Conference, September 25-27.2014 CENS, University of Helsinki

Mapping Europe’s North and South is an under-researched part of image studies within humanities and social sciences. We invite scholars of these fields to present and detect previous and ongoing research tied to the mental mapping of the binary North and South within Europe. The cardinal directions of North and South have been perceived in various ways according to different spatial-temporal perspectives. The ideological production of space lies in the core of mapping practices defining Europe in the past and up to the present.

The North-South dichotomy within European thought has been downplayed, with some notable exceptions, in recent years due to a strong interest in post-colonial analysis. This approach has emphasized the relationships between Europe, or the West, and the rest of the world. Similar hierarchical orderings and mechanisms in the intra-European mental mapping practices as those revealed in a larger global post-colonial analysis have thus been obscured.

Mapping Europe’s internal others and the complex typologies of cultural transfers in both directions, remains a pristine field of research in many ways. The research is somewhat dispersed and one aim of the conference is to start systematic gathering of information about ongoing research in order to initiate an international network.

Potential themes include but are not limited to:

– Early modern mental mapping of Europe’s North and South

– Enlightenment: the upgrading of the North and the invention of Southern Europe.

– Reception of literature and art

– Space and gender

– Cultural transfers and European intellectual history

– Contemporary debates on North and South

Please submit your abstract (300 words) as a [word/pdf] file to Eliel Kilpelä at eliel.kilpela@helsinki.fi. Please include your name, academic affiliation and address in your email. The deadline for submission of abstracts is April 30, 2014

Selected participants will be noticed by 15 May.

For more information, please contact:

Professor Peter Stadius, Centre for Nordic Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki peter.stadius@helsinki.fi