From: Frank Krause <[log in to unmask]>
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE
GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Friday, 26 March 2004
Council Room, Laurie Grove Baths
The Poetics of Space: between Old and New Worlds
Co-Ordinator: Frank Krause ([log in to unmask])
The mapping of geographical space into zones of 'old' and 'new' worlds
presupposes a regionally centred, dichotomic distribution of 'more
archaic' and 'more advanced' cultures, and the contrasting features of
such worlds are often presumed to mark salient differences between
'better' and 'worse' ways of life. Hence, constructions such as
'orient' vs. 'occident', 'Old World' vs. 'New World', 'Southern' vs.
'Northern Europe', 'Africa' vs. 'Europe', 'capitalist West' vs. 'post-
communist East', or 'old Europe' vs. 'new Europe' have strong - and
contested - evaluative connotations.
Whilst such modes of evaluative mapping continue to provide cultures
with symbolic orientation, their validity is also challenged by
dissonant experience in the 'lived' space of bodily centred action,
feeling, and perception; such dissonances occur, for example, in
geographical interstices or marginal locations and in the context of
migration, travel, bi- or multi-culturalism, or rapid social change.
The one-day conference at Goldsmiths focuses on poetic strategies of
exploring and coping with such challenges (e.g., defamiliarisation
techniques; symbols of bilocality; bovarysme).
Programme:
10.30-11.15 arrival, coffee
11.15-11.45 Tom Cheesman (Swansea):
West Gone West: Post-Wall Turkish-German Fiction Travels East (Ören-
Özdamar-Zaimoglu-Özdogan-Senocak)
11.45-12.00 discussion
12.00-12.30 Caroline Blinder (London):
A Kind of Patriotism: On Robert Frank's not so Social Discourse in 'The
Americans' (1959)
12.30-12.45 discussion
12.45-14.00 lunch (own arrangements)
14.00-14.30 Johann Lughofer (Exeter)
Austrian Exiles in Mexico during the NS-Regime: The Creation of Utopia
14.30-14.45 discussion
14.45-15.15 Philip McGowan (London):
The Language of Conflict and the Conflict of Language: Belfast in
Ciaran Carson
15.15-15.30 discussion
15.30-16.00 tea, coffee
16.00-16.30 Deac Rossell (London):
Exploiting Bicultural Dissonances in Enlightenment Germany: The
Phantasmagoria Show and the Birth of Modern Public Entertainment
16.30-16.45 discussion
16.45-17.00 round table
Attendance is free of charge and registration is not required.
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