Online Conference
1-2 July 2021
The free of charge conference is organised by the Identities strand at UCLan's Research Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX)
The conference will seek to interrogate the categories given and adopted by people on the move, drawing on an intersectional approach that considers race, class, ethnic and gender issues that have been associated with mobility. The focus on identities as a theme will enable the conference to explore these various intersections and how they play out across time and geographies, also paying attention to the multiplicity of artistic, literary, media and linguistic representations of exile, migration and diasporas. The focus on representation will foster the study of the tensions involved in identity crisis, ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ perceptions of living outside one’s home country, and the role of language (including artistic expression) in the processes of cultural adaptation.
Keynote speakers
1st July
Author Olga Grjasnowa in discussion with Denise Henschel (University of Cambridge)
Olga Grjasnowa was born in 1984 in Baku, Azerbaijan and lives in Germany. She spent many years living in Poland, Russia, Israel and Turkey, and her celebrated debut novel All Russians Love Birch Trees was awarded the Klaus-Michael Kühne Prize and the Anna Seghers Prize. Since then she wrote three more novels and non-fiction work. Her novels have been adapted for the stage, cinema and translated into several languages.
photo by Valeria Mitelman
2nd July
Keynote by author and poet Angelina Muñiz-Huberman
“Forever Exile”
Abstract: Since ancient times, exile has marked human life as a departure from the place of origin, the developing of a new identity and the capacity for adaptation. It is a way of looking at the other and being looked upon by the other. It affects language, religion, customs. It is the focal point of my literary work. Life is captured in extreme situations that range from atypical characters to mystics, wanderers and heretics. A whole spectrum of possible worlds that lay outside of what is accepted by rules and orthodoxies. Thus, madness, mysticism, alchemy, transsexuality, hermaphroditism, acquire legitimacy and find a redeeming poetic expression. A selection of novels illustrate the above: Dulcinea encantada, Areúsa en los conciertos, La burladora de Toledo, El sefardí romántico. Novels with characters that are on the move are sometimes described with a touch of humor and irony as a source of knowledge.
Angelina Muñiz-Huberman (PhD), descendant of Spanish Republican exiles, was born in France. She writes poetry, fiction and essays on exile and Sephardic themes, and was a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. She is recipient of numerous awards such as the prestigious National Award of Science and Arts and is a member of the Mexican Academy of Language. Her work has been translated into several languages and some of her books that are published in English are: Enclosed Garden, A Mystical Journey, Dreaming of Safed, The Confidants. She is included in anthologies such as: The Oxford Book of Jewish Stories, Memory and Identity, A Map of Hope.
For any question or queries in relation to the event, please contact: identitiesonthemove2021@gmail.com
Conference organising committee: David Miranda-Barreiro, Ti-Han Chang, John Ewin Hughson, Mary Ikoniadou, Alicia Moreno.
Organised by the Identities strand at the UCLan Research Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX), University of Central Lancashire.
