5th REELC-ENCLS Congress:
Islands and Continents: (Re)constructions of Identity / Iles et
Continents: (Re)Constructions Identitaires
26-28 September 2013, Universidade da Madeira - Funchal, Portugal
The island (from Homer to Camões, from Shakespeare to Daniel Defoe, H.
G. Wells, or, more recently, José Saramago or Michel Houellebecq,
among many others) multiplies into a myriad contrasting
configurations: paradise or place of uncertain mysteries, of dreams
and nightmares; paradoxical location for both utopias and dystopias;
destination of choice or of necessity, for exiles, refugees and
deportees (see the penal colonies of Tarrafal, in Cape Verde, or in
Australia); disputed territory and object of political claims, in
colonial and post-colonial contexts. And the continents? Are they, for
islanders, simply spaces of displacement, or of opening up to the
unbearable sense of insularity, even when the ?island? is only present
at the level of a metaphor? Does insularity itself dissolve further,
for example into the ?hypo-insularity? of which Thierry Nicolas writes
regarding the French Antilles? How do these spaces interact? In the
islands and in the continents, between the islands and the continents
? in peninsulas, isthmuses, or islands connected artificially to
continents ? is it possible to delineate specific identities, either
of individual or collective character? Are there distinctive traits,
individual, local, national?
Abstracts for papers based on comparative perspectives are invited on,
but not restricted to, the following themes:
- The way in which cultural memory or migratory fluxes among islands
and continents influence or participate in the (re)construction of
identity;
- Cultural stereotypes;
- The sea as an element of union and/or separation;
- Insularity/hypo-insularity and its consequences for literary and
artistic creativity;
- Topography and temporality of insular and continental spaces;
- Questions of imagology;
- The duality Island-Continent and the post-colonial discourse;
- Metaphorical discourses: Sea, Islands, Continents;
- Proposals for thematic panels on relevant topics will also be accepted.
Proposals (in English, French or Portuguese) of 300 words maximum, for
20-minute papers should be sent by the deadline of 15 November 2012 to
Maria Teresa Nascimento at: [log in to unmask]
according to guidelines to be found at:
http://encls.net/?q=event/islands-and-continents.
Final versions of written up articles must be submitted to
[log in to unmask] no later than 26 October 2013, for
consideration by the Scientific Committee in view of publication.
Full information at: http://encls.net/?q=event/islands-and-continents,
where PDF versions of the call for papers in English, French and
Portuguese can also be found.
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