[Bilimsel Haber] CFP: Int. Conf. "IDENTITY AND ALTERITY IN THE EUROPEAN CULTURAL IMAGINARY, " 13-15 June 2014, U of Pitesti (Romania)

[Gonul Pultar]

Please find attached the CFP for our 2014 conference, as well as the
registration form for those who are/will be interested. Thank you for
spreading it within your academic community.

The initial deadline for abstract submission will most probably be extended.

Valentina Stinga
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Letters
University of Pitesti




THE RESEARCH CENTRE ON THE IMAGINARY,
THE CENTRE OF CONTEMPORARY LITERARY, LINGUISTIC AND DIDACTIC STUDIES 
UNIVERSITY OF PITEŞTI,

in collaboration with the

DEPARTMENT OF AMERICAN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
UNIVERSITY OF IZMIR, TURKEY

and

ALBANIAN SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF ENGLISH (ASSE),

is organizing the annual international LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE – 
EUROPEAN LANDMARKS OF IDENTITY conference



on 13-15 June 2014



The theme suggested for this year:

IDENTITY AND ALTERITY IN THE EUROPEAN CULTURAL IMAGINARY

The 11th edition of the annual conference organized in 2014 by the 
Faculty of Letters, University of Pitesti, traditionally held under the 
title Language and Literature: European Landmarks of Identity, continues 
its research and debate series initiated in the previous editions on the 
paradigms of the imaginary. Establishing a link between the concepts of 
identity, alterity and cultural imaginary, the present edition aims at 
rethinking the concepts of identity and alterity from the perspective of 
the European cultural imaginary.

One of the main principles in the treatises on logic, identity does not 
apply to natural languages and other forms of culture as an abstract 
form, but as a principium identitatis et discrepantiae. Apparently 
antagonistic, the concepts of identity and alterity presuppose each 
other, being the two poles between which the human self-consciousness is 
formed. Circumscribed to the subjectivity of the self, the concept of 
identity is inseparable from that of alterity, regarded in terms of 
difference or opposition, as well as interior alterity. The identity – 
alterity couple, materialized under the form I – the others, plays a 
major part in understanding cultural diversity. Any linguistic and 
literary space constructs its identity through the impact of alterity 
perception. To show openness towards alterity means to become aware of 
both identity and identity within alterity.1

The papers presented at our conference are aimed at contributing to the 
research on the manner in which the antinomy identity-alterity glides 
towards the transgression of oppositions in the cultural imaginary by 
revealing identity dimensions and levels, awareness of the differences, 
intercultural dialogue, and the challenges of identity/alterity. The 
interdisciplinary perspective: text linguistics, discourse analysis, 
imagology, literary criticism and hermeneutics, cultural anthropology, 
philosophy, didactics, gender studies, communication studies etc. will 
allow a rethinking of the above-mentioned concepts.


Identity and Alterity from a Linguistic Perspective

Language is the place where the relation between you and I becomes 
manifest; it facilitates the process of knowing the self and the other.
Abstract identity is highlighted through the reiteration of the object, 
its hypostasiation (the object which is identical with itself) and has 
denotative applications in the constants of artificial languages. 
Through the principle of concrete identity, natural languages double the 
perspective of knowledge: “The language mechanism, according to 
Saussure, is wholly based on identities and differences, some being 
nothing more than the counterweight of the others”. 2 Logicians have 
proved that objects are manifest through specific properties which liken 
one to the other, thus delimitating the class they are included in. 
These properties differentiate them from objects belonging to other 
classes, but any object has extra properties which differentiate it from 
the other objects of the same class. In view of the above, it has been 
demonstrated that natural languages reflect the knowledge of the classed 
order of reality, in various configurations and to various degrees, from 
one idiom to the other. The componential paradigms of the semantic 
fields, the sememe structures and other means of semantic configuration 
“reproduce”, in the area of meta-linguistic representation, the classed 
order of reality. Lexical and grammatical classes and, in general, all 
the criteria of classification and sub-classification constitute the 
areas where identities and differences are to be distinguished. Within 
the area of knowledge, subjectivity generates the aesthesis generating 
the artistic universe in all its diversity and, at the same time, the 
thesis that (in addition to scientific, religious and philosophical 
knowledge) opens the way for the creativity of argumentative roles and 
strategies. No object of knowledge as a field of culture can be 
understood as unity in diversity without Saussure’s terms regarding 
language.

