Fifth IABA Conference, Mainz, Germany, 27-31 July 2006

Organizer: Alfred Hornung

The fifth biennial conference of the International Auto/Biography Association will take place at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz, Germany, from 27-31 July 2006. The general topic of "Auto/Biography and Mediation" will permit a wide range of papers dealing with issues of auto/biography as media and auto/biography in the media, performing a process of mediation.

 Auto/Biography and Mediation

All forms of life-writing represent specific processes of mediation, thematically between the self and the world, technically between the author and the chosen medium of self-representation. Thematically, an auto-biography may mediate between individual positions and choices taken in life, in the sense of the critical concept of relational selves, or it may mediate between self and place as in imaginary geographies and eco-biographies. As such, auto-biographies are involved in literary, cultural, psychological, legal or political processes of mediation in which the auto-biographer becomes a mediator in intercultural, interethnic, and interracial affairs. An auto-biography can also mediate between different disciplines of the humanities, the social and natural sciences,
neuro-science and medicine. Auto-biographical memory functions as a medium for time and reality. Technically, auto-biographers can choose from a wide range of media in which to present their lives: print media, performance, film and video, radio and tapes, or the internet. Many auto-biographers combine different media for intermedial effects, such as the inclusion of photography in texts, voice and music on the radio or tapes, sound and images in filmic auto-biography, music and dance in self-performances.  Auto-biographical multi-media installations dissolve boundaries between genres and technologies of signification. The overall goal of auto-biography as mediation is to find some kind of resolution between different positions and the choice of media for the representation of life.

We invite proposals for individual papers and workshops within the range of these areas. Please choose one of the following sections for your contribution:

1.      Theory of mediation and intermediality via auto-biographies

2.      The mediation of medicine, natural sciences, neuro-sciences or social sciences in auto-biogaphies.

3.      Media of culture(s) as expressed in auto-biographies

4.      The mediation of cultures in auto-biographies

5.      The mediation of African and Latin American worlds in auto-biographies

6.      Performance and auto-biographies

Please send a one-page abstract of your proposal and a one-page curriculum vitae by 20 November 2005 to my e-mail address below. We would like to encourage auto-biography scholars, especially from Africa and Latin America, to participate and to focus also on auto-biographical material outside of the Anglo-American canon.

We will set up a home page for this Fifth IABA conference in September with further details. Mainz is located centrally in Germany, with easy connection to the Frankfurt airport, about 25 miles away, where most
international flights arrive.

We are looking forward to your proposals and hope to see you all next year here in Mainz.

Prof. Alfred Hornung
American Studies
Johannes Gutenberg UniversitE4t Mainz
PF 3980
55099 Mainz
Phone: +49-6131-392-3535

Fax. +49-6131-392-5577

e-mail: hornung@uni-mainz.de>hornung@uni-mainz.de

Posted by prolurkr at August 22, 2005 09:31 PM

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