Who defines, produces, participates in, studies, and otherwise engages with culture? What are the patterns, processes, and diverse manifestations of human (or non-human) culture? Why are we interested in understanding culture, how does culture come to have political significance, and how might we find ways of understanding culture from different methodological and theoretical perspectives? We encourage papers that range from detailed case studies of cultureal phenomena to theoretical syntheses treating culture as a constructed phenomena to theoretical syntheses treating culture as a constructed concept.

• representation of social, cultural or political identity through translation
• problems in the transfer of culture-bound issues, such as taboos, and the way translators and interpreters deal with these problems
• (implicit) ideological and political attitudes underpinning the choice of translation strategies
• the role of translation in formerly colonized areas: status-related differences between source and target texts, the relation between the colonizer's language and national languages, and the role of the lingua franca
• issues in translating and interpreting from an oral to a written medium and vice-versa; the relation between translation and code switching
• the role of institutions and/or individual translators and interpreters as linguistic and cultural mediators

• Memory and the construction of history
• Race, gender, and identity
• Transformations in social and cultural institutions
• The politics of culture and the culture of politics
• Political economy of Africa and its Diaspora
• Africa and the global polity
• Critical theory and comparative literatures
• Diaspora, nation, and post-modernity
• Popular culture
• Performance and cinematic representations
• Science and indigenous knowledge systems
• Pan-Africanism

• Epistemology of the market place: to what extent is traditional Western epistemology the foundation of globalisation?
• Metaphysics of globalisation what are the fundamental presuppositions of globalisation
• Ethical and religious dimensions of globalisation theory and application of globalisation
• Political philosophy of globalisation the drive toward selective democratisation of countries for globalisation and the attendant problems
• Aesthetics of globalisation the commercialisation of art
• The impact of globalisation on education in developing societies
• Cyberspace and developing societies
• Globalisation and justice – justice and poverty
• The existential dimension of justice

Our 2004 conference will address this irony by exploring the formation and significance of ethnic, racial, and national identities among African descent and Asian descent populations in Africa, Asia, and globally in the 20th century. The conference is focused on the role of racial, ethnic, and national thinking in inter-group, national, and international relations, such as in relations between Han Chinese and Chinese minorities, the intersection of ethnic nationalism and foreign policy in Japan, and Muslim/Hindu conflict in India. However, we also encourage papers on coalition building across racial, ethnic, communal, and national divides. Proposals for papers on movement such as Pan Asianism, Pan Africanism, the American Civil Rights Movement, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and separatist movements in the Punjab, Kashmir, and Indonesia are welcome provided they directly address the issues of race, ethnicity, and nation. Proposed panels and individual papers may be comparative in scope or focused on particular countries or groups.

1. The Information Society Context

• Providing a suitable legal and regulatory framework to take into account technological advancements, protect individual rights, implement regulations in a global context, and/or enable a global information society.
• Challenges for governments and their agencies wishing to provide services to the general public, support access and diffusion of innovative technologies to all citizens; differences among local and global perspectives.
• Adoption and diffusion in different cultural environments. Social inclusion and exclusion. Gender issues. Privacy and personal data protection in the digital era.
• Using ICT to promote security, and the implications of this.

2. Social and ethical issues for consumers in the Information Society

• Issues of trust and privacy on-line. Digital content distribution over the Internet: issues of anarchy vs censorship, digital rights, security and control. Ethical implications in the use of peer-to-peer content distribution technologies.
• Ethics of virtual communities.
• Addressing usability concerns.
• Social and ethical issues in customer relationship management and business intelligence.
• Social and ethical issues of new methods of news and propaganda dissemination.

3. Social and ethical issues for employees, workers and managers in the Information Society

• Opportunities and threats for lifelong learning, telework, social inclusion, community relationships, equal opportunities, and the consequential impacts in resource use.
• Changes in the work environment, including mobility, monitoring practices, 'big brother' in the work environment.
• Issues of motivation and responsibility. Development of new skills.
• Responsibilities of the Information Systems and Software Engineering professional; including for collective acts/inaction and for what others do with the technology.
• Challenges in knowledge management; individual vs. organisational learning. Online learning resources and the Internet as a knowledge pool.

