British Comparative Literature Association Conference : "Migration"

MIGRATION

British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA) Triennial Conference

July 8-11 2013, University of Essex, United Kingdom

CALL FOR PAPERS

The BCLA invites conference papers on the theme of migration, understood as the migration of texts, stories, and myths across cultures and time, media, genres and species, as well as the migrations of peoples across lands, seas, and worlds. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• borders,  boundaries, crossings
• exile, displacement, Diaspora
• nomads, refugees,  sailors, pirates, argonauts
• odysseys, expeditions, quests, transits 
• departures, destinations, arrivals, Heimat
• worlding, world-litting
• globetrotting, globalectics
• glossolalia, polyphonies, palimpsests
• re-telling, reinscription, re-visioning
• transmedia, cross-genre, adaptation
• metamorphosis, mutation, metempsychosis

Deadline for submission of proposals (for individual papers or panels): 1 November 2012. Please send proposals, no longer than 250 words, and a brief biographical statement to: bcla2013@essex.ac.uk.

KEY NOTE SPEAKERS

Rosi Braidotti, University of Utrecht

Michael Cronin, Dublin City University

Abdelfattah Kilito, University of Rabat, Morocco

Maria Tatar, Harvard University

Marina Warner, University of Essex (Presidential Address)

In collaboration with the British School at Rome and the School for Libyan Studies, the BCLA Migration conference will include a dedicated strand of panels, readings, and performances entitled “Through Dido’s Eyes: The Arab Spring in Literature and the Arts”. Dido, an exile, woman, ruler, builder, symbol of the complexity of northern Africa, and the interconnectedness of the Mediterranean, presides over the collaboration between the Society for Libyan Studies, the British School at Rome, the BCLA, and the University of Essex. The aim is to create new links between BASIS institutions and the Arab world, and to explore with colleagues from the areas affected by the Arab Spring some of the cultural resonance of this remarkable historical moment.

For further information please contact bcla2013@essex.ac.uk.