28/06/2020
The aim of this conference is to invite reflections on narrative as a tool for the creation of inclusive communities in European culture, with a focus on a broad range of media (literature, both fictional and non-fictional, including translated literature, films, TV series, graphic novels, videogames) and on all periods, from classical antiquity – in which the grounds for communal thinking were established – to the present day, marked by radical attempts to renegotiate communal identities. We invite, moreover, papers and panels on the part played by criticism, theory, and historiography in envisioning inclusive communities and on the role of translation and circulation of narrative works in Europe. We encourage both narratological readings that highlight the formal language of community-building and political and ideological investigations, comparative or focused on specific contexts.
Possible topics and areas include, but are not limited to, the following:
Comparative literature, world literature and the identity of Europe
Fiction, national boundaries and European boundaries
Translation and community-making in Europe
Europe between the local and the global
Gender articulations
Gender-inclusive language
Gender-inclusive translation strategies
Crisis translation
Films and TV shows exploring physical and metaphorical boundaries
The Borders of Europe: the imperfect overlapping of geography, history and cultural heritage
The Post-Sovietic euroasiatic space: past inclusions and present exclusions
Ancient and modern traditions: Other perspectives from Caucasian regions and Central Asia
The role of empires in European literary space
Colonial narratives and postcolonial counternarratives
Processes of racialization in Europe
Black Europe
Writing transnational migrations
Migration literature
Diaspora studies : New identities and new communities
Narratives of transitions
Cultural Genomics
Localism/s: Local communities (cities, towns, villages, neighborhoods) versus national and global
Reading groups (physical or virtual)
Fandom communities: groups of comics fans, science-fiction fans, horror fans, cosplayers, rock bands/stars fans, sport fans, etc.
Cultural representations of European communities (Imagology)
20th-century criticism and theory have acquainted us with the ability of fictional narratives to build or strengthen the identity of nations and classes, often at the expense of other communities. Investigations of the ideological significance of fiction as a tool for social cohesion have insistentl...
