International Conference
of Foreign
Languages
Shaping freedom(s): legacies, practices and projections
PRESENTATION
“Let freedom ring” was the closing motto of Martin Luther King’s renowned speech, icon of the civil rights movement in the USA. The 1963 speech “I have a dream” echoed around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and is an unavoidable milestone of the 1960s, thus accomplishing what had been foreseen in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The last century is distinguishable not only because of its two World Wars and the Cold War, but also because of its vertiginous succession of dictatorial regimes in Europe, such as the ones in Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal. Also noteworthy are numerous despotic regimes in Latin America or in Asia, namely in North Korea and China.
Since the abolition of slavery (Haiti being the first country, in 1804) and of the death penalty (in the State of Michigan, in 1846) to the suffragette movement emerging in the 19th century, the world has witnessed fights for universal suffrage, for the social equality of black people, of people with disabilities and of the LGBTIQ+ community, for the adaptation of feminism and for the conquest of freedom among minority groups, refugees and migrants. The cases and examples are plenty and for this reason we would like to urge the 4th CILE to question and debate all these freedoms and their multiple manifestations, since freedom of speech, unfolding as it was, is or can be challenged by political regimes, by governing bodies and by people in its diverse contexts. Also, we aim to examine freedom of the press and individual freedom in itself.
