Conference:NATIONAL IMAGERY IN THE CINEMA OF THE POST-SOCIALIST REGION (GEORGIA, MAY 26-28, 2002)

[email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 3:23 AM

Dear Friends,

You are cordially invited to attend the Conference on Re-Constructing
Identities: Representation of National Imagery in the Cinema of the
Post-Socialist Region to be held on May 26-28, 2002, Tbilisi, Georgia in
Hotel Kolkhi, 31 Shanidze Street, Tel.: (++ 995 32) 226 679 / 225 240.

Please find attached its announcement along with the conference schedule.


Regards,

Shorena Dzotsenidze
Education and Career Bulletin
Center for Women and Development


RE-CONSTRUCTING IDENTITIES: REPRESENTATION OF NATIONAL IMAGERY IN THE CINEMA
OF THE POST-SOCIALIST REGION
A CONFERENCE HELD IN TBILISI, GEORGIA, MAY 26-28, 2002
Hotel Kolkhi, Shanidze St. 31,
Tel (++ 995 32) 226 679 / 225 240

National imagery, in different permutations, has emerged in the
representational practices of culture in all of the post-socialist
countries. The prime aim of the intended meeting will be to analyse, discuss
and compare the renewed meanings and significance the concept of the
'national' has acquired within the cultural circuits of the post-socialist
region (with particular reference to cinematography). Identification and
contrasting of the 'national', in turn, will be broadened through
incorporating the ways in which imagery of the 'globalised future' is
mediated and articulated, alongside the (re)constructions of national
identity, in cinema of the region.

The project will be comprised of lectures, film screenings and public
discussions. What will make the project a challenging and complex event,
will be the comparative and contextualised insight it will offer. As it was
already noted, intensification of the national rhetoric has been
characteristic for the cultures of the entire post-socialist region.
However, while sharing history and socialist past, countries comprising the
'region' represent diverse and complex cultures and, obviously, the
re-construction of national identity must have unfolded also in differing
dynamics. Therefore, with the conference we aim at contextualising the
post-socialist culture in several broad directions, generating debates on
such issues as (1) the extent to which media determine and/or affect the
nature and experience of 'nation' and 'national culture', (2) how do they
affect memory and identity, (3) the patterns and practices evident in the
media which delimit the borders between 'Us' and 'Them', 'Us' and the
'Others', 'Tradition' and 'Innovation' (4) how does national media function
in the context of globalisation and many more.

Conference Schedule
Sunday, May 26
I Panel: An Insight into the Georgian Context
09. 45
Opening Address
10.00 - 11.30
Issues In Contexts: Introductory Notes
GHIA NODIA
Chairman, The Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development,
Tbilisi

11. 30 - 12.00: Coffee Break

12. 00 - 13. 30
Elements Of Cultural And Structural Violence In The Social Sphere Of The
Post-Soviet Georgia
IRAKLI KAKABADZE
Chief Editor of the Peace Times magazine, International Center on Conflict
and Negotiation, Tbilisi
13. 30 - 14 .30: Lunch Break
14.30 - 16.00
Soviet Avant-Garde Cinema With 'Caucasian Accent'
GEORGE GVAKHARIA
Senior Lecturer, Tbilisi State Institute of Theatre and Film, Tbilisi
16. 00 - 17.30 Coffee Break
17.30 - 19.00
Articulation of National Identity in Georgian Film: An Insight Into the Late
Soviet Decades (1970-80) and the Post-Socialist Years
SALOME ASATIANI
Civic Education Project-Caucasus, Local Faculty Fellow at Tbilisi State
University Sociology Department

Monday, May 27
II Panel: Constructing Nationhoods: Central and West Europe
10.30 - 12.00
National Identity as the State Sponsored Mode of Agency in the
Hungarian Cinema
ERZSEBET BARAT
Senior Assistant Professor, University of Szeged, Institute of English and
American Studies
12.00 - 12.30
Coffee Break
12. 30 - 14.00
East in the East: Petite Orientalism and Nationhood
ATTILA MELEGH
Research Fellow, Budapest Demographic Research Institute
14. 00 - 15. 00 Lunch Break
15.00 - 16.30
Imagining the Nation: The Politics of Representation in Irish Film
CAOILFHIONN NI BHEACHAIN
Lecturer in Communications, University of Limerick and
DONNACHA O BEACHAIN
Civic Education Project-Caucasus, Visiting Faculty Fellow


Tuesday, May 28
III Panel: Discussing Questions of Culture and Identities
11.30 - 13.00
Barrage, Motherland: Women and the Front Texts of World War I
HANNA HACKER
Visiting Professor, CEU, Department of Gender Studies/University of Vienna,
Institute for Sociology
13. 30 - 14. 30
Lunch
15.30 - 17.00
Roundtable
17.00 - 17.30
Closing Address