Main topics:
- How do Europeans perceive and represent African culture(s)?
- How do Africans perceive and represent the "idea of Europe"?
- What shifts have occurred in these perceptions in the later half of 20th Century?
- What impact have new technologies had on these perceptions and representations?
- How has de-colonialisation and the African Renaissance affected African-European relations?
- What are the future outlooks?

Description:
The conference features 20 panels, five keynote speakers, and a roundtable discussion. It emphasizes racial, ethnic, and ideological inclusiveness, and encourages new thinking about race in the United States.

Description:
The theme of the conference will address the interface of identity politics with economic issues and security/foreign policy concerns, either in the past or in contemporary developments.

Possible topics:
Language, Thought and Reality · Myth, Metaphor and Reality · Realism and Idealism · Scepticism, Agnosticism and Dogmatism · Deductivism and Inductivism · Holism and Atomism · Ineffable and Unknowable · God and Absolute · Transcendence and Immanence · Reason, Revelation and Faith · Atman and Brahman · Tao and Inaction · Zen and Enlightement · Vedanta and Sufism · Emptiness and Nothingness · Maya and Primal Nature · Creation, Reincarnation and Evolution · Deconstruction and Relativity · Process Theology · Existentialism and Essentialism

Areas of emphasis:
The Politics of Culture · Exhibiting the World · Museums and Nations · Urban Identities · Ethnicity, History, and Prehistory · Race, Space, and Fiction · Imagining Ethnicity · Legacies of Ethnographic Display · Representing Culture · Colonization and Representation · Inventing the Observer/Observed · The Political Economies of Race · The Iconography of Otherness · Technologies of Display · Travelers’ Tales · Mapping Race · Engendering Race/Racializing Gender · Sexuality and Exhibit(ionism)s

Description:
The title of the conference includes both theoretical approaches to the analysis of dialogue in discourse analysis or conversation analysis and empirical work on different aspects of dialogue and discourse. One of the main topics of the conference will be misunderstandings or lack of cooperation in dialogue. It is hoped that there will also be some special sessions on the analysis of spoken and multimodal corpora, dialogue analysis in a historical perspective and dialogic aspects of literature.

Description:
The conference will focus on the uniqueness of Islam in Africa emphasizing its global context, from the first arrival of the religion on the continent up through current events in which Islam plays a role. Submissions are invited from a number of perspectives: historical, social, cultural, political, philosophical, textual, economic, linguistic, literary, etc.

Themes:
The Vilnius Conference on the Dialogue among Civilisations will bring together leaders of states, decision-makers, distinguished scholars and artists in the debate about the complex issues of culture and civilisations in the contemporary world. Participants will be invited to share their insights on the present state of the communications among civilisations and to discuss better ways to build mutual understanding between the different civilisations. Conference proceedings will be accompanied by cultural events with the participation of performers from various parts of the world.
The conference will not confine itself to stating the present-day situation but will also reflect upon historical aspects of the dialogue between different civilisations. It will further seek to develop forward-looking proposals for possible ways to pursue a dialogue among civilisations aimed at its logical outcome – e.g., mutual understanding, tolerance, solidarity, and co-operation among different cultures and civilisations of the world.

Description:
The conference brings together scholars from numerous disciplines to explore the emergence of race as a "scientific" category in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century and to examine its consequent developments during the initial decades of the nineteenth century. Speakers and respondents draw on traditions of philosophy, law, science, anthropology, and literature in order to reconsider the early history of racial thinking in the development of European modernity.

Description:
There have been significant changes in the extent of scientific and technical knowledge, in the definition of human rights and in their fields of interaction. Scientific research and the defence of Human Rights have common values (desire for universality, concern for rigour and transparency, critical thinking), and so they are undertakings with an inclination to ally and to inform each other, thus working for the better and against the worst.

Objective:
Scientific reflection is required in order to understand more adequately the values and pattern of a country’s culture, the significance of the internal transformative factors and the implications of influences from other cultures. While other sciences identify what is possible, philosophy is concerned with what is desirable and how present imperatives can be integrated within a broader context in a way that enables them to have positive, rather than negative effect. Such a philosophical and social study of the pattern of cultural transformation in South East Asia today is the goal of the present project.
Moreover, as this is a matter of the emergence of the creativity of the South East Asian people as a whole it is necessary to engage in this the capabilities of the various parts of South East Asia, both to draw upon the experience of local cultures and to stimulate this level of reflection on the transformation of life in these days.

