Gender, Translocality and the City in post-1945 Literary and Visual Culture

Interdisciplinary Conference

February 26-27, 2016
Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen

Confirmed plenary speakers:

Pieter Vermeulen, University of Leuven

Anna Kérchy, University of Szeged

Organisers:

  • Ágnes Györke, Senior Lecturer, Department of British Studies
  • Imola Bülgözdi, Senior Lecturer, North American Department

The Gender, Translocality and the City Research Group at the University of Debrecen is pleased to announce its first annual conference, which is going to explore the intersections of gender, location and emotion in post-1945 literary and visual texts. The primary aim of the conference is to investigate the production of metropolitan spaces in a comparative theoretical framework, focusing on iconic cities such as London, New York, Budapest, Berlin, among other locations. The main theoretical questions we intend to address are the following: what is the role of literature in mapping the intersection of emotion and contemporary urban spatialities? How do literary and filmic portrayals of urban life and displacement contribute to sociological analyses of migration? Does an affective approach to urban studies redefine the terms the discourse relies on, such as flânerie (Walter Benjamin), concept city, metaphorical city (Michel de Certeau)?

Though a number of scholars have explored the function of affect and emotion in literature, culture and social life, few critics have investigated the intersections of emotion and location, particularly, urban space, in literary and visual texts. Henri Lefebvre has famously claimed that space expresses social relations, but does it also express emotional geographies? Can we talk about an urban sensitivity, as Heiko Schmid assumes, which provides a more sophisticated framework for city studies than Georg Simmel’s famous notion of the blasé attitude, for instance? Can we read the moving image as a map that connects affects and space?

We invite submission of abstracts for 20-minute talks. Papers on the following themes will be particularly welcomed:

  • East-Central Europe as textual and spatial boundary
  • Translocal empathy
  • The place of trauma and aggression
  • Urban geographies of sexuality
  • Desire, utopia and the city
  • Emotional border crossings
  • Crime, guilt and the city
  • Emotional geography of eating practices
  • Obsession, addiction and city life
  • Nostalgia and urban memory
  • Marginalisation, exclusion and the city

Abstract submission is closed!

Facebook event

For more information about the Gender, Translocality and the City Research Group, please click here.
Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Email:gendertranslocalityworkshop@yahoo.co.uk.
There is no registration fee. Selected papers will be published in an edited volume titled Emotional Geographies: Gender, Affect, and Urban Space in Post-1945 Translocal Literary and Visual Texts.

Our supporters:

 

 

Related links:

Last update: 2023. 06. 08. 11:03