CFP: Displacement, Emplacement, and Migration

The Bamberg Graduate School of Literature, Culture, and Media and Chair for English Literature Studies at the University of Bamberg, Germany is calling for papers for its upcoming conference on displacement, emplacement and migration. Proposals are due by December 31, 2021.

Organizers are particularly interested in discussions on how different theoretical, analytical, and methodological approaches to the literary, cultural, and socio-political representation of displacement and emplacement shape popular perceptions about migration.

The conference seeks to discuss the various dimensions within migration studies by acknowledging the intertwined relationship between displacement, migration, and emplacement. Based on a literary and culturally induced understanding of the phenomenon, it advocates migration narratives as sites of resistance and resilience. Despite the fictional aspects of migration literature, it is also an illustration of a given society’s socio-historical values and culture. Therefore, the conference also wants to understand the social, political, and historical impact of displacement, emplacement and migration from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Possible areas for contributions include but are not limited to:

1. How do displacement and emplacement inform our understanding of migration and the migrant journey?
2. How does displacement problematise the migrant experience?
3. To what extent are migrant lives made possible, lived, and contested in the context of permanent or temporal emplacement?
4. What function do class, ethnicity, religion, language, and nationality play in the migrant experience?
5. How are displacement, emplacement, and migration being represented in literary, cultural or media texts?

Organizers invite young scholars and graduates to submit abstracts of around 300 words along with a brief bio statement (in one file) to [email protected] no later than December 31, 2021. They will send out notifications of approval within a week.