CfP Sektion African Geo/Graphies: The Literary Production of (Other) Spaces
- Ort: Köln
- Beginn: 30.05.12
- Ende: 02.06.12
- Disziplinen: Literaturwissenschaft, Medien-/Kulturwissenschaft
- Sprachen: Sprachenübergreifend
- Frist: 30.11.11
Call for papers, Panel at the Tagung der Vereinigung für Afrikawissenschaften in Deutschland
"Embattled Spaces, Contested Orders"
Köln 30.5.-2.6.2012
Panel 36 African Geo/Graphies: The Literary Production of (Other) Spaces
Writers are architects not only of literary texts but also of spaces that are discursively constituted and constructed. Albeit related to their “real” counterparts, fictional spaces are the result of a number of specific aesthetic and narrative processes. Literature distorts, relocates and rearranges selected elements of the “real” world (Nünning 2009), thus producing gaps and cracks open to the imagination. Through the process of writing, pre-given spaces can be re-interpreted, re-connoted, or charged with completely new meanings. By combining mimesis and poiesis, imitation and creation, literature may represent, erode or redesign existing spatial and social orders. Fictional Geo/Graphies, especially in African literature, may therefore be considered as the location of a critical meta-discourse. Moreover, narrated and aesthetically condensed spaces do play a part in the perception of “real” spaces by changing the way readers see the world (Neumann 2009). Imbued with demiurgic power, literature suggests alternative geographies and contributes to the constitution of spaces it represents (Hallet; Neumann 2009).
Space, whether in a colonial, postcolonial, national, transnational or global context, has always played an important role in African literature. This panel intends to show that space is more than background or decor. It is rather used as a medium through which African authors articulate a critique of history, power relations, social structures, violence, identity, body, exile, or nation.
We welcome papers (in English) dealing with any historical, cultural and geographical context. Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:
- Urban spaces
- Gendered spaces
- Production of space through transnational practices and/or migration
- National spaces, regional spaces
- Normative spaces, utopias, heterotopias (Foucault), third spaces (H. Bhabha)
- Environmental awareness and protection
- Precolonial, colonial, postcolonial spaces (historicized spaces)
- Spatial conflicts, “the struggle over geography” (E. Said)
Please send abstract of max. 300 words to VAD-2012@uni-koeln.de before November 30th 2011.
Publiziert von: CS