[URBANTH-L]CFP: Intellectuals and the Nation-State

[Angela Jancius]

Intellectuals and the Nation-State

30 November v 1st December 2005


Plenary speakers include:

Declan Kiberd (University College Dublin)
Eric Lott (University of Virginia)
Slavoj Zizek (Institute for Sociology, Ljubljana/Birkbeck College,
University of London).

What role and effect do intellectuals have in the making and contesting
of national identities and state policies? This conference will
consider historical and current implications of this question.

The critical voice of the intellectual has long been considered
important to the evolution of modern Western cultures. How and why was
this voice so often tied to the development of national identity? How
have ideals of intellectual autonomy and dissent been formulated within
and across nation-states? What forms of intellectual production have
states acknowledged and supported? What remains of the Enlightenment
origins of the idea of the intellectual?

We will focus on current issues of intellectual identity and activity
in the context of global challenges to the power and authority of the
nation-state. Today, as new global networks of cultural interaction
emerge and new public spheres take shape, what is happening to the
intellectual's affective relation to the nation-state? What is the role
of critical thinking and the value of ideas in an increasingly
global 'knowledge society'? What is the role of intellectuals in the
making of a new world order and in shaping responses to international
crises? What is the role of think tanks and advocacy intellectuals in
the formation of state policy? How have new media redefined
intellectual activity and identity?

Please send one-page proposals with a brief CV by 31 August 2005 to:

Catherine Carey, Clinton Institute for American Studies, C211 John
Henry Newman Building, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. Tel: +353 1 716
8303. Fax: +353 1 716 8643. E-mail: Catherine.Carey at ucd.ie

Inquiries may be directed to the conference organiser Professor Liam
Kennedy at Liam.Kennedy at ucd.ie