OCCT TT2021 Week 5 Updates
This coming Monday, on 31 May, together with Queen’s Translation Exchange, we run the first of Oxford Translation Day’s extended programme of events. We welcome Anton Hur, the English translator of Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny. In this event, Hur describes “the curse of knowledge” in translation, or the various ways an otherwise learned and well-meaning translator can inadvertently sabotage their own work. The event is free, but requires booking. Further details available here: https://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/discussion-group-and-oxford-translation-day-curse-knowledge-translator-perpetual-student.
Events, Funding Opportunities, and CFPS
1. The AHRC and Future Developments
8 June 2021
15:00-16:00 BST
https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/24394
Speaker: Christopher Smith (AHRC)
We are very pleased to announce that Christopher Smith, Executive Chair of the AHRC, will be talking to the Modern Languages community about future developments in research funding. The talk will focus on the narrative surrounding Arts and Humanities research and emphasise the value of transformation in a rapidly changing context.
The talk will be followed by a Q and A session.
2. Stories of Home, the Road, and the Host Country: Women Narrating Migration in Morocco
https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/24070
*There’s still time to register*
11 June 2021
10.00am - 4.00pm BST
Online Symposium
Organiser: Keltouma Guerch (Mohamed I University, Oujda Morocco)
Judging by the late 20th and early 21st centuries movement realities, migration is no longer a choice nor is it an option among other options. It’s rather an economic, social, and political necessity. For millions of individuals and families around the world, migration is the ultimate survival decision and action. As a matter of fact, movement through unknown lands involves stories of home and the road.
Stories are our daily bread to communicate with others, express joys and sorrows, and survive trials and tribulations. Migrants’ stories help them share their experiences of the terrible journey and how they “survive” in the transit and/or destination countries. The geographic location of Morocco imposed a specific identity on the country as both a transit and destination land, hence, its notoriety as a place where migration plans and human trafficking are massively negotiated. Given the dramatic conditions in which movement from the southern to the northern coasts of the Mediterranean are carried out, migration tales are obviously not romantic ones. In this symposium participants share their scholarly work and research in the field of migration, particularly gendered migration, from different perspectives.
Programme
Panel One, 10.00 – 12.00 BST (Chair: Keltouma Guerch)
Abdellah El Boubekri (Mohamed I University, Oujda Morocco); “Unconsummated belonging in Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans (2019) and Conditional Citizens (2020).”
Wissam Bitari (Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh Morocco); “The Intersection of Diaspora and Postmodern realities in Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans.”
Tayeb Ghourdou (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fes Morocco); “Identity Construction between Home and Exile: A Comparative Analysis of Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans and Murja Kahf’s The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf.”
Brahim Elaouni (Mohamed I University, Oujda Morocco); “Space and Women Consciousness in the Writings of Lalami the Novelist and Lalami the Essayist.”
Lunch Break: 12.00 – 14.00 BST
Panel Two, 14.00 – 16.00 BST (Chair: Abdellah El Boubekri)
Mimoune Daoudi (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fes Morocco); “Self-narration in Moroccan Women Diasporic Literature: Najat Elhachemi’s The Last Patriarch, as a case study.”
Zineb Rabouj (Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, Fes Morocco); “Escaping to/from America: Roots and Routes in Anissa Bouziane’s Dune Song.”
Keltouma Guerch (Mohamed I University, Oujda Morocco); “Mothers and Daughters: Home, the Road, and the Host Country in the Narratives of Sub-Saharan Women Migrants Living in North-East Morocco.”
Fatima-Zohra Alaoui Mehrez (Mohamed I University, Oujda Morocco); “Narrating Sub-Saharan African Female Migrants’ Stories in Morocco.”
All are welcome to attend this free event at 10.00am BST on 11 June. You will need to register in advance to receive the online event joining link. To register go to: https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/24070
This symposium is organised as part of the CCWW Seminar Series 2021/22: ‘Precarious Homes – Narratives and Practices of Home-Making in Turbulent Times’ which takes its cue from the CCWW Conference "'Where are you from?' to 'Where shall we go together?' Re-imagining Home and Belonging in 21st-Century Women's Writing", hosted at the IMLR in September 2020. Dedicated to further exploration of literary and theoretical conceptualisations of home-making, the series considers women’s writing in context, using various formats - reading groups, a symposium, and an author/translator conversation.
Programme of events (pdf)
3. The British Comparative Literature Association is pleased to announce the new application round of postgraduate bursaries, designed to support attendance at conferences, research trips or other research-related expenses by BCLA members registered for a postgraduate degree (MA, MRes, MPhil, or PhD). Each award will be up to a maximum of £250 per student.
The deadline is 31 May 2021 12 noon UK time. No application will be accepted after the deadline, and applications cannot be made retrospectively, though the award may be claimed after an event has taken place. Award-holders must apply for the sum awarded by providing evidence of receipts for travel costs, fees paid, books purchased etc.
Applicants can only make one application per calendar year. Any publication resulting from research supported by this scheme must acknowledge the support received. Applicants must be current members of the BCLA and the research applied for must be in the field of comparative literature. Postgraduate bursary applications may be accompanied by applications for membership.
For the purposes of the postgraduate bursary scheme, ‘comparative literature’ is defined as the study of the interaction of at least two bodies of literature (writers, genres, etc.), usually across languages.
In order to apply for a BCLA postgraduate bursary, download the BCLA Postgraduate Bursary Application Form https://bcla.org/bcla-postgraduate-bursary-application-form-may-2021-2/ electronically and send it as an email attachment to both Dr Rosa Mucignat (rosa.mucignat@kcl.ac.uk) and Professor Naomi Segal (naomi.segal@sas.ac.uk)
For more information, contact Professor Naomi Segal.
