0100,0100,0100Dear colleagues, We thought the enclosed might be of interest. Times New RomanCall for Papers Reconciling "Anglistik": Didactic Strategies for an Interdisciplinary Approach to Literature, Linguistics and Cultural Studies Universität Trier, Germany, 2-4 Oct 2003 The German university system, like academia worldwide, is facing a serious identity-crisis. Changing intellectual fashions, a transforming student population with new interests and needs and an unfavourable economic climate have called into question the traditional role and structure of the institution. This crisis weighs most heavily on the humanities which, to a greater extent than more lucrative fields, must reconsider their goals and scope. The humanistic educational ideals that have traditionally informed language departments like Anglistik (English Language and Literature) seem less relevant and applicable in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The humanities have reacted to their loss of appeal by revamping their curricula and approaches to teaching: "culture," "interdisciplinarity" and "didactics" are among the keywords invoked as a response to the current challenges. This two-day international conference at the University of Trier aims to evaluate these developments and explore their potential in English Studies from a critical perspective. We seek the middle-ground between the innovators, who have enthusiastically embraced new trends as remedies for institutional malaise, and the cultural pessimists, who critique the same tendencies as symptomatic of a social dumbing down. The conference aims to provide a platform for a critical assessment of those academic trends and a differentiated discussion of the future of the humanities. It hopes to initiate a vibrant debate centred around "culture," while remaining critical of jargonistic applications of the term. Above all, we take culture as a crucial point of contact between linguistics and literature, a catalyst for developing new didactic strategies and a promising avenue for an integrative reconceptualisations of the study of English. The conference organisers are looking for original contributions (30 min. presentation plus discussion) on thematic and methodological aspects of cultural studies, questions of interdisciplinarity (especially regarding the conjunction of linguistics and literature) and the didactic realisation of such projects, whether from a purely theoretical or more concrete perspective. Please submit a 300-word abstract (by e-mail - word, RTF or plain text format - or in hard copy) to either of the conveners by 31 Dec 2002. For further information, please contact: Dr. Andrea Gerbig, { HYPERLINK "mailto:gerbig@uni-trier.de" }0000,0000,FF00gerbig@uni-trier.de0100,0100,0100 Dr. Anja Müller-Wood, { HYPERLINK "mailto:muellean@uni-trier" }0000,0000,FF00muellean@uni-trier0100,0100,0100 Universität Trier FB II-Anglistik D-54286 Trier Germany Dr. Andrea Gerbig Wissenschaftliche Assistentin Fachbereich 2, Anglistik Universität Trier, D-54286 Trier Tel.: +49 651 201 2283 e-mail: Gerbig@uni-trier.de