• indigenous peoples and the idea of region
• issues and challenges in interpreting and preserving regional history
• defining regional boundaries and cultures
• the creation and influence of regional stereotypes and myths
• the impact of mass media, the global economy, and other international forces on local and regional distinctiveness
• the research, acquisition, interpretation and preservation of regional collections

The Convention welcomes proposals on a wide range of topics related to national identity, nationalism, ethnic conflict and state-building in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, and adjacent areas. Disciplines represented include political science, history, anthropology, sociology, economics, geography, sociolinguistics, and related disciplines. The Convention invites proposals for individual papers or for complete panels.
The 2004 Convention will introduce a new section devoted to theoretical approaches to nationalism, from any of the disciplines listed above. The papers in this section do not necessarily have to be grounded in an area of the former Communist bloc usually covered by ASN, as long as the issues examined are relevant to a truly comparative understanding of nationalism-related issues. In this vein, we are welcoming theory-focused and cross-regional proposals, rather than case studies from outside Eastern Europe and Eurasia.

• Theoretical traditions, research methodologies, history, sociology and political science
• Issues of social, cultural, gender, sexuality, identity, ethnicity, and social movements
• Issues of development, globalization, finance, privatization and technology
• Issues of educational pedagogy, spirituality and religion
• Modes of literary expressions, languages, music, performing arts and visual arts
• Questions of law, human rights, law enforcement and prisons
• Technology and the development of Global African Diasporic linkages in Asia, The Middle East, North, Central and South America, The Caribbean Islands, Australia and New Zealand

ASEN is holding a special two day conference to mark the retirement of Professor Anthony D. Smith, Professor of Ethnicity and Nationalism at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
The first day of the conference will feature prominent scholars of nationalism. They will be debating the question: "When is the Nation?"
The second day of the conference offers opportunities for scholars to examine and critique Anthony D. Smith's contributions to the study of nationalism in panel sessions under the rubric "Ethnicity, nation and nationalism: Anthony D. Smith's work". Some suggested topics are: the role of ethnicity in nationalism, the relation of modernity to nationalism, myths and memories of the nation, nationalism versus globalization?, nationalism and art, and the historicity of the nation.

The conference aims to bring two recent scholarly discussions into dialogue: (1) interpretations of modern European political thought about colonialism and non-European peoples; and (2) analysis and evaluation of the political thought of late nineteenth and twentieth century writers from Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. We aim to situate discussion of these literatures in relation to theoretical interpretation and normative analysis of contemporary political issues aspects of which can be construed as legacies of colonialism or imperialism.

• What are the characteristics of a democratic society and a democratic state?
• Is the reform of society or the reform of state institutions more important for securing greater democracy?
• What weight should be given to the claims of autonomy and the claims of community in a democratic society?
• What opportunities should citizens have to participate in making political decisions and in filling political positions in a democratic society?
• What basic rights and freedoms should citizens and groups have in a democratic society and how might these be safeguarded?
• Are there special constraints on the democratic institutions in a society that is pluralist in national, ethnic, cultural, linguistic or religious terms?
• How can political and economic power be democratically exercised and regulated in a socialist society with a market economy?
• Should democratic reform be driven more by the changing needs of politics, economy or society?
• Can the choice of one set of democratic institutions rather than another reduce the dangers of corruption, weak or irrational decision-making, factionalism, populism or excessive nationalism in a particular democratic society?
• What should determine the sequence and timing of democratic reforms?
• In a society seeking greater democracy, should deliberations about reform be restricted to intellectuals or take place in a wider public arena?
• How can different conceptions of democracy contribute to deliberation about the political future of a society?

