Dear Colleagues
Please find details below of the seminar I'm organising at the
forthcoming meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association
in New York (20-23 March). Paper proposals can be sent directly to the
ACLA following their guidelines
here:http://acla.org/annualmeetingguidelines.html. Though please don't
hesitate to get in touch with me if interested.
Trans-Mediterranean Capitals: Bridging narratives
Dr Claire Launchbury (University of Leeds)
As a space of cultural exchange the area of the Mediterranean is also
a trading space between the major cities situated on its coasts. From
Beirut to Casablanca, Marseilles to Tripoli, these cities rival their
inland counterparts. This seminar focuses on the concept of 'bridging'
in narratives that originate in the exchanges between these urban
centres by considering the figure of the bridge, the passerelle, as a
passage facilitating transcultural dialogue. For example, the
Dictionnaire des mots français d'origine arabe by Saleh Guemriche
(2007), works to revise the colonial linguistic traffic between
France, North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean. The seminar
invites papers on fictional narratives, migratory or travelling tales
and the narratives of cultural capital initiatives such as Marseille
2013. How do texts set in these places treat them as locations through
which capital flows? Although in rivalry with political capitals
inland, narratives operate within a decentered network of cities that
create an imaginary space. In fiction, for example, Djebar's writing
on Algiers and Evelyne Accad's writing on Beirut consider issues of
ethnicity while reappropriating feminine space in overtly masculine
cityscapes. How do migratory texts explore the 'quartier', 'banlieue',
or ghetto of these cities? Is there a desire to counter-identify
against a Mediterranean identity in favour of a metropolitan,
European, Arab or African one? How are trans-Mediterranean bridging
narratives thwarted by the reinforcement of national and continental
borders in the region?
Keywords: Trans-Mediterranean, Migration, Bridging, Narrative,
Identity, Cities, Trade, Borders
Dr Claire Launchbury
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
University of Leeds
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
|