Language Communities or Cultural Empires: The Impact
of European Languages in Former Colonial Territories
February 10-11, 2005
With the rise and exercise of American global power at the
turn of this century, "Empire" has again become
a salient topic in both the public and scholarly discourse.
Indeed, the
impact of imperial power can be examined from a historical
perspective: what has been the impact of the expired European
empires on culture,
politics, and economics in both Europe and in the former
colonies today? This conference will explore the question
through an examination
of the legacies of language communities in the former European
colonial areas, particularly the territories that have achieved
statehood within the 20th century: francophone and anglophone
Africa and South and Southeast Asia, lusophone Africa and
Brazil, and the "Hispanidad" region of Latin America.
The conference
will address three central themes: 1) Language and Nation:
the impact of the (former) colonizer's language
on nation building and national identity in former colonial
areas. A common language is a central marker of national
identity, and yet in many former colonial areas, the European
language
is the only common language; 2) The Diaspora experience,
that is the imprint that the colonial language has left on
the colonized,
as well as the cultural impact of immigrants in Britain,
France, Portugal, and Spain; 3) how Europe approaches linguistic
integration
in the context of globalization: are the Francophone, Lusophone,
Anglophone, and Hispanidad" language communities simply
an expression of nostalgia for the old colonial period, a mask
for continued domination, or do they really represent a bond
between the former colonizer and the colonized that represents
an entirely new relationship? If there is a bond, is it purely
linguistic or does it extend to other areas of culture and
politics? What does the concept of a "language community" mean
in areas where the majority of European language speakers
is not European?
Conference speakers will be the leading experts on this
topic from the United States, Europe, and from the former
colonial
regions. There would be four panels taking place over a
day and a half with additional film screenings.
Panel I: The State of the Field
This panel will survey the
current state of scholarship, and analyze the similarities
and differences in the focus
of scholarship in British Studies, Portuguese Studies,
Spanish Studies, and French Studies.
Panel II: Perspectives of the former colonial powers
(France, Britain, Portugal and Spain)
This panel will focus, among
other things, on the political use of language, the role
of language in Human Rights issues
and Education, Immigration Politics and Policies, the role
of language in Trade and Finance.
Panel III: Perspectives of the former colonies
The overarching
theme of this panel will be Identity of the colonized, “self” and “other,” and
will encompass discussions of the diaspora (including expatriation),
nationalism, and resistance, i.e. the movement back to
the use of indigenous languages, etc. [possible film screening
here]
Panel IV: Globalization
This panel will explore the effect
of globalization on the relationship between the colonial
power and its colonies
(effect on common language, culture).
