Us and Them - Them and Us: Constructions of the Other in Cultural Stereotypes - Perceptions, Challenges, Meanings
Szczecin, May 6-8, 2009

We encounter “them” every day often unaware of “their” constructed nature which results from our cultural standards and the perception of ourselves. Preconceptions of the Other are chiefly articulated through stereotypes. For sociologists stereotypes can initially assist in coming to terms with a complex world. Then they might serve as a first key to access the previously unknown. In intercultural communication their value is defined by their potential of either opening new vistas of other cultures or impeding them. In short stereotypes are ambivalent and ambiguous and contribute to shaping identities.

At worst auto- and heterostereotypes have left their traces on cultural relations between European countries or within allegedly homogeneous cultures as in the United Kingdom. Though ultimately not the cause of wars, stereotypes helped pave the way to open (World War I and II) and concealed warfare (Cold War). But even if not taken to the extremes, stereotypes seem to live a life of their own against all the odds of rational knowledge.

The conference seeks to examine the constructedness of stereotypes from the angles of many disciplines and will put its focus on cultural relations between Europe and anglophone cultures and on patterns of preconception within the anglophone world. Language, literature and the arts are major construction sites of stereotypes and cultural identities as are children's and classroom books. Translation activities may be considered an original border country of cultural encounters and so are (inter) cultural studies. While media tend by their very nature to foster stereotypes, recent intercultural teaching strategies in the foreign English language classroom strive for the opposite.

The English Philology Department of Szczecin University is pleased to announce a conference on the issues of identity, stereotypes and linguistic rights. Twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain the organizer conclude that the city of  Szczecin, at the crossroads of important European transit routes and located in a sensitive cultural border zone, seems to be an ideal site for this conference. Under the rule of Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Germany and France, the city has always adjusted well to its inhabitants and their ways of life. Szczecin therefore is ready to bring together East and West and North and South!