The conference will explore the lessons that might be drawn for both international bodies and state governments around the world from the constitutional management of cultural pluralism in Canada. Issues to be investigated include federalism, official bilingualism, the status of Aboriginal Peoples and the entrenchment of cultural rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Con ser absolutamente necesaria la investigación en torno a las estructuras fenomenológico-trascendentales básicas de la experiencia del Otro en que se sustenta el encuentro intersubjetivo, dicha investigación debe ser profundizada no sólo en el sentido de su 'mundaneidad' sino también, y más si cabe en el momento civilizatorio actual, en el sentido de la interculturalidad que, tanto como hecho y proceso, cuanto como posibilidad, constituye sin duda uno de los horizontes de la interhumanidad e interpersonalidad del hombre contemporáneo en su 'Lebenswelt'. La pregunta decisiva acerca de 'Qué es el Hombre' cada vez aparece más fenomenológica y hermenéuticamente vinculada con la diversidad de las culturas, que en la era de la comunicación global está pasando de ser un rótulo teórico de la antropología cultural a ser una realidad extremadamente sensible del mundo de la vida.

The field of Arabic philosophy is a growing one, and recent scholarship has yielded an increasing sense of the nature and breadth of the sources that influenced philosophers working in Arabic during the "classical" period. There is also a growing appreciation of the diversity and breadth of the reception of classical Arabic philosophy. The present conference seeks to extend our understanding of both the origins and repercussions of philosophy in the classical period.

Issues of culture, ethnicity, race, age, gender, and sexual orientation have assumed greater significance in the United States as a result of changing demographics and the growing national awareness of differences. New skills and knowledge are required in fields such as workforce diversity, human resource management, education, and conflict resolution. The conference will feature speakers and workshops presented by nationally recognized experts on workplace diversity, multicultural education, cultural awareness and cross-cultural dialogue.

This symposium brings together writers and historians representing numerous specializations to investigate the Renaissance both as a historical period and an ideology of western origins and progressive rebirth. Speakers will address the question of how stories of "the Renaissance" have been told and used for distinguishing East from West, and how these stories might need retelling in the light of new archival materials, developments in global studies, and the current international moment. This is a timely and important topic that will be interrogated from several different interdisciplinary angles. While the historical focus of the symposium is "the Renaissance", the organizers are inviting speakers to reflect upon the ways that this nineteenth-century European concept has been used to tell a variety of stories that have served to disguise and even occlude the social, religious, and cultural links between East and West during the previous centuries.

Papers are to address the spatial configurations of the relations that form particular landscapes. Spatial relations are constitutive of a geographical matrix that includes human-natural-artifactual-virtual components. Any combination from the matrix is possible: e.g. human to human; human to natural; human to artifactual; human to virtual; natural to artifactual; natural to virtual; artifactual to virtual. The many other combinations of relations from the above matrix are also available for exploration. Geographical case studies of the spatiality of specific types of relations in specific locales are encouraged. Whatever your research concerns, please make thematic the geographical moment of relations and your work will be appropriate to the theme of the conference.

In every case in which use of force is justifiable the question of the limits of its use and the institutional means to regulate it become relevant. Legal systems have an elaborate system of rules and principles governing the use of force. The very same issues are important not only within contemporary legal systems but also within ancient legal systems such as Canon law, Islamic law and Jewish law. The treatment of this question reflects sociological and cultural differences among different societies/cultures and their different attitudes towards the use of force to achieve personal or national goals. They reflect deep-seated sentiments with respect to the status of individuals in the society and national groups within the international order.
The motivation for convening this conference is of course the greater relevance of this question in the area of international law. Questions such as the legitimacy of preemptive strike/using force for self -defense are perhaps among the most important questions facing the international community nowadays. Yet, the conference will look at these questions from a multi-faceted perspective addressing different actors such as states, individuals acting in self defense, parents using force to discipline their children. The hope is that by investigating the question of the boundaries of the use of force in criminal law, tort law, family law, international law and other fields of the law from philosophical, doctrinal, historical and cultural perspectives, general principles governing the use of the use of force will be revealed. In addition, the extent to which controversies with respect to these questions reflect deep-seated cultural disagreements will be examined.

