The international research Centre for multidisciplinary studies in Otherness and Alterity is a collaborative project between scholars from all over the world that, at present, comprises active collaboration between the University of Aarhus, Denmark; Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland; and Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
The Centre aspires to initiate vigorous and productive interventions into nominal areas of otherness as a site for critical, socio-political, cultural, and literary exploration. Generating dynamic research and awareness of otherness in relation to the liberal arts in particular will be fundamental to the Centre's ethos. As a multidisciplinary project, it will also involve discussions, readings, and theoretical directions encompassing the fields of literature, cultural theory, philosophy, history, sociology, political science, psychology, media studies, postcolonial studies, gender studies, and critical theory. By combining these diverse approaches to otherness, this project advances current theoretical interventions in this field and strengthen inter-institutional links at the level of teaching and research.
Following the launch of the Centre at its inaugural global symposium ‘Otherness and the Arts’, members of the centre have organised an inter-institutional research seminar series to be held in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick this coming academic year. The seminars will exploring inter-disciplinary approaches to the concepts of Otherness and Alterity. The Centre also aspires toward the possibility of inter-institutional Post-doctoral supervision in shared interest areas, guest lectures and future international conferences for researchers, ph.d. candidates and other interested individuals and groups.
The Centre promotes and envisages expanding and productive international collaboration; hence, we gladly invite fellow academics, writers, artists, individuals, and institutions from all countries, with guests from around the globe, to convene and discuss representations of otherness in literary, filmic and cultural con/texts.
A commitment to collaborative, inter-disciplinary, and innovative research is essential to all of the Centre's projects. Having confirmed several publication agreements in the form of journal issues and hard copy edited essay collections on the topic of the polysemy of alterity, the Centre will issue the first in a proposed series of collaborative texts within the coming year.
We look forward to exciting international and intercultural events.
