[URBANTH-L]CFP: Mapping Channels between Ganges and Rhine

[Angela Jancius]

From: Sukanya Kulkarni <sukanya.kulkarni at utoronto.ca>

Call for Papers

Mapping Channels between Ganges and Rhine:
German - Indian Cross-Cultural Relations University of Toronto, Canada May 24 - 26, 2006 

Keynote Speakers:
Anil Bhatti, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Kamakshi Murti, Middlebury College

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts - July 31, 2005

Cross-cultural relations between the Indian subcontinent and the German-speaking countries have a long, diverse history and have manifested themselves in literature, linguistics, the performing arts, religion, philosophy, history, and many other fields. They have also long been regarded as expressions of a special relationship: ever since the Middle Ages, "India" - not just as a geographical location, but also a philosophical, spiritual concept - has held a unique position in the German imagination. On the flipside, there is considerable Indian interest in German culture, including wide recognition of several German authors, philosophers, and Indologists. Concepts and names that mark some of the channels of exchange and communication between the two cultures include Balthasar Sprenger, Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, Kalidasa's "Sakuntala", Herder, the Schlegel brothers, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heine, Nietzsche, "Moksha" Müller, Hermann Hesse, Rabindranath Tagore, the ideology of the "Aryan," Subhash Chandra Bose and his affiliation with Hitler, Gandhi, Annemarie Schimmel, Günter Grass, and many others. In recent years, Orientalist Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Intercultural German Studies, and Transnational Studies have given new impetus and directions to the interest in Indo-German relations. The aim of this conference is to achieve an overview over the current state and trends of research in this field.

Possible avenues of investigation include, but are not limited to:

- Actual interactions and mutual perceptions between the two regions and peoples
- Intellectual and fictional encounters
- Political influences in different historical periods
- Interdisciplinary approaches to geographical border crossings
- The impact of "Oriental Renaissance" and "Wilhelminian Orientalism"
(Alexander Honold) in cultural relations
- Travel accounts from the Early Modern period to the 21st century - The changing perception of the "exotic"
- Exotic and adventure textual and filmic narratives
- Representation of past and current colonial fantasies
- Transnational authors: Anant Kumar, R. Singh, among others

The organizers plan to publish the conference proceedings and hope that this conference will launch a future Indian-German research network. In order to foster lively discussion at this meeting, participants will be asked to submit their papers by April 15, 2006 so that they may be distributed to other presenters. Conference presentations should be approximately 15 minutes and offer a summary of the paper's contents and, if applicable, additional comments about how the paper relates to current research in progress.

Graduate students are encouraged to submit an abstract. Some travel assistance will be available to conference presenters. The conference will take place immediately prior to the annual Congress of the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences, to be held at York University, Toronto.

Please send your abstracts before July 31, 2005 to

Sukanya Kulkarni
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures University of Toronto Toronto, ON  M5S 1J4 Canada sukanya.kulkarni at utoronto.ca

and (for e-mail) / or (for surface mail)

Joerg Esleben
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures University of Ottawa 70 Laurier Ave East Ottawa, ON  K1S 4S3 Canada jesleben at uottawa.ca