This year's European Meeting of Cultural Journals is organized by Eurozine and its UK partner Index on Censorship, in cooperation with the European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam. More than 70 editors and intellectuals from Europe's leading cultural journals will participate in this event, and the programme includes seminars and debates as well as screenings of art works and films, and an exhibition displaying journals from more than 30 countries.

The conference will address the issue of cultural diversity on different levels: local, national, European, and global. Terror attacks in European cities (London and Madrid) and the apparently sudden outburst of disorder in French suburbs have made the conflict inherent in today's urban societies painfully visible. However, the problematic addressed in the conference title is not only about open social conflict. Cultural diversity is reflected in many aspects of modern life and social structures, and social inequality is clearly represented in urban space. With the social sphere being as divided as it is shared, it has become necessary to ask whether the multicultural city can still be regarded as a model or whether it should rather be taken as a warning.

Measures taken to make the common but divided society secure threaten to jeopardize some of our most fundamental freedoms. Freedom of speech and expression is becoming increasingly limited – also in Europe. On national and international levels we see attempts to redefine what media can report on – and how they may do so – without being accused of inciting violence and terrorism. The national debates on religous symbols in the public sphere (eg bans on the Islamic headscarf) show how cultural diversity poses a challenge to the European legal system. We can also see how political parties hostile to immigration and cultural diversity are gaining support bases throughout Europe. At the same time, gated communities and segregated housing draw (in)visible lines through today's societies: borders limiting our freedom of movement, separating citizen from citizen – and citizen from non-citizen. What can be done to create spaces of freedom? In the cities? And in the media?

London, a global centre of transit, is the ideal location for a conference that will raise questions like these. With its long history of migration, London provides a background for a necessary historical perspective on today's debates on immigration and cultural conflict. The conference will also make use of the fact that London is the European centre for both African and Arabic newspapers, journals, radio and television, and thus take the discussion about the representation of cultural difference in and by the media beyond the common eurocentric focus.


Under the auspices of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Terry Davis.

PROGRAMME

Friday October 27

19.30 Opening
The Austrian Embassy, London
18 Belgrave Square, West London SW1X 8HU

Welcome addresses and inaugural speeches
Gabriele Matzner-Holzer (Austrian ambassador to the United Kingdom)
Carl Henrik Fredriksson (Eurozine)
Judith Vidal-Hall (Index on Censorship)
Fuad Nahdi (Q-News)

Opening keynote speech
Kenan Malik (writer and broadcaster, UK): "Free speech in a plural society"

Saturday October 28

10.00-13.00 Conference session 1
Goethe-Institut, London
50 Princes Gate, Exhibition Road, London SW7 2PH

Parallel lives. Cultural diversity and inequality in the urban space
Panel discussion
Chair: Carl Henrik Fredriksson (editor-in-chief, Eurozine, Austria/Sweden)

Panellists:
Les Back (sociologist, Goldsmiths College University of London, UK): "Phobocity. London and the War on Terror"
Cynthia Ghorra-Gobin (urban planner, CNRS, France): "Political representation as response to urban rioting. A comparative perspective"
Salil Tripathi (writer and journalist, UK)

15.00-18.30 Conference session 2
Goethe-Institut, London

"Might is Right" – a film by Patric Jean
Screening and discussion
Patric Jean (director, Belgium)

"Urban Contact Zone. Sharing Areas, Using Places"
Presentation and screening
Christoph Rauch, Monika Wucher (projektgruppe, Germany)

Sunday October 29

10.00-13.00 Conference session 3
Goethe-Institut, London

Mirror writing. Reflections of cultural reality
Panel discussion
Chair: Judith Vidal-Hall (editor, Index on Censorship, UK)

Panellists:
Irena Maryniak (writer, UK): "The Polish plumber and the image game"
Abdul-Rehman Malik (editor, Q-News, UK)
Edda Manga (historian of ideas, University of Uppsala, Sweden)

15.00-18.00 Internal session
Goethe-Institut, London

Eurozine – past, present, and future
Network discussion
Chair: Carl Henrik Fredriksson (editor-in-chief, Eurozine, Austria/Sweden)
Eurozine Partners

Closing speech
Ursula Owen (editor-in-chief, Index on Censorship, UK): "Apprenticeship in assimilation"


This is a preliminary programme. Times and locations might be changed and some of the speakers are still to be confirmed.

Sponsors

Published 2006-09-29

Original in English
© Eurozine