Imaginary Europes

Annual Symposium of the Centre for Studies in Literature, University of Portsmouth, in association with Goethe University of Francfort & Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Thursday 13 September 2012, Portsmouth UK

The symposium entitled “Imaginary Europe” considers literature that constructs imaginary versions of Europe or individual European countries from afar. In the course of the C20th and C21st the idea of Europe has lodged in the imagination of authors across the globe, inspiring some and challenging others. Writers have produced new literary topographies that present Europe beyond the imagery handed down via missionary narratives, travel literature or European classics.

The examination of literary representations of Europe provides a field of study that remains under-explored and significant in its multiplicities of possible critical approaches. In recent criticism approaches have been made to explore the literary representation of migrant experience within Europe, such as Turkish-German, African-Dutch, Franco-Maghreb, Eastern European British, while little attention has been given to constructions of the various imaginary visions of what Europe may be from both within and without.

Papers of 20 minutes in length are invited focussing upon but not restricted to:

• Constructions of imaginary Europes from afar
• Imagining Europe from the colonies/by a colonised mind
• Postcolonial perspectives (critiquing Europe as imagined through colonial experience)
• Narratives of migration (Europe as an El Dorado or refuge dreamed, found or lost; discourses of exile)
• Imaginings of the ancestral home by second and consequent generations of European migrants
• Transnational representations of individual European countries from afar

Proposals of a maximum of 300 words, together with a short bio-note of 150 words, should be sent to all three the convenors Maggie Bowers (Margaret.Bowers@port.ac.uk), Elisabeth Bekers (elisabeth.bekers@vub.ac.be), Sissy Helff (helff@nelk.uni-frankfurt.de). Please cc to all the three convenor addresses by 15 March 2012.