Intercultural Spaces: Language, Culture and Identity
24 October 2003

On 7 and 8 November Dublin City University will welcome approximately 150 academics and practitioners from many different parts of the world to the Annual Royal Irish Academy Research Symposium. This year's symposium is entitled `Intercultural Spaces: Language, Culture and Identity' and is organised jointly by the Royal Irish Academy and the School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies at Dublin City University. Papers focus on a number of different streams in the area of Intercultural Studies including: business, language-learning and teaching, literature, media, politics, philosophy and social issues.

Friday 7 November, 8pm, in The Hub. Literary Cultural Reflection Roddy Doyle, Rosita Boland, Gabriel Rosenstock and Sargon Boulus will read from their literary works. Admission is free and members of the public are welcome to come along.

Keynote address
Members of the public are also welcome to attend the keynote address given by Professor Mona Baker of the University of Manchester on:
Friday 7 November, 2-3pm

and the keynote address by Sargon Boulus, on:
Saturday 8 November, 2.30-3.30pm

Both sessions will be held In QG13 in the DCU Business School

Professor Baker has published and edited a large number of well-known works in the area of Translation Studies and Intercultural Studies and is Vice-President of the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies.

Sargon Boulus is a poet and writer who was born in Iraq and has lived and worked in a number of different countries including Lebanon, the USA and Germany. He has published six collections of poetry as well as a book of short stories and was chosen to represent Iraq at this year's International Frankfurt Book Fair.

Background to the Conference
In today's `Global Village' the spaces we inhabit are becoming increasingly intercultural. Both at home and abroad we find ourselves in situations which involve interacting with and adapting to people from cultures different from our own. Such intercultural contexts bring about a range of new issues requiring the development of new awareness and skills and have far-reaching consequences on personal and cultural identities and their expression through language. This conference addresses the question of how language, culture and identity are expressed and transformed by intercultural contact, and will explore the problems and benefits, conflicts and insights which can arise from such encounters.

Further details on `Intercultural Spaces: Language, Culture and Identity' are available on www.ria.ie or at the following telephone numbers:

DCU: 7008428
Royal Irish Academy - 6764222

To register on-line click on www.ria.ie

To download the programme: CLICK HERE