4. The ERA Conference will be taking place on June 2nd to June 4th from 1.00PM GMT to 3.00PM GMT. This is a conference helping to promote early research academics. The focus of this year's conference is Space, Place, and Locus: Mapping the New Europe.
I have attached the preliminary schedule. You will also find the link to our website below, where you can get tickets to the FREE event:
https://eracademics.wixsite.com/my-site
5. CFP: Cross-Cultural matches and dispatches: Nizami and Dante
Date of the conference – 7th-8th October 2021
Deadline for abstract submission- 20th June 2021
Deadline for full paper submission – 15th July 2021
Online, via ZOOM Platform
Nizami Ganjavi International Centre and Azerbaijan Comparative Literature Association in collaboration with: Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Università degli Studi Suor Orsola Benincasa, Università di Pisa, Università di Siena, Università del Piemonte Orientale, under the patronage of: Associazione degli Italianisti (ADI), Associazione di Teoria e Storia Comparata della Letteratura (COMPALIT) and PEN Club Italy are pleased to invite interested scholars and Ph.D. students from related fields to submit proposals for a conference Cross-Cultural Matches and Dispatches: Nizami and Dante which is to be held on 7th-8th October 2021, the eve of the 880th anniversary of Nizami Ganjavi and 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri.
The conference aims to make cross-cultural comparisons of two significant medieval figures from the Muslim East and Christian West - Nizami (1141-1209) and Dante (1265-1321) to bring one more bridge of understanding between various religions. Dante is considered an author with an encyclopaedic range - political, moral, and theological. Nizami was known as a hakim (a sage or judge). To study his philosophy has been described as “finding pearls in the ocean of knowledge,” to quote the sage Buzurd Umid in Nizami’s Khosrov and Shirin.
The conference plans three sessions on parallels and divergence based on the concept of love, the didactic genre, and narrative form. Love serves as a tool to reach absolute truth or inner purification and a way to enlightenment. Love as an eternal category is depicted widely in medieval literature and folklore as a divine symbol, allegory, real image. Love and accompanying symbols are used as an allegory in different civilizations, including Christianity and Islam, and in a broader religious context in Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and almost all faiths. Dante’s Divine Comedy is divided into three parts - Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Nizami’s heroes also go through different stages to reach perfection. For example, a simple person undergoes moral purification and attains the highest comprehension, which is enlightenment or love of God.
We invite interested people to join us in debating the love concept in medieval literature, folklore, and in real life. We will also compare love in religious texts and in poetry, considering in which discourse love turns into a symbol and when it represents human feeling.
Both poets highlighted the supremacy of the didactic role of the poet, drawing inspiration from the needs of people. Nizami considered it the poet’s role in shaping the ruler, to understand their needs, and challenge them to conduct reforms and make fair judgments. Love again is one of the tools to re-educate a leader.
Another question for discussion is the two authors’ ideas of moral foundations and of the role of the poet in enlightenment.
The conference will also consider forms of narrative in Orient and Occident, how content influences genre, and genre influences style and composition.
The conference is not limited to the above authors, and we welcome consideration of other proposals comparing the works of Dante and Nizami and their contemporaries from the prism of medieval matches and dispatches between various cultures and religions.
Contributions are invited from all fields of intellectual-cultural history.
Keynote speakers: to be confirmed
Abstracts are required in English.
Working languages: (English, Azerbaijani, Italian)
Paper Presentations are expected to be submitted in English. Otherwise, the author should submit full paper translations into Italian or/and Azerbaijani.
There is no participation fee.
Please send abstracts no longer than 200 words in English along with a brief bio to nizami_dante_2021@nizamiganjavi-ic.org by 20th June 2021.
6. Instead of a conference this year, the British Association for Modernist Studies has organised a ‘Festival of Modernism’ – a series of events running from 16 June-16 July. All events are free and online, and it would be great to see BCLA members there!
Please see here for full information, the programme, and how to sign up for events: https://bams.ac.uk/modfest2021/
For more information and to join the discussions, you can also join the Facebook group, tag BAMS on twitter @modernistudies, and/or use the hashtag #ModFest2021
7. CFP: The Aesthetics of Global Modernism (12 July 2021) - Deadline 15 June
Proposals for 25-30 minute papers are welcome for a one day event to take place online (via Zoom) on the 12th of July 2021, as a collaboration between the Modernist Studies in Asia network (MSIA) and the British Association of Modernist Studies (BAMS). Attendance is free and will be part of BAMS’s Festival of Modernism.
We invite proposals for papers which explore the continuities and confluences of aesthetic theory within Global Modernisms. There is no specific emphasis on historical periodisation, geographic location or medium. Rather, we seek papers which offer innovative, speculative or heterodox perspectives that engage with philosophy, literary and critical theory to discuss ‘modernism’ (broadly conceived) not only as a historically contained phenomenon, but as an immanent and ambient aesthetic mode which informed (and continues to inform) literary, artistic and conceptual practises around the world. Comparative papers and those which focus on work at the peripheries, and across disciplines, are highly encouraged.
Please send proposal abstracts of between 250 – 400 words, including a brief bio, as a single document to the organiser Udith Dematagoda (Assistant Professor, Waseda University, Tokyo) by the 15th of June 2021:udith.dematagoda@aoni.waseda.jp
The event will be co-hosted by
Nan Zhang – Associate Professor, Fudan University, Shanghai
Kevin Riordan – Assistant Professor, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
