Travelling Literature, World Literature:
The Eastern Journey from Local to Global.
Papers are invited to participate in a panel for the BRISMES (British
Society for Middle East Studies) Conference due June 2014 in Sussex
around the theme ?The Middle East in Global Perspective?.
To view the 'Middle' East in the world is to consider simultaneously
the connections between the linked nodal points of towns and centres
within the Middle East that define it as a cohesive region, and its
own connections with ?other? regions that locate it in a global
cultural dialogue. Departing from an interest in world literature and
world history, this panel will discuss the fluid and integral concept
of travel as genre, structure, motif or canon in the encounters of the
diverse cultures and lingua francas of the 'Middle', 'Near' and 'Far
East'. Rihla or safar accounts have been for various reasons some of
the earliest, most circulated, and most sustained prose narratives.
The region?s often multilingual readers and writers created ?canons?
of travel narratives which intersected over centuries of reciprocal
reading, translation, reappropriation and reinterpretation. Questions
the panel hopes to pose include: Can we speak of a consistent core
concept of travel in Middle Eastern literatures and belles-lettres
from early times to the present? How did travel writing segue into the
rise of ?modernity? and modern prose forms? How did travellers
construct an integrated ecumenical world view for their multi-lingual
and multi-cultural audiences, and how might they have also resisted
the exclusionary, hegemonic identities propagated by local or foreign
rulers and states?
Papers dealing with minor and major languages, cultures and religions
of Middle, Near and Far East within the context of travel and
inter-influence are welcome. Those working on the relation between
India and the 'Middle' East are particularly welcome. Please send an
abstract of maximum 250 words to [log in to unmask] by 26th October.
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