PhD Student Franco Zappettini at Political Linguistics Conference
PhD Student Franco Zappettini presents at the 5th Political Linguistics Conference at University of Warsaw, Poland on 7 May 2014.
PhD Student Franco Zappettini presents at 5th edition of the Political Linguistics Conference at University of Warsaw, Poland on 7 May 2014.
"I participated to the 5th edition of the Political Linguistics Conference in Warsaw Poland. Political Linguists conferences are a series of international scholarly events held alternately in the cities of Warsaw and Łódź that are attended by a large number of academics working across disciplines. This year’s conference theme was: (Re)construing nationhood in ‘(un)doing Europe’ today? and saw the participation of notable scholars in the field including Prof. Michał Krzyżanowski from Örebro University, Sweden.
At the conference I presented two papers based on my current PhD research. One of the papers was written jointly with my supervisor Dr. Lisa Atalianis and is currently being published in the Journal of Critical Discourse Studies. In this paper titled ‘Networked’ Identities: Changing Representations Of Europeanness we have argued that in the light of ‘late modern’ phenomena such as globalization and transnationalism we should rethink established notions of affiliations, belongings and social identities. In particular we contended that ‘late modern’ social changes are having profound implication of the definition of Europeanness vis-a-vis the ‘local’ and the ‘global’ and that current models of accounting for the formation and interplay of European and national identities might not be adequate. Through our data we suggested how existing representations of Europeanness in discourses of the European public sphere and in grassroots level activities would be more appropriately interpreted through the metaphor of ‘networked’ identities.
The paper was very well received; it generated a lot of interest and contributed to the general debate on ‘nationhood’ in Europe. I found the conference very stimulating and, as usual, the opportunity to meet people, to engage socially and to discuss my research was extremely refreshing. I also had an opportunity to visit Warsaw which I really enjoyed."
The department offers some financial assistance to MPhil/PhD students studying with us to help with costs incurred to present at conferences.