, please go to:
http://www.imaginairedunord.uqam.ca
Thanks to the cultural concepts proposed by geographers, such as
"nordicity", "circumpolar environment" and "nordic space", research has
begun during the past years on the possibility of conceiving the "North"
as a discursive, ideological ,and aesthetic construction. Some elements
of this construction are found across the whole of historical and
contemporary representations of the North which originate from southern
cultures as well as from all Nordic cultures. Be it in popular culture,
architecture, advertisement, literary works, fictional films, or visual
arts, the North is represented according to some particular figures,
elements, narrative schemes, colours, sounds, and shapes. Among those,
colours (omnipresence of white, blue, some purple and orange elements,
simplicity of the range of colours) and light effects (northern lights,
midnight sun, endless daylight, aesthetic use of warm colours) represent
rich paradigms to compare, in a multidisciplinary manner, different
aspects and works from cultures of the North in architecture, theatre,
visual arts, literature, and cinema.
The main objective of this 3rd international conference held by the
International Laboratory for the Comparative Multidisciplinary Study of
Representations of the North is to unite scholars from different
cultural and literary disciplines with writers, artists, and students in
order to propose new ways to understand, conceive, and interpret the
"Colours / Lights of the North" concepts in Scandinavia, the Baltic
States, Finland, Quebec, English Canada, Russia, Alaska, and the Inuit
World. The activities, workshops, and conferences will be held in
French, English, and Swedish, but the main language of work will be
French.
Conference proposals must be sent to the organizers before Friday, 11
November 2005 by e-mail to imaginairedunord [at] uqam.ca. Proposals should
contain the conference title, a 10- to 20-line description, the name of
the participant, institutional affiliation, e-mail, and postal address.
Decisions will be rendered before Friday, 25 November 2005. Proposals
from graduate students are welcome. Organizers might offer partial
funding to participants who require financial assistance.