CROWN - Croatian World Network - http://www.croatia.org/crown
(E) Conference: Cultural Diversity for Sale
http://www.croatia.org/crown/articles/5965/1/E-Conference-Cultural-Diversity-for-Sale.html
By Nenad N. Bach
Published on 04/2/2002
 
 
CONFERENCE THEME: 
"Cultural Diversity for Sale: Global Economies of Art and Entertainment" 
 
CONFERENCE DATES, LOCATION: 
September 20-21, 2002, Hotel Roanoke, Roanoke, VA 
 
Scholarly papers are invited from any academic discipline. Send a 500-word abstract and short CV to conference organizer Janell Watson, rjwatson@vt.edu. Electronic submissions only, please. 
 
Submission deadline: 
June 1, 2002. 
 
WEB SITE: 
www.fll.vt.edu/watson/symposium 
 
ABOUT THE TOPIC: 
While globalization enhances cultural diversity by bringing together people from many countries and traditions, it also threatens cultural diversity by creating an international mass culture through film, television, and advertising. This paradox has become familiar in globalization studies. 
 
Economic considerations often drive both the migration of people and the spread of the new mass culture. What is the relationship between economics and culture? What is the place of art and cultural traditions in a world dominated by a market-driven global mass media? Must cultural diversity offer itself for sale, in order to survive? 
 
The ever accelerating pace of globalization in what seems to be all spheres further complicates the already daunting task of drawing intelligent connections between economics and culture. Culture, high and low, seems to be but one more product circulating unevenly among rich and poor, first world and third world, North and South, East and West. Cultural products, 
along with their producers, marketers and consumers, are marked by differences of many kinds: gender, class, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, political affiliations, sexuality. The global economy is itself multiple: there are global economies of goods, services, and equities, but there are also global economies of music, film, plastic and performing arts, 
ideas, language, fashion, food, lifestyle, tourism, sexuality, sports, psychic structure, belief, and even environment (i.e., the trade in pollution vouchers). 
 
Academic disciplines likewise comprise global economies, involving transnational exchanges of scholars and publications (print and electronic) which rely on a global circulation of funding. Cultural difference informs each of these economies. 
 
Papers are invited which address the relationship between the global economy and cultural difference in specific areas of art, literature or culture, from a contemporary or historical perspective. 
 
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: 
Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameroonian Filmmaker), Steven Feld (Music and Anthropology, Columbia University), Amitava Kumar (Postcolonial studies,Penn State), Jordan Sand (Japanese History and Culture, Georgetown), Rick Mattioni (News Director, WVTF public radio), Frederick Thomas (Exec. VP and General Manager, MHz Networks) 
 
SPONSORS: 
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Virginia Tech (Humanities program, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Arts and Sciences Humanities Symposium Award, Department of English, Department of Communication Studies, University Honors Program, Office of Multicultural 
Affairs) 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
Dr. Janell Watson 
Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures 
Virginia Tech 
315 Major Williams Hall 
Blacksburg, VA 24060 
 
Phone: (540) 231-9009 
Fax: (540) 231-4812 
Email: janell.watson@vt.edu 
 
 
Distributed by www.CroatianWorld.net. This message is intended for Croatian Associations/Institutions and their Friends in Croatia and in the World. The opinions/articles expressed on this list do not reflect personal opinions of the moderator. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, please delete or destroy all copies of this communication and please, let us know! 

(E) Conference: Cultural Diversity for Sale
 
CONFERENCE THEME: 
"Cultural Diversity for Sale: Global Economies of Art and Entertainment" 
 
CONFERENCE DATES, LOCATION: 
September 20-21, 2002, Hotel Roanoke, Roanoke, VA 
 
Scholarly papers are invited from any academic discipline. Send a 500-word abstract and short CV to conference organizer Janell Watson, rjwatson@vt.edu. Electronic submissions only, please. 
 
Submission deadline: 
June 1, 2002. 
 
WEB SITE: 
www.fll.vt.edu/watson/symposium 
 
ABOUT THE TOPIC: 
While globalization enhances cultural diversity by bringing together people from many countries and traditions, it also threatens cultural diversity by creating an international mass culture through film, television, and advertising. This paradox has become familiar in globalization studies. 
 
Economic considerations often drive both the migration of people and the spread of the new mass culture. What is the relationship between economics and culture? What is the place of art and cultural traditions in a world dominated by a market-driven global mass media? Must cultural diversity offer itself for sale, in order to survive? 
 
The ever accelerating pace of globalization in what seems to be all spheres further complicates the already daunting task of drawing intelligent connections between economics and culture. Culture, high and low, seems to be but one more product circulating unevenly among rich and poor, first world and third world, North and South, East and West. Cultural products, 
along with their producers, marketers and consumers, are marked by differences of many kinds: gender, class, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, political affiliations, sexuality. The global economy is itself multiple: there are global economies of goods, services, and equities, but there are also global economies of music, film, plastic and performing arts, 
ideas, language, fashion, food, lifestyle, tourism, sexuality, sports, psychic structure, belief, and even environment (i.e., the trade in pollution vouchers). 
 
Academic disciplines likewise comprise global economies, involving transnational exchanges of scholars and publications (print and electronic) which rely on a global circulation of funding. Cultural difference informs each of these economies. 
 
Papers are invited which address the relationship between the global economy and cultural difference in specific areas of art, literature or culture, from a contemporary or historical perspective. 
 
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: 
Jean-Pierre Bekolo (Cameroonian Filmmaker), Steven Feld (Music and Anthropology, Columbia University), Amitava Kumar (Postcolonial studies,Penn State), Jordan Sand (Japanese History and Culture, Georgetown), Rick Mattioni (News Director, WVTF public radio), Frederick Thomas (Exec. VP and General Manager, MHz Networks) 
 
SPONSORS: 
Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Virginia Tech (Humanities program, Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Arts and Sciences Humanities Symposium Award, Department of English, Department of Communication Studies, University Honors Program, Office of Multicultural 
Affairs) 
 
--------------------------------------------- 
Dr. Janell Watson 
Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures 
Virginia Tech 
315 Major Williams Hall 
Blacksburg, VA 24060 
 
Phone: (540) 231-9009 
Fax: (540) 231-4812 
Email: janell.watson@vt.edu 
 
 
Distributed by www.CroatianWorld.net. This message is intended for Croatian Associations/Institutions and their Friends in Croatia and in the World. The opinions/articles expressed on this list do not reflect personal opinions of the moderator. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, please delete or destroy all copies of this communication and please, let us know!