Invitation to an Online International Conference
Crossing Boundaries through Intercultural Encounters
Iasi, Romania
October 22,
2021
RVP Iași Center at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University
Conference Program
Theme
In the past years the RVP-Iasi Center organized a set of
conferences on the role of intercultural encounters to
examine cultural borders and border cultures. As the
continuation of the same effort, the Center proposes another
in-depth and multi-focused investigation on “Crossing
Boundaries through Intercultural Encounters.” The
interest will particularly focus on how encounters with the
other(s) can contribute to highlighting, crossing or
reasserting individual, social and cultural boundaries. One
of aspects for discussion will be on the multifaceted nature
of a boundary. Indeed, a boundary can be seen either
separation or neighborhood. It can indicate the vicinity of
aspects in a dynamic relationship. A boundary can mark
certain limits, either concrete or abstract. It can be a
dividing line or a description of crossing the limits in a
field. In mathematics, a boundary means the collection of
all points of a given set with the property that every
neighborhood of each point contains in the set and in the
complementarity of the set.
If boundaries are present and active in many ways in our
lives, what role can intercultural encounters play in
discovering, understanding and possibly surpassing them?
Encounters with the other/ness are special and privileged
occasions, which can either create differences, separations
or build bridges. Meeting the cultural other means to
discover hidden boundaries and to experience wishes to
overcome them. Intercultural encounters may be able to
initiate an effective and dynamic experience of boundaries,
a dialectic of boundaries or bounding. In this sense, we
need more elaborated understanding of boundaries, as our
personal, social and political life brings forth issues of
nature, meaningfulness and transgression of these
boundaries.
This conference invites contributions on, but not limited
to, the following topics:
- Boundaries between separation and gathering
- Crossing boundaries: scenarios
- Intercultural encounters as conscience of boundaries
- Intercultural encounters in bridging cultural differences
- Overcoming boundaries: new places and new realities
- Overcoming boundaries: cross-identities and hybridization?
- Role of artifacts in crossing cultural boundaries
Contact
Dan Chițoiu [dan811@yahoo.com]
Oana Cogeanu[oa_na_co@yahoo.com]
RVP Iași Center at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași,
Romania
