The process of globalization, whose effects are felt everywhere around the planet, has already begun to influence cultures and cultural phenomena to an extent whose furthest implications have become almost unpredictable. Multiculturalism, together with globalization, constitute two major paradigms that are now profoundly changing the ways in which individuals, groups of all sorts and nations represent themselves and others through language, discourse and images.
Our conference is aimed at exploring possible answers to questions related to the ways in which globalization is changing the signifying practices that are responsible for the creation of narratives and images standing in for identities. What are the benefits and risks involved in the merging of cultural paradigms, in the fusion of styles and visions? Can we think of the current spreading of ideas and images as one of the causes of the social atomism that is more and more manifest in our present societies? Should we understand this atomism as an infinite multiplication of cultural representations or, quite the opposite, as an apparent diversity that hides a more profound and disturbing uniformization governing the deeper levels of society and culture? Does globalization offer us better modes of dealing with the other, with what is different, or does it restrict our particular modes of thinking and acting?
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