Mediterranean Worlds 7, Université de Toulon, September 15–17, 2015
MedWorlds: 7th International Conference of Mediterranean Worlds on the subject “Socio-economic and cultural exchanges in the Mediterranean: continuities and ruptures” will take place September 15–17, 2015, at the Université de Toulon (France).
The aim of this conference is to raise the issue of exchanges according to a multidisciplinary approach and analyze the aspect of continuity and disintegration from a critical point of view. Ever since the unification of the Mare Nostrum by the Romans up until the contemporary cultural mosaic resulting from European colonial empires, the Mediterranean region represents, as a center of exchanges and a crossroads between different civilizations, a long and diversified history. This diversity can be seen in the range of both conflicting identities as well as the interaction between cultures, in exclusion and integration, and in cleavages and intermingling. Insofar as exchanges imply the acknowledgement of diversity, as well as mobility, transformation and change, they may not be considered to be purely descriptive and static. They need to be placed within the context of a dialectic involving continuity and disintegration, openness and rejection, and with all the risks this may entail for Mediterranean identities, hovering between an anthropological continuum and the disintegration of civilizations.