CFP

_{João Duarte "Forte Alpena" 2022}

 

Representations of Home in Literatures and Cultures in English

(Dis)locations: the shifting thematics of home

 

School of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon

University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies (ULICES)

22-23 June 2023

 

Extended Deadline 20/01/2023

 

The ULICES Representations of Home research project addresses issues of identity and belonging in different geo-political, socio-cultural contexts of countries where English is or has become a language of communication.

Since its formation in 2013, the project has explored this theme as represented in literature, the visual arts and culture, but also from a social, political and historical perspective. The idea of home branches out in many directions, is multi-layered and ongoing. Its multiple interpretations range from more objective, when dealing with voluntary and involuntary migration and exile, war, conflict, abuse, trauma, demographic evolution and the effects of climate change, while the more subjective representations deal with the ideal, imaginary, remembered and desired home.

Location is fundamental to any of the readings of “home.” It is implicit that knowing where one belongs implies recognising where one does not belong, and the problem of being removed from such a place. However, it is important to deconstruct the assumption that there are boundaries and limitations to the possibilities of home or to where one belongs and does not belong. Bill Ashcroft has argued for less focus on boundaries than on a stance of “outwardness” (2001, 204-5), while Bhabha has long debated for the recognition of cultural hybridity in contemporary society, and the acceptance of diversity (1994, 114), while arguing for an ethics of reading unhomely fiction: “To live in the unhomely world, to find its ambivalences and ambiguities enacted in the house of fiction, or its sundering and splitting performed in the work of art, is also to affirm a profound desire for social solidarity” (1992, 18).

Acknowledging place(s), space(s) or community as home simultaneously embraces actions of searching and anchoring, movement and non-movement, centring and decentring, whether individually or in a group, which empirically and symbolically attribute meaning to that or various locations and dislocations. The postmodern and postcolonial subject, described by de Medeiros as the “shattered postcolonial Self” (2018, 23), has shifted beyond the realm of the “monocultural, monoethnic, and monolingual” (30) and perhaps the same can be said of place. Divergent and shifting meanings attached to a specific place may be the reason for (dis)location or relocation. More subjective forms of (dis)location also exist through the reconstruction of the past and construction of the present and future, a function of cultural memory. Concepts as “rhizomic anchoring” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987), “topophilia” (Yi-Fu Tuan, 1974; 1977) and “un-homing” (Elliott-Cooper, Hubbard, and Lees, 2019), among others, also allow for a shift from the question about origins to that of destination (cf. Nicolas Bourriaud, 2009).

For the RHOME project’s next conference, which will take place in Lisbon in June 2023, we invite contributions on representations of home and the thematics of dislocation in English-speaking communities.

Possible topics to explore within this theme:

• Home and (non-)belonging
• Home and hospitality
• Home and migration
• Home, war and the refugees
• Home and nationalisms
• Home, language and identity
• Home and the body
• Imaginary homes/homelands
• Home and nature
• Home and the Anthropocene
• Home, memory and affect

 

Keynote Speakers:

Theresa Heyd  (Germany)

Alexa Weik von Mossner  (Austria)

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuo (Kenya)

 

Creative writing workshops with Margarida Vale de Gato and  Lesley Saunders will take place on June 21st.

 

Scientific Committee

Mário Avelar 

Rui Carvalho Homem 

Simone Lazaroo 

Martin Rennes

Lesley Saunders

Isabel Alves

Teresa Casal

Zsófia Gombár

Mick Greer

Rita Queiroz de Barros

Marijke Boucherie

Alexandra Cheira 

Ana Raquel Fernandes

Paula Horta

Margarida Pereira Martins

Ana Cristina Mendes

Joana Corrêa Monteiro

Jean Page

Edgardo Medeiros da Silva 

Zuzanna Zarebska

 

Organising Committee 

Ana Raquel Fernandes

Margarida Pereira Martins

Mary Fowke

Paula Horta

Jean Page

Joana Corrêa Monteiro

Teresa Casal

Isabel Alves

Zuzanna Zarebska

Marijke Boucherie

Mick Greer

Zsófia Gómbar

Alexandra Cheira

 

Proposals of no more than 300 words along with a bionote of 50 words, name, affiliation and 5 keywords should be sent to rephome@letras.ulisboa.pt by the 20/01/2023.

For more information on the project and past conferences please visit the project website at:

https://www.rhome.letras.ulisboa.pt/

 

 

Fees and Registration                                              Early Bird: until 1st March 2023                                 Late Bird: after 1st March 2023

With presentation                                                                                      100€                                                                      120€

With presentation and pre-conference workshop                            125€                                                                      145€

Student with presentation                                                                       25€                                                                        35€

Student with presentation and pre-conference workshop            35€                                                                        45 €

 

Enrolment fees must be paid by the dates and in the amounts shown in the table above and do not include any bank transfer charges.
Fees paid will not be returned to enrolees who later cancel.

IMPORTANT: If you need to have an invoice or to pay via another option (e.g. bank transfer) or if you have been exempted to pay the fee, DO NOT fill in this form and contact us at rephome@letras.ulisboa.pt instead.