Old Email Archive

digest 2001-09-25 #001.txt

11:13 PM 9/24/01 -0700
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 
Daily SLS Email Digest

-> Aarhus calling/CFP for 2nd European SLS in Denmark, May 2002
     by "Carol Colatrella" 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 24 Sep 2001 08:29:42 -0700
From: "Carol Colatrella" 
Subject: Aarhus calling/CFP for 2nd European SLS in Denmark, May 2002

To SLS Members and other LITSCI-L members:
I know that Aarhus might not be a familiar city to many of you, so I'm
taking the liberty of doing a little publicity on behalf of the
conference
organizers for SLS 2002 there (see CFP below this note).  As I learned
during my five-month stay in fall 2000 as a Fulbrighter, Aarhus is the
second largest city in Denmark with a wealth of architectural,
educational,
and social resources that would interest many. It has the well-deserved
reputation of being a lively city because it is home to many students.
There are wonderful restaurants, cafes, and clubs, including what must
be 
Denmark's oldest and finest jazz club, Bent J's.

There is a well-preserved portion of the city in the old city area, and
there are a number of historic buildings from all over Denmark that have
been moved to an incredible complex sited between the old city and the
university (Den Gamle By).  Centuries-old buildings have been arranged
in a
village and furnished to typify life in particular historical periods.

In addition to art galleries, the women's museum, and the Holocaust
museum
in the old city, the university campus is next to an art museum and home
to
a museum of natural history and a particularly fine history of science
museum with a planetarium.  The History of Science Museum has a
fantastic 
medical history collection.  The History of Science department at the
university is very strong, with some members interested in participating
in
SLS, and has a fine library of its own.

Randi Markussen, Finn Olesen, and Casper Bruun Jensen have arranged for
SLS2002 to be located in the Aarhus University conference center, which
is
across the street from the State Library, one of the largest libraries
in 
Denmark.  Surrounded by neighborhoods with a mix of residential and
retail
properties, Aarhus University has a lovely campus built for walking. 
It's
easy to get from one end of campus to the other, and even from campus
into
the old city or to the newer Information Technology center in the other
direction.  There is an efficient Aarhus bus system that is
user-friendly,
and the train station is a five-minute bus ride from the conference
center.

One can fly to Aarhus from Copenhagen or (usually via London) to Billund
(where the original Legoland  and Lego headquarters are).  If you would
like
to see more of Denmark, you can go by train to Skagen (where the seas
meet)
and Grena (where there is a fantastic aquarium on the sea).  Recent
bridge
construction has enabled a fast (2 1/2 hour) train from Aarhus to
Copenhagen, a line that permits one to stop over in Odense (Hans
Christian
Anderson's birthplace) or Roskilde (site of the incredible Viking ship
museum).

Danish modesty precludes superlatives, but as an American I can boast on
their behalf that the second European conference of SLS in May 2002 in
being
located at Aarhus University will be great and will offer visitors the
opportunity to see a city that ought to be better known.

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT

THE SECOND EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR
LITERATURE
AND SCIENCE:

EXPERIMENTING ARTS AND SCIENCES

May 8-12, 2002.

CALL FOR PAPERS AND WORKSHOPS

The second European conference of the International Society for
Literature
and Science (SLS) will take place at University of Aarhus, Denmark, May
8-12, 2002.

The conference will gather scholars from human, social, medical,
technical
and natural sciences as well as artists, who are interested in inter-
and 
transdisciplinary approaches and linkages between the study of culture,
literature, visual arts and technoscience, and between science and the
arts.
Culture and technoscience used to be regarded as disparate activities
and 
fields of study that referred to separate spheres of society, and to
different epistemologies, methodologies and practices. But in recent
years,
a growing number of scholars from many disciplines have forged
transversal
lines and links between the study of culture/literature/visual arts and
technoscience, exploring issues such as for example

* links between fact and fiction
* transversal lines between science and story-telling
* links between cultural imaginaries and scientific practices
* semiotic-material practices
* how metaphors matter and matter performs metaphorically
* intersections and incommensurabilities between visual arts,
literature,
culture and technoscience
* translations between physical and virtual spaces
* cyborg identities and cyborg bodies
* feminist and postcolonial perspectives in technoscience studies

The conference will be a forum for exchange of ideas between senior and
junior researchers committed to the exploration of such issues and to
experiments with transgression of boundaries between the formerly
disparate
fields of culture/literature/visual arts and technoscience. In
particular,
the conference will give space to scholars who want to compare notes
cross-nationally and cross-Atlantically.

Many European scholars seem to be committed to the study of the new
interdisciplinary field of culture & technoscience studies without
knowing
about the International Society for Literature and Science that
originally
was started by US-colleagues. The first European conference of the
society,
held in Brussels in April 2000, initiated a much needed cross-Atlantic
dialogue. The idea is that the second conference in May 2002 shall take
this
process important steps further.

Proposals for papers and workshops are invited from both senior and
junior
scholars from all disciplines who are interested in the links and border
transgressions between the study of culture, literature, visual arts and
technoscience.

Abstracts for papers and workshops (2-300 words) should be sent to
SLS@imv.au.dk before Oct. 1, 2001.

SLS c/o: Randi Markussen, Associate Professor, Ph.D.
Dept. of Information and Media Studies
University of Aarhus
Niels Juels Gade 84
8200 Aarhus N
Denmark
Phone (switchboard)     +45 89 42 11 11
Phone (direct)          +45 89 42 19 66
Telefax         +45 89 42 19 52
Conference website from September 1: http: //imv.au.dk/SLS-Europe
The City of Aarhus can be visited 'virtually' at
http://www.aarhus-tourist.dk/index.htm
and University  of Aarhus at http://www.au.dk/en/

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