The Tunisian Association for English Language Studies (TAELS) organises its 3rd International Conference on: “The Poetics and Politics of Identity”
Venue: Vincci-Marillia Hotel **** Hammamet – Tunisia
Recent scholarship in Identity Studies has engaged in a passionate debate that captures the proliferation of the concept among various academic traditions, seeking to formulate a balance between the aesthetic representations of identity and its political potential. In sociology, literature, anthropology, arts, linguistics and other related disciplines, the question of identity represents a core investigation area, lending itself to an impressive array of political and aesthetic approaches. Reflecting on the versatility of identity, different research paradigms have sought to elucidate the intricate links between social experiences, cultural practices, political standpoints and literary forms, taking into account the collapse of geographic and cultural boundaries in a world dominated by unlimited and multiplying connectivity.
Equally integral to the study of identity is language with its different cultural manifestations. From sociolinguistics to discourse studies, language represents an important venue to examine the relationships of power and to reconceptualize identity within one’s social, political, and cultural contexts. In language teaching and learning, identity has proven to be a central concept in the study of teaching-learning styles, educational policies, and teaching methods and approaches.
In the arena of sociopolitical discourses, the overwhelming waves of immigrants and displaced people have led to a pressing urgency of rethinking the chasm between the Global North and the Global South. Election discourses – and results – have been influenced by a popular glorification of nationalist voices weary of the potential threat posed by immigrants and asylum seekers. Studies on the discourses of recent election campaigns have been attentive to the politics of ‘race’, ‘class’ and ‘national identity’ in the light of the unprecedented surge of ‘racism’, ‘sexism’, ‘bigotry’, and ‘xenophobia’ and the mass manipulation of people to vote for the advocates of nationalist supremacy and ‘protectionist’ policies.
In culture and literary studies, interest in identity has spurred critical debate among theorists, critics and writers, negotiating the intricate crossovers between the literary and cultural domains, on the one hand, and identity construction, on the other. Novelists, for instance, have been attentive to the representation of identity and have sought to engage creatively in dismantling preset models of racial, ethnic and gender straight-jackets to celebrate constructionist approaches to identity. Diasporic literature, for instance, bears witness to the growing interest in negotiating identity formation, adopting a transcultural vision that refocuses attention from scripting essentialist norms to more fluid dynamic attitudes to identity.
The steering committee welcomes proposals related, but not limited, to the following topics:
- The sociolinguistics of identity
- Identity in discourse studies
- Individual/collective identity(-ies)
- Depictions of identity in the media
- Identity politics
- Cultural identity
- Diasporic identities
- Gender identity
- Identity and ethnicity
- Nationalism and identity
- Identity and memory
- Identity and engaged arts
- TEFL and learner identity(-ies)
Submission Guidelines
Participants are invited to send their abstracts through the following link no later than April 30th, 2017. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by May 15th, 2017.
We accept abstracts and papers written in English, Arabic and French.
TAELS editorial board will select a number of papers that will be published after peer-reviewing in a collective volume on the proceedings of the conference.
Participation fees
Presenters of accepted papers will be required to deposit a participation fee of 200 TND (200 Euros for international participants) to TAELS bank account no later than August 31, 2017.
IBAN TN 59 1070 5007 0481 8407 8872
Swift code: STBKTNTT
The amount will cover:
For Tunisian participants
- One full accommodation night at Vincci-Marillia Hotel in Hammamet, Tunisia
- An annual membership in TAELS
- Conference materials
- Two copies of the conference proceedings after publication
For International participants
- Two full accommodation nights at Vincci-Marillia Hotel in Hammamet, Tunisia
- An annual membership in TAELS
- Conference materials
- Two copies of the conference proceedings after publication
For partners accompanying participants, an additional fee of 100 TND (100 Euros for International participants) will be required to cover the one/two-day stay at the hotel.
For Tunisian M.A and PH.D students, participation fees have been reduced to 150 TND to cover all benefits listed above.
For advice and more details about transportation and accommodation, please send your requests to contact@taels.org. TAELS team will be happy to assist in making your stay most comfortable.
