Common Themes Across Disciplines: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Sustainability

Two-day Workshop
November 3–4 , 2016

English Studies at the University of Vaasa is arranging a workshop on sustainability on November 3 — 4, 2016. This two-day workshop is aimed for scholars of cultural, literary, social, language, and translation studies for sharing and developing ideas across disciplinary borders on the very topical theme of cultural, social, economic, and ecological sustainability.

In this workshop, sustainability is understood broadly as an ‘activity that can be continued indefinitely without causing harm’ associated with ways of fulfilling our present needs without endangering those of future generations. Sustainability is discussed in the context of globalized cultures, as an aspect or norm in managing communication, multilingual, multicultural and multinational encounters and interactions between humans and different environments. Moreover, sustainability can serve as a heuristic in the analysis of representations and narrative constructions of for example memory and history in different cultural forms such as literature, film or other material artefacts.

The workshop will feature dialogic introductions and workshop sessions in which participants can present their projects and have the opportunity of developing ideas in dialogue with other researchers. Participants may contribute with a 20-minute-long presentation.

Workshop introductions by

Kristiina Abdallah, University of Vaasa
Mirka Rauniomaa, University of Helsinki/University of Oulu
Tommi Lehtonen, University of Vaasa
Daniel Rellstab, University of Vaasa

Programme

Please submit your proposal (max 300 words) and a short biographical statement (including name, address, institutional affiliation) to daniel.rellstab [at] uwasa.fi and tiina.mantymaki [at] uwasa.fi as attachments in rtf or doc(x) format by August 15, 2016. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out by August 29, 2016.

Participants should register for the workshop before September 12, 2016. The language of the workshop is English. Registration form

There is no workshop fee and participants are expected to cover all costs for travel, accommodation and subsistence themselves.

Organisers: Daniel Rellstab and Tiina Mäntymäki, English Studies, University of Vaasa

More information
http://www.uwasa.fi/en/sites/iposust/