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Workshop title:

European Science Foundation Exploratory Workshop on “Signs of the European Welfare: Modern Lifestyles and Traditional Forms of Consumption”

 

 

Name and full coordinates of applicant:

Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies

New Bulgarian University

Office 1/120

21, Montevideo str.

Sofia 1618

Bulgaria

 

Prof. Maria Nikolova Popova, Dc.S.

Director of Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies

Office 1/120

21, Montevideo str.

Sofia 1618

Bulgaria

Tel.: +359 2 955 96 27; +359 88 605 497

Fax: +359 2 955 96 27

E-mail: mpopova@nbu.bg

 

Krasimir Petrov Angelkov

Secretary of Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies

Office 1/120

21, Montevideo str.

Sofia 1618

Bulgaria

Tel.: +359 2 855 83 09; +359 87 697 386

Fax: +359 2 955 96 27

E-mail: kangelkov@nbu.bg

 

 

Dates and location of the workshop:

04.09.2004 – 08.09.2004 

 “St. Kirik and Julita” complex

Asenovgrad

Gorni Voden 4230

Bulgaria

Tel.: +359 331 65292; +359 331 647 622

Fax: +359 331 69 007

 

 

Keywords relating to the research topic:

Global market, local cultures, communicative consumption, media and symbolic exchange.

 

 

Abstract of the proposed research topic:

The idea of the workshop is to gather researchers and representatives of different European cultures and states and to discuss the cultural effects of the economic unification, the homogenization of the life standards, and their interaction with the local, traditional ways of life. The semiotic approach offers highly adequate analytical tools to explain the problem with all its cultural, social and economic dimensions.

 

 

Summary of the proposed research topic:

The workshop “Signs of the European Welfare: Modern Lifestyles and Traditional forms of Consumption” is intended to take place within the framework of the 10-th Early Fall School in Semiotics – a permanent scientific event, concerned with theoretical issues in culture, communication, media, etc. organized each year by the Southeast European Centre for Semiotic Studies (SECSS) at New Bulgarian University. The event is provided with regular edition of all materials, presented and discussed during the working days.

In the last decade we gathered enough reputation and experience to organize high quality conferences, seminars and workshops with the most representative scholars in Semiotics, Cultural studies and other humanities from all over Europe. We are particularly interested of the collaboration with and the financial support of ESF because in this way we could enrich and sophisticate our ongoing researches and be able to invite, within the limits of the workshop we are applying for, important researchers from Finland, Italy, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Estonia, Turkey, Greece, France, Serbia, USA and Bulgaria (see the list of the proposed participants). With such a rich representation of the various cultural areas of Europe we could face with sufficient theoretical efficiency questions such as the cultural resonance provoked by the transformations of the ways of life due to the institutional advancement of the European unification.

The choice to approach this general problem through the notion of consumption and lifestyle is not an arbitrary decision, but the main element of innovation in respect to the existing studies in this domain. The concrete practice of consumption (in its material and symbolic forms) is indicator for the real behavior of the people, often quite different and even contradictory to their statements, political and civil positions. We shall be particularly interested to have as many as possible materials, investigating the individual strategies in different areas of people, benefiting by the large offer of standardized consumer goods of multinational brands, who are in the same time strongly related to their traditional ways of life and customs, and hostile to the institutional infrastructural changes. It will be of considerable interest to see how deeply is eradicated this obvious contradiction, whether it is a strategy of the identity, always striving for opposition to something, or it is lived as a real menace for the real values and quality of the everyday life. A parallel with the American ways of life, generally dispensed from implications with traditional values, will be necessary to underline the problem from different perspective.

As already discussed in the European public space topics, illustrating our argument, are those, concerning the conflicts between the common European legislation and certain traditional consumption and leisure practices as the Bullfight and other customs with animal mutilation in Spain, the limitation of the cigarettes use in the Balkans, the reindeer hunting in Finland and thousands of other cases where tradition and future are irreconcilable.

To what extent such traditional practices are constitutive to the quality of the European type of welfare, including also high living standards and social guarantees? To what extent compromises in one direction will flatten the ways of life, transforming them into standardized modern lifestyles? And to what extent maintaining the authenticity, the quality of the traditional ways of life will damage the economical parameters and the prospects for efficient common politics? What is the role of culture and education in humanities in this frame?

To be able to obtain relevant answers and hypothesis on those issues we shall need an explicit interdisciplinary discourse. This is reflected in the scientific excellence of our proposed participants. Semioticians and philosophers will provide the theoretic background of the project as well as the main parameters of research. Scholars in Cultural studies, Sociosemiotics and Media will present material of concrete researches on consumer practices, uses and gratification of media, politics and public opinion from various parts of Europe. The general disposition of the workshop permits the integration also of contributions from other fields, such as social anthropology, gender studies, etc.