Description:
The Symposium will focus on the preservation, transmission and transformation of indigenous cultures. It will bring together indigenous and non-indigenous scholars, experts, authors and publishers. It will lead to the presentation of concrete recommendations, which may draw lines of action in favour of the cultural development of these communities. The Symposium will also examine the perspectives offered by new technologies to these cultures, too often isolated but which could technically be in contact with the entire world through videoconferences and the Internet, etc. Projects of collaboration (conception of CD-ROMs, collection of data on traditional heritage and knowledge, exchange or bilingual teaching programmes) could arise from the exchange of views between participants.

Themes:
- Prejudice and racism. Forms and levels of discrimination in society
- European antidiscrimination policies; impact of the EU "Race Equality" directive
- Human rights and minorities. International and local legislation
- Discrepancy between laws and their implementation
- Issues of growing inequalities in the globalized world
- Multicultural and antiracist education. Contents, methods, and didactics
- Education of Romani children and other children from marginalized and excluded communities
- Managing multiethnic communities on local level. Role of school; creating partnerships
- Follow up initiatives and proposals for long term action
- Recommendations for the World Conference Against Racism 2001

Sessions:
- Political Culture in the New World
- Consociationalism
- Language and Federalism
- The Future of Individual and Group Rights

Main themes:
1. The Concept of Human Rights:
Universalism, local traditions, and cultural specificity. Is the 'human rights' agenda a form of cultural imperialism? Is there a universal human nature to ground universal human rights? Are the ideas of 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity' morally appropriate?
2. Military Intervention and the 'Just War' Tradition:
Can the infringement of national sovereignty be justified by gross violations of human rights? Principled and pragmatic reasons for policies of non-intervention – will intervention always make things worse? Do moral duties extend beyond borders?
3. The 'New International Order':
Is there a new international order? Globalisation and the decline of the nation-state. Ethnicity, nationalism and internationalism; challenges to modern liberalism and communitarianism. What kinds of institutions would be needed to embody the idea of an international order? Is world government a sensible end? Should national institutions effect global policies? Limits and jurisdiction of international law.

Topics:
- Inclusion and exclusion of minorities into and from nation states
- Interethnic relations in the context of multiethnic societies
- Ethnic politics and ethno-nationalism and the creation of minority politics
- "Homeland" politics
- Majority-minority relations
- (Changes and continuities of) minority rights
- Minority representation and the making of minorities over time
- Ethnic migration and minority rights in the context of state formation and nation-building
- (Historical) migration patterns and migration systems of minorities
- Ethnic violence
- Prevention and monitoring of minority rights and ethnic migration
- Ethnic "unmixing" of peoples
- The role of international organizations in the area of minority protection and ethnic migration

Themes:
- pluralism, community and recognition
- international security and conflict-resolution
- universalism and particularism
- asylum, immigration and aboriginal minorities
- re-thinking identity and nationalism
- liberalism, the market and post-Soviet societies
- feminism and social change in post-Soviet states
- capitalism and social justice
- the rise of political theologies in post-1989 Europe
- challenges of globalization
- human rights and international intervention

Themes:
- Framing a Just Relationship: Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Perspectives
- Aboriginal Rights in the Light of History
- Aboriginal Rights and the Discourse of Multiculturalism
- Aboriginal Rights, Nationhood, and Sovereignty
- Continuing Dialogues: Aboriginal Perspectives, Scholarship, and the Disciplines

Temario tentativo:
1. Las sociedades latinoamericanas: de los orígenes al siglo XX
2. Principales resultados y enseñanzas del desarrollo de los países latinoamericanos y caribeños durante el siglo XX, en el contexto de la historia mundial
3. Latinoamérica y el Caribe en el contexto planetario del siglo XXI
4. Latinoamérica y el Caribe: su lugar y su papel en la cultura mundial
5. La comunidad iberoamericana: idea y práctica
6. El individuo y la humanidad en el mundo postindustrial (dimensión latinoamericana)
7. Las relaciones interétnicas: experiencia latinoamericana para el nuevo siglo
8. Enseñanzas y potencialidades del desarrollo de América Latina y Rusia
9. Latinoamericanística: quid novi et quo vadis?

Description:
We will be seeking to combine different national experiences and approaches around common issues. Both the parallels between regions in their experiences and the differences provide a valuable opportunity for cross-regional learning. Presentations on regions at varying stages in the peace process (or not yet formally embarked on any peace process) are welcome and as ever we are particularly pleased to welcome contributions from a range of academic disciplines.