In E. Coşeriu’s opinion, language is governed by two universal 
principles: creativity and alterity. Significance has been, from the 
very beginning, intended for the other and has belonged to the other, 
therefore language is the essential way and the primary manifestation of 
man’s being-with-the-other. Due to alterity, language appears under the 
form of languages and traditions that are shared. Alterity is the 
feature that distinguishes the linguistic act of signifying from other 
types of content of the expressive forms and, subsequently, it 
represents the basis of language historicity, which is the constant 
manifestation of the solidarity with a community of subjects and with 
its traditions and thus, of the social essence of man’s intrinsic 
historicity.

As a consequence of such a diversity of perspectives on language, we 
propose as main topics of reflection and research: the identity of 
vernacular languages in the context of globalization; the effects of 
linguistic interferences; the evolution of linguistic transfer; emotive 
meaning, implicit meaning, polyphony; dialogal/dialogic, argumentative 
roles.


Identity and Alterity in Literature

Although quite broad and permissive, the concepts of identity and 
alterity in literature can be circumscribed to a referential definition: 
in essence, it is about the relationship between the self and the other, 
about identifying the similarities and the differences in order to reach 
knowledge. In other words, neither identity nor alterity could exist 
outside a relation of comparison. Therefore we should establish the 
criteria for comparison.

The two concepts describe the relationship between the writer, as the 
author of the text, and the reader, as the receiver of the same text. In 
Umberto Eco’s vision, the empirical author/the model author, the 
empirical reader/the model reader respectively, can define the different 
types of relationships that exist between these two participants in the 
literary act of communication. What do they seek in each other? Identity 
or alterity? What does the model author search for when constructing 
his/her model reader: identity or alterity? And what does the reader 
want to find in the fictional world: a world identical to that in which 
he lives or the alterity of another?

Identity and alterity can also be helpful in analyzing the mechanisms 
for seeking the self in autobiographical texts: autobiography, diary, 
memories, or in the hybrid genre called auto fiction. The problem here 
is that of the relationship between the narrator’s and the author’s 
ego. Is it about identity or about alterity? Likewise, an investigation 
of the boundary between the real ego, the fictitious one and the 
fictional one would be very interesting: is it about identity or about 
alterity?

Finally, identity and alterity can define the relationship between the 
self and the other considered as two entities belonging to different 
mentality codes (national, racial, political, religious etc.). Does 
knowing or, on the contrary, ignoring the Other mean searching for 
identity or for alterity? What does alterity consist of and what are the 
criteria that help us define it? Can the roles of identical or of 
another be swapped? In this respect, the exotic, travel literature or 
the travel memoirs can provide fertile ground for research.
	


For this year’s proceedings, we propose several axes of reflection, 
certainly without assuming them to be exhaustive: identity and alterity 
in the reception of literary texts; identity and alterity in the 
literature of confession/religious literature; identity and alterity in 
the representation of the self and of the other.


Identity and Alterity from a Sociological and Communicational Perspective

Identity occurs in society as a permanent process of construction and 
reconstruction that is always related to the Other. “We exist for one 
another and interact with one another as far as we communicate: we send 
and receive signals, encode and decode messages”3. Thus, communication 
(through language, languages or culture) goes beyond the language level 
and emerges as a relationing process, identity being directly influenced 
by the relationships, positions and roles we fulfill in relation to 
another person.

