Let’s Peer Across Borders – Writing Centers in Motion

July 19th-22nd 2014

A highlight of the global writing research and pedagogies is the conference of the European Writing Centers Association (EWCA), which has taken place every two years since 2006. After the conferences in Istanbul 2006, in Freiburg 2008, in Paris 2010 and in Blagoevgrad 2012 the conference will take place in 2014 at the Europa-Universität Viadrina: right at the heart of Europe, at the German/Polish border. We expect researchers and practitioners from Europe, USA, from the United Arab Emirates, Africa and Australia. Moreover the EWCA conference provides a special opportunity for junior researchers, to gain experiences at an international conference and to make international contacts.

The subject of the planned conference (Let’s Peer Across Borders –Writing Centers in Motion) plays with the ambiguity of the verb “to peer” and accentuates its meaning “curious look”. Our curious look aims to cross borders: borders of the origin countries of the participants and metaphorical borders of the disciplines. The borders of languages will be at the center of our “curious looks” by focusing on the theme of multilingualism. The participants can involve their own languages as they peer across the academic cultures. The subject is also dedicated to a main research area at the European University Viadrina: The “B/Orders in Motion”.