Changing Philologies : Contributions to the Redefinition of Foreign Language Studies in the Age of Globalisation

This book contains the proceedings from the conference ''Changing Philologies'' together with other contributions on the same topic. The conference was organised by the Danish Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and was held on 8-9 February 2002 in Copenhagen. The contributors to this book question whether the traditional paradigm of national philology, which dominated foreign language studies for more than a century, is appropriate for meeting the challenge posed by the economic and political globalisation of today. They argue that the relation between languages and cultures will become an important field of investigation in the future, and that foreign language studies must provide linguistically skilled candidates trained in cultural translation and intercultural communication. In order to do so, the departments of foreign language studies must strengthen their interdisciplinary activities and engage in theoretical reflections upon the relation between such entities as language, culture, identity, and history, and the self-knowledge and imaginary world pictures represented in art and literature.