• El Sistema de las Naciones Unidas en la encrucijada actual: Unílateralismo vs. Multilateralismo
• Las nuevas doctrinas imperialistas de Seguridad Nacional
• El armamentismo, las guerras contemporáneas y sus daños a la humanidad
• La lucha de los pueblos por la paz, el equilibrio mundial y contra el Fascismo
• Crisis de la Economía Mundial; efectos y alternativas
• El papel de los medios de información en los conflictos actuales y la ética informativa

• Space
• Identity
• Social Change and Social Justice
• Diasporic Cultures
• Pedagogizing Diaspora Studies

• China's Changing Position in the World: From Empire to Nation to Globalization
• International Aspects of System Change in China: China's Search for a New Political Order – Between Opening to the World and Self-Isolation
• China's Integration into the World Economy: Colonization – Self Reliance – Globalization
• Chinese Identity in an International Context: The Voice of the Intellectuals
• Chineseness in the Age of Globalization – A Symbol of Particularity or a Motor for Internationalisation?

• Democracia, subjetividad y filosofía
• Políticas de la filosofía
• Historia de la filosofía en la región
• Homenaje a pensadores/as latinoamericanos/as contemporáneos/as
• Pensamiento de los pueblos originarios y de afrodescendientes
• Modernidades y posmodernidades en América Latina
• Identidades regionales y violencia social

• Negotiation of culture, language, religion within (non-)territorial communities
• Parochialism and globalization
• Community and fragmentation in global cities
• Communitarianism vs. rights
• Literary and artistic productions within transnational democracies
• Aesthetic concerns of ethnic subjects in democratic societies
• How literature reflects democratic concerns
• Negotiating ethnic exceptionalism and participation in a larger collectivity
• Nation states and imagined communities
• Nationalism and transnational loyalties
• Nativism and racism in democratic contexts
• Ethnic Press and transnationalism
• Ethnic community vs. local law
• (Il)legal immigration
• Transnational identities
• Fragmented identities
• Political agency, political choices
• Balkanization of mentality
• Bastions of ethnic tolerance
• Citizenship and ethnopolitics
• Civis and civility
• Ethnic anxieties
• Ethnic discrimination and affirmative actions
• Ethnogenesis and ethnostasis
• From Confrontation to cooperation
• Internal colonialisms
• Mythologized nationalisms
• Xenophobia/xenophilia

• The Transcendent Philosophy and Mulla Sadra's School
• Comparative Studies of Mulla Sadra and other Philosophers
• Comparative Studies of Islamic Philosophy and Western Philosophy
• History of Philosophy, the Philosophy of Ancient Iran and its Influence on World Philosophy
• Issues in Contemporary Philosophy, including Phenomenology, Existentialism, Analytic Philosophy, Hermeneutics, Philosophy of Language and Post-Modernism
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Mind and Cognitive Sciences
• Logic and Philosophy of Logic
• Theology and Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Ethics, Philosophy of Art, and Politics
• Philosophical Psychology and Eschatology

Why not commit blasphemy or sacrilege? Why do people become so offended? How can we understand the value of 'the sacred' and the associated wrongs of blasphemy and sacrilege cross-culturally? Religious tolerance and respect for the rights of groups in modern societies raise complex philosophical, legal, political and sociological questions. As issues they have enormous practical significance in a multi-cultural society with diverse religious beliefs and cultural practices. The conference will draw together theologians, lawyers, philosophers, political theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, media representatives, museum and art curators, as well as intellectuals in different religious and cultural groups with the goals of promoting social dialogue about the sacred and sensitivity towards religious difference.

