Transatlantic Confrontations

North American and European Perspectives on Culture and Society

May 23-25

Introduction

The Sixth Joint Graduate Liberal Studies Conference, is to be held May 23-25, 2003 in Maastricht, The Netherlands. The conference is organized by The Master of Arts and Culture Program of the University of Maastricht and is (co)sponsored by the Master of Arts in the Liberal Arts and Sciences programs of San Diego State University and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. The conference is designed to promote international dialogue on contemporary issues in interdisciplinary studies, and to further the fundamental concept that interdisciplinary programs seek to explore and integrate diverse thinking and methods of study. The conference includes student presentation of papers and faculty presentation of research, as well as workshops and guest speakers.

Programme

Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Friday, May 23: Spiegelzaal (Faculty of Arts & Culture),

Kapoenstraat 2

Registration & Welcome (17.00 – 18.00)

Opening Lecture (18.00 – 19.00)

by Howard Kushner (Emory University)

“Syndrome Construction and the Biological Revolution in Psychiatry”

Dinner in town

Saturday, May 24: Feestzaal/Salon, Bouillonstraat 1-3

Session 1: Stories and images (9.15– 10.30)

Mariken van Nimwegen (SFU), “Oral Traditions in North American and European context”
Esther van Gelder (UM), “New worlds, old paradises”

Session 2: Music, Sound and Drugs (10.45 – 12.15)

Sonja Boon (SFU), “Where is here: [Le] Canadien Errant”
Lene ter Haar (UM), “Sound Poetry”
Alan Kilpatrick (SDSU), “Globalisation and Psychotropic Spirituality”

Lunch (12.30 – 14.00)

Session 4: Cultural Confrontations (14.00 – 15.30)

Glen Ryland (SFU), “Crisis and the Religious Mind - Radical Religion in European and North American Context”
Sandrijn van den Oever (UM), "How to feel at home in the world"
Catherine Nina Evarkiou (SDSU), “Trans-Atlantic Negotiations and Crosspollinations of Europe, Turkey and the United States: A Cultural History From Tulips to Tanks”

Session 5: Round table on The New World Order (16.00 – 17.00)

(as seen from each side of the Atlantic)

Contributors: Michael Fellmann (SFU), Howard Kushner (Emory University), Sophie Vanhoonacker (UM), Geert Somsen (UM). Rein de Wilde (UM) –chair.

19.00 PM Dinner

Sunday, May 25: Feestzaal/Salon, Bouillonstraat 1-3

Session 6: Contested Technologies (9.30 – 11.00)

Janet Marie Ambe (SDSU), “A view into the New Society or A Perusal of Progress”
Jeroen Pinckaers (SDSU/UM), “The rhetoric in technological visions”
Enoch Hale (SDSU), “Metaphysics and the Evolution of Technology: An Inquiry into Technological Development and Human Values”

Session 7: Values in Action (11.15 – 12.45)

Sharon McCarthy (SFU), “Creating Ecologically Sustainable Urban Communities: Values that Support Urban Lifestyles”
Stefan Verhaegh (UM), “Software as binary black box: Locking-in users or setting them free? On openness as a concept for democratizing technology and facilitating user participation. ”
Stephen Roeder (SDSU), “The Rise and Fall of the ‘isms’ and a Call for a New Humanism”

Lunch (12.45 – 14.00)

Afternoon: Excursion

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