 

 

The case for an exploratory workshop:

Europe is about to grow up with 10 (+2) new members. This process will increase an already existing problem concerning the confrontation between the unified European legislation and the particular laws and customs for each country, which are arranged according to local ways of life.

Of course, this is a central issue for the whole “Common Europe” project and many institutions are directly involved with its improvement. But we think that an important theoretical contribution, involving representatives of 13 different universities from all over Europe is an action in the right direction since we are convinced that the unification should be dialogically modeled in the domain of culture and education and not realized with the logic of the economical constriction and the abstract free market.

 

 

Preliminary workshop program:

The workshop will be divided in three modules:

 

Module I: Theoretical framework

Module II: Applied researches

Module III: Interdisciplinary contributions

 

2004

 

04.09. – Arrival

20.00 – dinner

 

 

05.09.

09.00 - 12.00 – Module I:

Eero Tarasti, John Deely, Julia Kristeva, Bogdan Bogdanov, Kristian Bankov

12.30 – Lunch

14.00 – 17.00 – Module I: discussions with all participants

19.00 – dinner

 

 

06.09.

09.00 - 12.00 – Module II:

Maria Popova, Patrizia Calefato, Paul Cobley, Georgios Kapsomenos, Sara Rubinelli, Krasimir Angelkov

12.30 – Lunch

14.00 – 17.00 – Module II: discussions with all participants

19.00 – dinner

 

 

07.09.

09.00 - 12.00 – Module III:

Natasha Christodoulou, Rosa Stella Cassotti, Serge Santi, Fatma Erkman, Siril Serpil, Gordana Yovanovich, Veronika Azarova

12.30 – Lunch

14.00 – 17.00 – Module III: discussions with all participants

19.00 – dinner

 

08.09.

09.00 – 12.00 – Final session of the workshop: round table with all participants

12.30 – lunch

Afternoon – departure

 

 

List of proposed participants:

 

Eero TarastiUniversity of Helsinki, Finland

A distinguished professor in theoretical semiotics, philosophy, musicology. He is the person-institution of the Finish semiotics and one of the most important representatives of the International Association for Semiotic Studies

http://e-semiotics.msh-paris.fr/opales/colloques/colconv/entretien/cv.asp?idcol=37

 

Paul Cobley – London Metropolitan University, UK

Although quite young he is a Senior lecturer in Semiotics and Communication, author and editor of numerous books and other publications concerning Social semiotics, Communication theory, Genre theory, etc.

http://www.authorbiography.net/61586_paulcobleypaulcopley.html

 

Sara Rubinelli – University of Leeds, UK; Lugano University, Switzerland

An emergent young scholar with various interests and international experience.

 

Anti RandviirUniversity of Tartu, Estonia

Anti Randviir presents the most essential elements of the famous Tartu -Moscow School of Semiotics, its history, theories, research, and also the current situation of semiotics at the University of Tartu. He presents the emergence of biosemiotics and works on the basics of cultural semiotics.

http://www.ut.ee/SOSE/arandviir/

 

Natasha Christodoulou – Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

A Ph.D. researcher interested in general semiotics. Young scholar of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

 

Patrizia Calefato – University of Bari, Italy

One of the most important representatives of the Bari school of critical thought, professor in Social semiotics. Her interests are vast, from Power and language to fashion, cinema, interculturality, etc.

http://members.xoom.virgilio.it/pcalefato/

 

Rosa Stella Cassotti – University of Bari, Italy

A Ph.D. researcher in the field of music and social semiotics, one of the young scholars of the Bari school.

 

Georgios Kapsomenos – University of Ioannina, Greece

Literature and culture, cultural codes and literature. Modern Greek cultural model. Traditional and modern lifestyles.

http://www.uoi.gr/schools/human/philology/philology2.html

 

Serge Santi – Université de Franche-comté, France

Experimental phonetics and Intonology

http://granvelle.univ-fcomte.fr/santi.htm

 

Fatma Erkman – Istanbul University, Turkey

Social Semiotics

 

Secil Serpil – Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey

She’s a part of research team, which studies contemporary situation in the Turkish café, with its current status, the state of the participants of the rituals in the café, and the meaning of mentioned rituals and their inner signs.

 

Gordana  Jovanovic –University of Belgrade, Serbia

Social Psychology.

