8th Biennial Conference
Communicating, Remembering, Reconstructing
An Interdisciplinary Conference for Low Countries Studies
6 - 7 January 2010
University College Dublin

Call for Papers

The 8 th ALCS Biennial Conference addresses issues in the effective mediation of linguistic, literary, artistic and scientific cultural assets from the Dutch language area, past and present.

Papers are invited to consider

• Constructing memory: remembering and reconstructing the past in changing guises
• Technology-enabled learning and research in the context of Low Countries Studies
• The Low Countries as mediator of the modern, the recurring transmission of cultural and technical innovation in and through the Low Countries
• Changing modes and styles of (linguistic) communication in and about the Low Countries
• The relations between material transmission and the emergence of new publics

From codex to desktop, from pen to touch screen and stylus, new communication modes and formats are transforming awareness and memory. In our perception of the world the linearity of print is giving way to multimedia formats of transmission. Increasingly we operate in virtual communities; Web 2.0 allows us to generate, customise, exchange and transfer knowledge on a hitherto unknown scale.

The current student generation is particularly affected by this process, across a number of disciplines in Low Countries Studies. Insofar as the process is irreversible, this generation represents a watershed for the enduring 21 st century perception, recall and memory of the Low Countries, their language, literary, artistic and scientific contribution. Exploration of the challenges this watershed represents for effective transfer and mediation forms therefore a key focus of debate for the Conference.

Ireland, and Dublin as the Conference venue, symbolise a legacy of mediation and transfer, in their repeated experience of the Low Countries as a catalyst for change and modernisation. Print and typography as a means of communication in gaelic, the first official language of the country, owed much to the workshop of Plantin-Moretus in early seventeenth century Antwerp; manufactures, including paper-making, much to the papermill technology of Holland; medical, botanical, and pharmaceutical education was likewise indebted to Leiden, Amsterdam, Utrecht. For Ireland, as in the case of England, the canal connections of the Low Countries inspired development, and a transformation of the landscape in town and countryside which was lasting, cf. http://www.waterwaysireland.org/

This recurring import of modern expertise in design, infrastructure and artistic taste was mediated, however, through editions in French, Latin, English, rather than Nederlands. This remains symptomatic of the Low Countries’ communication norms — as a language area it was continually compelled to change and adapt to influences from inside and outside its borders. Today that process of mediation far transcends those borders and tangible ‘real world’ artefacts of books, illustrations, maps, theses, and pamphlets. New virtual communities and electronic platforms have opened up the language, culture and expertise further, and have affected the relations between image and self-image, actual and parallel worlds.

Papers are therefore invited from both researchers and practitioners in all fields of Low Countries Studies, including Dutch History, Literature and Linguistics, Translation Studies, History of Art, Music, Landscape design, Bibliography and Librarianship, Museum Documentation and Curatorship, including the Curatorship of the scientific, technical, and industrial heritage of the Low Countries.

A selection of papers will be published in the international peer-reviewed journal for Low Countries studies, Dutch Crossing, whose language of publication is English.

Abstracts may be submitted in Dutch and English, prior to 30 September 2009, preferably as a Word file attachment, not exceeding 600 words, to the following:

alcsdublinjan2010@ucd.ie

Alternatively, by post to

Dr. Barbara Traxler Brown,

ALCS Committee,

UCD School of Information and Library Studies,

College of Human Sciences

James Joyce Library Building,

University College Dublin

Belfield,

Dublin 4

Ireland

T +353 1 716 7704 (voicemail)

F +353 1 716 1161

www.ucd.ie/sils/news.htm

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