Paradigms and universal meta-discourses are in a state of crisis. In particular, theorists frequently question the efficacy that these discourses have on representation, specifically on the theoretical, symbolic and geopolitical levels. On a global scale, critics destabilize the Eurocentric theoretical-critical space as the center of culture, politics and history. To further disarticulate the centrality of European culture, it is necessary for academics to further expand the discursive space that allows for new correspondences surrounding southern flows of the Other within Latin America, Africa and Asia.

With an interdisciplinary approach, (Des)articulaciones 2013 “Ebbs, Flows and Limits: Dialogues and Cultural Productions from the Periphery” invites creative reflections on the possibility of many Others (and various Selves), and the examination of continuous cultural flows from and between so-called peripheries. Our purpose is to continue a reflection of Latin America vis-à-vis various contacts with peripheral Others and their epistemological relationship to the West, in acknowledgement of a radical heterogeneity.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Julio Ramos, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

Abstracts should focus on, but are not limited to, the following themes:
• Literature: Interregional, Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific Dialogues
• Symbolic Representations from the Margin: Aesthetics and discourses from or beyond Latin American geopolitical limits
• Art, Cultural Production and Discourses via Peripheral Images (including cinema, photography and iconography)
• Other Epistemologies: Local/ localized knowledge in the face of “Universal” knowledge
• New negotiations of the Other: Genders and sexualities
• Diasporas and Afro-Descendent Cultures: Literature, Memories and Transnationalism
• Amerindian Studies in Dialogue: The Space between tradition and contemporaneity
• Constructions of Local/ Global Identities and Subjectivities
• Machines, War Devices, Violence and Political Conflicts
• New Cartographies, Decentralized Spaces
• Dispersion of the Periphery, Cultures and Literatures in Exile
• Memories, History and Socio-Polilitcal Narratives

Detailed instructions: http://www.hispanic.pitt.edu/graduate/documents/instruction_sheet.pdf
Registration form: http://www.hispanic.pitt.edu/graduate/documents/registration_form.pdf