Call for Papers
‘Creolising Europe’: A conference of the Migration and Diaspora Cultural Studies Network
University of Manchester, UK
6-8 September 2007

The international conference ‘Creolising Europe’ invites contributions which seek critical understandings of postcolonial, creolised and multicultural Europe. The term creolisation, derived from linguistics, now also refers to the intermingling and mixing of two or several formerly discrete traditions or cultures. Although often criticised for essentialising cultures, (as if the merging traditions were "pure" at the outset), the concept helps make sense of a great number of contemporary cultural processes, characterised by movement, change and shifting boundaries.

We would welcome papers dealing with the following aspects and topics of migration and diaspora:

(a) critical readings of notions like ‘refugee’, ‘minor’ literature, ‘postcoloniality’, ‘globalisation’, ‘race, ‘mestizaje’, ‘lusotropicalism’, ‘transculturation’ and ‘creolisation’;

(b) the interfaces between cultural, economic and political dimensions of mobile spaces focusing on culture and transnational migrations in Europe, local diasporic communities, border zones and language contact;

(c) the migration and diaspora of ideas, sounds and images, including film, photography, music, and belief;

(d) ‘queer diasporas’ focusing on textuality, representation, and the translation of desires.

(e) how have experiences of migration and diaspora shaped Europe in its history and how have these historical experiences been represented?

Keynote Speakers:

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Columbia University, USA.
Zygmunt Bauman, University of Leeds, UK.
Françoise Vergès, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK.
Tina Campt, Duke University, USA.

The Manchester Migration and Diaspora Cultural Studies Network (MDCSN) is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. It is a collaborative framework for academic research into the cultural transformations brought about by the global movement of peoples, languages, objects, images, sounds, beliefs and ideas. The network embraces a wide range of disciplines, with a strong core in language-based disciplines, which gives the network a distinctive, internationally comparative dimension, and illuminates the interpenetration of cultures from within.

This conference aims to make a theoretical and conceptual contribution to understanding the impact of transnationalism on culture, focusing on productive and creative encounters which challenge ‘national narratives’ through the formation of interstitial spaces.

Abstracts are invited, from any discipline, on topics including:

Europe and Postcoloniality
Transculturation: The new Multiculturalism?
From Hybridity to Creolisation
Lusotropicalism and Mestizaje
Minor literatures
Language Contact
Transnational Cinema
Queer Diasporas
Romani Migrations, Romani Diasporas
Migration Policies and Cultural Articulations in Border Zones
Black Europe
Migration Regimes, Culture and Resistance

First deadline for receipt of abstracts: 15 January 2007

Abstracts of up to 250 words should provide:
Title
Name
Institutional Affiliation,
Abstracts to be sent electronically to:
e.gutierrez@manchester.ac.uk
and
margaret.littler@manchester.ac.uk
www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/research/projects/MDCSN/