 

John Deely – USA, University of St. Thomas (Houston)

The most important figure in the American semiotics today, close friend and continuator of the theoretical and institutional deed of the great Thomas Sebeok (1920 – 2001). His main contributions are in Theoretical semiotics and philosophy.

http://www.formalontology.it/john_deely.htm

 

Julia Kristeva – France

Semiology and Psychoanalysis

http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/Kristeva.html

 

Bogdan Bogdanov – New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria

Semiotics of the Text. One of the leading researchers in the field of mentioned domain. Ancient Greece.

http://www.nbu.bg/bogdanov/

 

Maria Popova – New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria

Semiotics, Culture, Communication. As a director of Southeast European Center for semiotic studies she’s one of the best researchers of culture and communication.

http://www.nbu.bg/semiotic/star/M_Popova2.htm

 

Kristian Bankov – New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria

Full time lecturer and Ph. D. in semiotics and Philosophy of language with huge international experience. His main interests are in the temporal structure of human identity and the social dimension of the individual life projects.

http://www.nbu.bg/semprog/kristian/kristian.htm

 

Veronika Azarova – New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria

Semiotics of Gender Studies

 

Krasimir Angelkov – New Bulgarian University, Bulgaria

MA Krasimir Angelkov is involved in the research of Semiotics of Urban Space and its influence upon people.

 

 

Estimated Budget:

 

Status

Travel costs

Meal

Accommodation

Foreign guests

 

 

 

1.Eero Tarasti – Finland

380

4x15=60

4x80=320

2.Paul Cobley – UK

 

250

 

4x15=60

4x50=200

3.Sara Rubelli – Switzerland

400

4x15=60

4x50=200

4.Anti Randviir – Estonia

490

4x15=60

4x50=200

5.Natasha Christodoulou – Greece

90

4x15=60

4x50=200

6.Patrizia Calefato – Italy

420

4x15=60

4x50=200

7.Rosa - Stela Kasoti – Italy

420

4x15=60

4x50=200

8.Georgios Kapsomenos – Greece

100

4x15=60

4x50=200

9.Serge Santi – France

340

4x15=60

4x50=200

10.Fatma Erkman – Turkey

220

4x15=60

4x50=200

11.Siril Serpil – Turkey

220

4x15=60

4x50=200

12.Gordana Yovanovich – Serbia

100

4x15=60

4x50=200

13.John DeelyUSA

 

-

4x15=60

4x80=320

14.Julia Kristeva – France

 

340

4x15=60

4x80=320

Total

3770

840

3160

 

 

 

 

Bulgarian Participants

 

 

 

Prof. Bogdan Bogdanov

 

4x15=60

4x40=160

Prof. Maria Popova

 

4x15=60

4x30=120

Dr. Kristian Bankov

 

4x15=60

4x20=80

Dr. Veronika Azarova

 

4x15=60

4x20=80

Krasimir Angelkov

 

4x15=60

4x20=80

Total

 

300

520

STAFF

 

 

 

Elena Alexieva – Secretarial assistance

 

4õ15= 60

4x20=80

Lora Shumkova - Secretarial assistance

 

4õ15= 60

4x20=80

Total

 

120

160

TOTAL

3770

1260

3840

 

 

 

8870

 

==========================

Fuel400

Bus from Sofia to “St. Kirik and Julita” complex and back 600

Conference hall – 4x50 - 200

Photocopying - 100

Total: 1 300

 

TOTAL: 10170

 

 

 

Southeast European center for semiotic studies at New Bulgarian University has its own financial resources, which could cover some other expenses.

 

 

Brief CV of principal applicant:

Personal data:

Name: Prof. Maria Nikolova Popova, Dc.S.

Date of Birth: November 20th, 1938

Marital status: Married

Address: 41a, Evlogi Georgiev blvd.

Sofia 1000

               Bulgaria

Phone: +359 2 66 90 55

E-mail: mpopova@nbu.bg

 

Education:

- Doctor of technical sciences

- Professor

- MA, Master thesis of Radio-electronics, VMEI “V. I.  Lenin”

 

Current place of work: New Bulgarian University

 

Scientific interests: Culture, semiotics and communication

 

Experience:

Lecturer at State University of Sofia, Southwest University of Blagoevgrad

 

Publications:

Books:

The Precise Methods and Relationship “Creation – Audience”, Sofia, 1984

Psychological and cultural aspects of speech communication, Sofia, 1989

Sonographische Untersuchungen der Greisenstimme, VEB – Thieme Verlag, Leipzig, 1976

 

Papers:

Hierarchy in semiotics, Semiotishe Berichte, 4, Vienna, 1989;

The Political Symbolism of the communist Party and the Oppositinal coalition in Bulgaria, IASS – Semiotica, N.Y., 1992;

Model of the Interpersonal Communicative Process in Methodology of Mathematical Modeling, Sofia, 1992;

The Meaning of Cultural Symbolism in the Psychological Paradigm, Semiotika 97 – 314, 1993, 3;

Homo Balkanicus – The Semiotic approach in comparative analysis, NBU, Sofia, 1994

 

 

Membership:

Bulgarian Semiotic Society

IASS – International Association of semiotic researches

BASS – Balkan Association of Semiotic Societies

Union of Bulgarian Scientists