Identity construction involves several steps (search, construction, 
assertion, recognition), and the experts in the fields dealing with this 
topic focus their research on various levels: national identity, 
cultural identity, personal identity, social identity, etc.
Starting from these benchmarks, we shall further list a few of the many 
possible reflection axes:  European identity - European communities: 
enlargement, integration, diversity; I and the Other / we and the 
Others, identity and alterity in the current paradigmatic changes: 
modernity, postmodernity, multicultural, intercultural, transcultural 
and so on; identity differences: geographical (rooting, grubbing, places 
of belonging), temporal (melancholy, nostalgia, oblivion, memory 
reconfiguration), cultural, linguistic, etc.; meeting places for self 
and other: reality and virtuality, media representations of the Other in 
times of crisis (economic, religious, military confrontations, etc.).


Identity and Alterity in the Didactics of Languages

The changes occurring nowadays on the social and economic level, changes 
that are also reflected by the European linguistic policies, lead to the 
necessity for people to learn at least two foreign languages, besides 
their native one. Teaching and learning represent a “discovery of the 
Other”4. “The didactics of languages has to go beyond the objective of 
merely developing the learners’ linguistic skills towards enriching 
their representations of and attitudes to the countries whose languages 
they study and their inhabitants.”5 The teaching and learning of a 
foreign language implies, among other things, the contact with another 
cultural system that has to be assimilated. Consequently, this process 
needs to be prepared starting with the ones that will conduct it, the 
teachers. They should be trained and should train, in their turn, in the 
spirit of the pedagogy of interculturality, laying the stress on the 
development of the intercultural communicative competence.

Consequently, we suggest the following axes of reflection, the list not 
being exhaustive: the teaching process as an intercultural dialogue; the 
integration of aspects of culture and civilization in the teaching of 
languages as a means of valuing identity (knowing one’s own culture) and 
alterity (knowing the culture of the Other); the didactics of 
plurilingualism; the initial training of the foreign language teachers 
from an intercultural perspective; the role of the authentic documents 
in the teaching and learning of languages; methods of assessing 
intercultural competence.



The debates are organized into several sections. To send the summary or 
the paper, or to get any other information, please contact the person in 
charge of the respective section:

1. Romanian Language; Romanian Literature; Comparative Literature; The 
Didactics of the Romanian Language; Communication and Cultural Studies; 
Performing Arts - Lavinia GEAMBEI (geambeilavinia at yahoo.com)

2. French Language; French Literature; Francophone Literatures; French 
Cultural Studies; Canadian Cultural Studies - Liliana VOICULESCU 
(lilgoilan at gmail.com)

3. Spanish Language; Spanish Literature; Hispano-American Literature - 
Adriana APOSTOL (silvadius at yahoo.com)

4. English Language; English Literature; Anglophone Literatures - 
Paula PÎRVU (gratielapirvu at gmail.com)

5. Language for Specific Purposes (French, English); The Didactics of 
the French/English Language; Translation Studies (French, English, 
Spanish) - Carmen BÎZU (camy8078 at yahoo.com)



THE CALENDAR OF THE CONFERENCE
-   April 5, 2014 - submission of the registration form;
-   May 5, 2014 - confirmation of the acceptance of the paper;
-   May 20, 2014 - sending the registration fee;
-   June 13-15, 2014 - proceedings of the conference;
-   July 25, 2014 - sending the paper in extenso.



NOTE: The papers will be written in English, French, German, Italian, 
Portuguese or Spanish. Only the papers that have been presented and, 
subsequently, accepted by the peer review committee will be published 
(in the journal Language and Literature – European Landmarks of 
Identity, IDB-indexed and CNCS-classified). The time allotted to the 
presentation of a paper is 15 minutes.

After the papers are accepted, their authors will receive information 
about the accommodation and the bank coordinates in view of their paying 
the tax (50 € for the foreign participants, respectively 200 RON for the 
Romanian participants).
	


For any additional information, do not hesitate to contact us:
reperesidentitaires at yahoo.com; valentina.stinga at upit.ro
University of Piteşti, Faculty of Letters, Str. Gh. Doja, 41, 110253 - 
Piteşti, Argeş, România, Tel./fax  0040 34 84 53 300/301









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