• Constituent Power as Body: Outline of A Constitutional Theology (Lior Barshack)
• Conditions for Framework Legislation (Elizabeth Garret)
• Is Toleration a Political Virtue? (David Heyd)
• Jewish State (Chaim Gans)
• Diversity, Reciprocity and Justice (Stephen Macedo)
• Democracy and Authority (Andrei Marmor)
• Univeral Justice, Local Norms, the (Sometimes) Pseudo Debate of Human Rights Violations Within Minority Cultures (Nahshon Perez)
• Hinduism Christianity and Liberal Toleration (Jeff Spinner Halev)
• Muslim personal law and the majority-minority syndrome (Rajeev Bhargava)

Axe 1: Les acteurs face à l'internationalisation: culture(s) et identité(s)

• Mise en contact des cultures et des sociétés. Gestion de l'interculturalité et de la différence
• Formation des usages et réception
• Métiers, formations et identités professionnelles
• Pratiques de recherche et identités

Axe 2: Des machines à communiquer mondiales?

• Des "machines à communiquer" mondiales?
• Programmes et messages

Axe 3: Sciences, éducation et technique

• Images, objets, musées
• Experts et publics: circulation et appropriation des savoirs
• Systèmes éducatifs et universités

Axe 4: Organisations et politique(s)

• Communication politique, gouvernance et citoyenneté
• Dispositifs et pratiques de l'information et de la communication pour les organisations

It is impossible to understand hegemony except as a particular form of power relationship. In Gramsci, for example, hegemony represents the ideological dimension that is linked to power to form a system of domination. At the same time, hegemony prompts counterhegemony. One of the reasons for the disjunction between hegemony and power in the literature is the tendency for academics studying and theorizing hegemony to assume, as Gramsci does, that power remains an inherently unproblematic phenomenon. However, the extensive power literature has established that understanding power is highly complex and that any analysis that takes it for granted as unproblematic will tend to be simplistic. In addition to the challenge of integrating hegemony and power at a conceptual and theoretical level, the presence of hegemonic activity in daily political activities requires attention to the ways in which hegemony and power are institutionalized and practiced.

We are hosting an international gathering of scholars, religious leaders and business professionals. Papers will be presented on various religious traditions' perspectives on the ethics of commerce. We would like to address the following questions: Is a purely secular business ethics irremediably deficient? Does a substantive business ethics require a religious and spiritual framework? To what extent does current business practice reflect a spiritual dimension? What are the various religious traditions' perspectives on the ethics of commerce? Can the various religious traditions generate a non-adversarial, consistent, and coherent business ethic? Is there a role for religion and spirituality in a global and post-modern business world? Conceptual, historical, normative, and empirical proposals are welcome from all disciplines.

Western philosophy has claimed a universalist patriarchal prerogative during its first two and a half millennia. Today, however, philosophical and feminist dialogues are crossing all the old borders. This generates new conceptual reflections on hitherto neglected or under-theorized aspects of for instance identity, body, sexuality, and community, and aims at a transgression of the traditional separation between politics and philosophy. The Symposium wants to welcome critiques and reconsiderations of traditional conceptions of our common human good and the conditions for flourishing human lives in a time of changing global relationships. We invite the participants to treat the subject of human good from a variety of divergent philosophical starting points:

• Welfare / Flourishing / Group identity / Embodiment
• Globalizing justice / Postnational democracy / Agency in the public sphere
• Personal relations / Sexuality / Death / Care

