CALL FOR PAPERS

CONFERENCE: QUESTIONING TRANSNATIONALISM: CULTURE, POLITICS & MEDIA

17 December 2010
Royal Holloway College, University of London
The Departments of Media Arts and Politics and International Relations
(PIR)

Keynote Speakers:
Prof. Thomas Diez -Political Science, University of Tübingen
Prof. Deniz Göktürk -Department of German, University of California,
Berkeley
Prof. Randall Halle -Department of German, University of Pittsburgh

This interdisciplinary postgraduate conference focuses on
transnationalism and securitisation, issues of increasing relevance in
both Politics and International Relations, and Media and Film Studies.
In both disciplines, there is currently a prevailing tendency to
conceive of borders as ever increasingly permeable elements in a
globalising world. The new communication technologies have certainly
reinforced the image that the world becomes a single place. However, a
‘borderless world’ proves to be illusionary as witnessed in the global
rise of securitization practices after the September 11 terrorist
attacks. Since then, even a bottle of water -at the airport- has
started to be perceived as a potential security threat.
‘Transnationalism' thereby becomes a useful lens through which issues
such as securitization, borders, legitimacy, citizenship, memory and
solidarity can be re-examined from a fresh theoretical perspective.

Within this framework, the major aims of this international conference
are threefold: to question the extent and limitations of
transnationalism; to analyse the cultural and political functions of
transnational actors and the impact of new communication technologies
such as the internet in the contemporary world; and finally to
encourage interdisciplinary approaches and critical perspectives in
the studies of transnationalism.

This conference will be organised by and run for postgraduate students
from various disciplinary backgrounds. It aims to give all
participants the opportunity to develop and broaden our knowledge in
this area of research. In this respect, the Departments of Media Arts
and Politics and International Relations would like to collaborate to
highlight the interdisciplinary character of transnationalism as a
phenomenon within a context whereby a diverse range of techniques such
as paper presentations, poster exhibitions and plenary discussions are
combined.

In order to disseminate the research findings, selected papers will be
considered for publication in the Journal of Critical Globalisation
Studies, a fully peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal published
by Royal Holloway, University of London.

The topics include but are not limited to:
• Current restrictions over the free movement of people, goods and
ideas
• Border policies
• Communication policies
• Political freedoms and cultural diversity
• National, religious, ethnic and gender issues
• The role of media in framing transnational terrorism, conflicts and
humanitarian crises
• Power of transnational media
• Power of transnational non-governmental actors
• Soft/hard power
• Multiculturalism, pluralism, cultural diversity
• Cosmopolitanism
• Post-colonial or post-national; centres versus margins/periphery
• Hybridity
• Glocalisation
• Representation of transnational identities
• Transnational cinema
• Diasporas and diasporic cinema

Submission of abstracts: by 10 September 2010
Official Acceptance: by 1 October
Early registration: by 15 October 2010
For submission guidelines, registration and further details please
see: http://royalhollowayconference.wordpress.com/