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Truth and (Mis)Information (Tunis)

Truth and (Mis)Information (Tunis)

Publié le par Marc Escola (Source : Dr. Badis Ben Redjeb)

Call for Papers

Truth and (Mis)Information

The Department of English at the Higher Institute of Applied Studies in Humanities of Tunis is pleased to announce its second international conference on Truth and (Mis)Information, on 11-12-13 April 2019.

The aim of the conference is to create a forum for the exchange of ideas across the different disciplines of cultural studies, literature, and linguistics.

Here envisaged as the consciousness and appropriation of reality, the notion of Truth has posed a dilemma to mankind since the dawn of time. Is reality absolute or relative? Is there only one truth or are there many? “Man is the measure of all things,” Protagoras says. Nevertheless, there can be no truth without falsehood, a dichotomy that challenges in itself this relativist view of the world. Truth and Power have always been inextricably linked since it is the victors who write history and choose which information to distill. The fast pace of globalization and the technological revolution in the means of communication have, however, dramatically increased the sources of information. The resultant variety of subjective views has intensified intersubjectivity which, in its turn, has led to a broader perception of reality and a growing awareness of the motives lying at the origin of disinformation and fake news. In this light, the conference aims at bringing forth new perspectives concerning various historical, political, social, economic, and cultural aspects.

In literary studies, we have learnt to cast a new look upon facts. Subsequent to Realism’s and Naturalism’s supposedly truthful and rational representations of reality, as inspired by the notion of verisimilitude, we have grown used to experimentation with modes of representation that are mediated by the un/conscious shift from reality to hyper-reality or to a fictionalized reality. The blending of facts and fiction is but one way of making truth a primarily aesthetic, subjective construction; hence it is prone to (mis/dis)inform readers. Some of the questions at stake are: is literature supposed to make empirical claims or assertions about the world? Does literature have to be mimetic, or merely “neat [art], unmixed with the murky waters of life,” as Morris Weitz claims? How reliable is the truth contained in fiction and in non-fiction works, as in (auto)biographical and historical narratives?

The theme of Truth and Misinformation pertains in Applied Linguistics to areas including Critical Pedagogy, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Language Assessment and Research. The pursuit of truth refers to the quest that links observation of language, theory, and the world. This dates back to early speculations about the true nature of language as a species-specific construct. Addressing the core uses of language, as the exchange of information about the world, mind, self and other, truthfully informing theorists and practitioners about language related issues, has been a common concern. For instance, CDA raises issues about language to which discourse can be (mis)informative when competing factors like background, bias, and framing come into play. In Critical Applied Linguistics “problematizing practices” and addressing variations in language use can also reveal the complexity of language as fundamentally bound up with personal and social, cultural and political practice. This may lead to skepticism about objectivity and truthfulness in linguistic evidence and Applied Linguistics as a scientific field.

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Papers may draw on one of the following themes, but are not limited to:

Cultural Studies

Foreign Policy

Political discourse and propaganda

Intelligence

Media

Historiography

Immigration

Religion

Literary Studies

Literature and empiricism

Mimesis versus diegesis

Truth and literariness

Truth in fiction and non-fiction genres

Modern and postmodern truths

Post-truth

Language and Linguistics

Meaning and textuality

Objectivity of meaning

Social networks versus research gate

Interpretation of performance and score meaning in language assessment

Context variability

Validity and truthfulness in research

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Abstract submission deadline: 15 December 2018

Notification of acceptance: 30 December 2018

The following information should be specified in the abstract:

  • (1) Title of the paper
  • (2) Name of the author(s)
  • (3) Affiliation of the author(s)
  • (4) Key-words (4-6 words)
  • (5) E-mail address(es)

The abstract should not exceed 250 words.

Abstracts should be sent to: iseaht.conf2@gmail.com