Tradition und Traditionsbruch gehören zu den entscheidenden Herausforderungen in einer beschleunigt zusammenwachsenden Welt. Sollten beide Seiten nicht in einem unfriedlichen Antagonismus verharren, so ist Prämissentransparenz und Grenzbestimmung der je eigenen und fremden Argumente gefragt. Dabei lässt sich die gegenwärtige Auseinandersetzung zwischen universellen Werten moderner Zivilgesellschaften und der Idee kulturrelativer Werthorizonte auf Grundfragen zurückführen, die nicht allein das Verhältnis der Kulturen untereinander, sondern die Kulturen in ihrem Innersten selbst berührt.
Tradiertes kann dogmatisch werden, wenn gelten soll, dass es allein aufgrund seiner Herkunft Geltung beanspruchen kann. Der Traditionsbruch kann Skepsis und Relativität zur Folge haben, wenn gelten soll, dass bereits unter Verdacht gerät, was sich rationaler Argumentation entzieht. Die Tagung ist auf einer philosophischen Ebene – in historischer und systematischer Absicht – mit dieser Grundspannung befasst.
Ziel der Tagung ist es, in der Auseinandersetzung mit klassischen Quellen der europäischen und außereuropäischen Philosophiegeschichte zu zeigen, dass diese Formen der Selbstartikulation kultureller Selbstverständnisse die Kulturen nicht grundsätzlich voneinander unterscheiden; dass Selbstkritik und Selbstaffirmation vielmehr nur zwei entgegengesetzte Reaktionen auf eine von innen oder von außen gefährdete Identität zum Ausdruck bringen. Denn es lassen sich etwa skeptisch-kritische Positionen in der abendländischen wie der islamischen Philosophie ausfindig machen; spekulativ-systematische Arbeiten in der islamischen, der hinduistischen wie auch der europäischen Philosophie oder aber rationalistische und analytische Strömungen in allen drei genannten philosophischen Traditionen.

• civilizational and evolutionary models of socio-political development
• interaction of the socio-political and cultural-mental groups of factors in the processes of social transformations
• cultural and socio-biological foundations and factors of dominance in human societies
• power strategies vs. stages of political evolution
• hierarchy and heterarchy in the sociopolitical history of humankind
• ideology and legitimation of power in different civilizational contexts
• violence and non-violence in the history of political institutions formation, development and decline
• the role of economy in sociopolitical processes
• access to information as a condition and its use as a means of political manipulation and mobilization
• "classical" (band, tribe, chiefdom, state) and "alternative" forms of sociopolitical organization
• "traditional" and recent schools and trends in the study of the "hierarchy and power" problematique

• Comparative Studies of Chinese Language
• Chinese Dialects: Social and Cultural Function
• South-East Asian Chinese: Identity, Social Changes and Language Education
• Literature in Chinese, Comparative Literature and National Boundary
• Cultural Studies in the Context of Globalization and Modernity

• the processes of globalization, from above, from below, and in the middle
• local-regional-national-global relationships and impacts including the global impact of local and regional conflicts, the local and regional impact of global trends, and the transformation of local, regional, national economies and social structures
• politics with a particular emphasis on the crisis of democracy in the globalization process
• labour including 'new forms of labour' (casual, temporary, contractual, part-time, requiring mobility and adaptability , deskilling)
• resources including the commodification of resources: water, health, tourism (including cultural tourism), and the expansion of consumer culture over poor and marginal people and cultures
• transmission and preservation of memory including individual and collective memory, global forms, global corporate memory, digitisation, ethical issues
• social movements including alternative globalization or anti-globalization movements, from the local to the transnational scale
• war including the revival of war as a way of approaching international controversy
• terrorism
• migration including new types of migration ( for example, the separation of national economic policies from migration policies, the increase of state regulations around their borders, the exclusion of labour migration from migration policies)
• poverty including the growth, expansion, and feminization of poverty
• development: the role of oral history, the impact of globalisation, ethics
• gender, religion, music, health and healing dealt with specifically or as a particular focus within other sub-themes
• theory and methodology

• Asian/Asian American Cultural Studies
• Critical Pedagogy and Cultural Studies
• Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies
• Gender and Sexuality Studies
• Globalization, Postcolonialism, and Pedagogy
• Latina/o Cultural Innovation at a Crossroads
• Media/Cultural Studies
• Neo-liberalism, Governmentality, and Cultural Studies
• Performative Cultural Studies
• The Political and Cultural Studies
• Race, Identity, and Representation
• Sport and Cultural Studies

• Culture: theory and praxis
• Culture and economy
• Alternative models for ICT diffusion
• Role of governments and activists in culture, technology and communication
• ICTs and cultural hybridity
• ICTs and intercultural communication
• Culture, communication and e-learning