Culture as Interface and Dialogue | An Interdisciplinary Conference

Nowadays, nations and ethnic groups face a crucial political and cultural challenge: to supplant traditional concepts of identity based on national mythology, exclusivity and political sovereignty with new ones stemming from the plurality of identifications and richness of inter- and transcultural communication based on dialogue. This change is becoming increasingly necessary because of the rise of aggressive ethnic nationalism responsible for the surge of manipulative propaganda on social networks, the growth of political divisions within individual countries and the escalation of international conflicts.

The main objective of the conference is to discuss alternatives to essentialist notions of cultural identity. We invite the reconceptualization of cultures interfaces of transcultural communication which engender dialogue and use fictions to enable and facilitate sharing knowledge, emotions, attitudes, beliefs and values.

This approach may be viewed as parallel to ecocriticism, complementing its nature-based and largely material notion of environment with a pragmatic understanding of culture as human-made habitable and sustainable surroundings.

Suggested paper topics:

• Culture as an emergent phenomenon
• Uses of cybernetic concepts (e.g., recursivity, feedback, entropy) in theorizing culture
• Culture as interface in perceptual systems, information space, inter- and transcultural communication
• Fictions as protocols in the process of interfacing
• Dialogue and recursivity – functional approximation
• Dialogue and interfacing – fictions and conflict resolution
• Dialogue as a means of cultural communication and a catalyst of cultural diversity

Abstracts of 300 words with bio-notes of 100 words should be submitted by 28 February 2022 to Dr Martina Pranić (martina.pranic@ff.cuni.cz). Selected presenters will be notified by 15 March 2022. Conference registration will start on 31 March 2022. Registration fee will be specified at the beginning of February 2022.

The conference is supported by the European Regional Development Fund Project “Creativity and Adaptability as Conditions of the Success of Europe in an Interrelated World” (No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000734).

Professor Clare Wallace and Professor Martin Procházka, Conference Convenors