Travelling Narratives: Modernity and the Spatial Imaginary
International Symposium at the University of Zurich,
29 November -1 December 2013

Cultures have always been in contact with as well as imagined spaces other
than their own. Ever since the age of discovery, however, the relations, links
and ruptures between different spaces have played an increasingly significant
role in the cultural imaginary, taking on new urgency in today’s world of ever
increasing mobility and global networks.

This three-day symposium hosted by the English Department at the University
of Zurich will focus on spaces in relation, addressing the importance of issues
such as borders and crossings, utopia, travel and exile in the sphere of
cultural production. It aims to explore ways in which spaces are represented
and textually produced, as well as how boundaries between different spaces
are traversed.

The conference is primarily aimed at scholars working in the field of literary
and cultural studies. However, as we believe issues of spatiality can be
fruitfully examined in an interdisciplinary framework we invite contributions
from different segments of the academic community.

Call for papers
We welcome submissions for 20-minute
papers in English that may address, but
need not be limited to, the following areas:
• Space and displacement
• Travel narratives
• Home and exile
• Islands and maritime spaces
• Narrative space
• Liminal spaces and border zones
• Border crossings
• Utopia, heterotopia, dystopia
• Space and vision
• Space and the writing self, space
and autobiography
• Spaces of exchange
• Theories of space and place

Conference fee
The conference fee will be 80 Swiss Francs.

Conference website
http://www.es.uzh.ch/teaching/PhD/phdlit/TravellingNarratives.html

Keynote speakers
Prof. Dr. Tom Conley (Harvard, USA)
Prof. Dr. Andrew Thacker (Leicester, UK)
Dr. Robert T. Tally Jr. (San Marcos, USA)

The conference will be held in cooperation with the international Border Aesthetics group based at the University of Tromsø (Norway) and the research group Spaces of Language and Literature from the University of Tampere (Finland).

Please send an abstract of 200-300 words and a short biographical note to Johannes Riquet (johannes.riquet@es.uzh.ch<mailto:johannes.riquet@es.uzh.ch>) and Elizabeth Kollmann
(elizabeth.kollmann@access.uzh.ch<mailto:elizabeth.kollmann@access.uzh.ch>).

Deadline for proposals: 10 July 2013
Johannes Riquet
Elizabeth Kollmann
English Department, University of Zurich