[URBANTH-L]ANN: Immigrant Cultural Production in Europe (U of Florida)

[Angela Jancius]

IMMIGRANT CULTURAL PRODUCTION IN EUROPE

October 9-10, 2009

Centre for European Studies

University of Florida

On behalf of the Center for European Studies (CES) at the University of
Florida, Gainesville, we are inviting scholars to participate in a
two-day workshop, entitled: "Immigrant Cultural Production in Europe".
The workshop is to be held on Friday October 9 and Saturday October 10,
2009.

This workshop is part of series of academic and cultural events, which
CES is hosting during 2008-2009 academic year, under the auspices of a
grant from the Jean Monnet Lifelong Learning Program, funded by the
European Commission. Participants receive small grant for travel and
accommodation, as well as a honorarium.


Description of the topic:

Broadly construed as forms of creative expression produced by members of
immigrant and/or subaltern groups, immigrant cultural production
frequently thematizes the experience and affect of exile, uprootedness,
and dislocation. In Europe and elsewhere, film, literature, poetry,
music, art, and the performing arts serve as a medium for immigrants and
"post" immigrants to respond to the ethnocentric homogeneity of host
cultures, and articulate ethnic and diasporic identities.

This workshop engages the cultural politics of works produced from the
viewpoint of "exiles" and "immigrants," and seeks to respond to several
general questions: Do such works exemplify a different poetics and
aesthetics, and if so, what are its defining features? How do such works
problematize the normative representation of immigrants in host
cultures, which are typically structured around the tropes of the nomad,
the laborer, the uprooted victim, the hybrid cosmopolite, and the
(Muslim) transmigrant? How does immigrant cultural production articulate
exile, immigrant and post-immigrant identities, negotiates racism,
sexism, and prejudice, responds to ethnocentric homogeneity of host
cultures, overcomes linguistic barriers, reaches broader audiences? How
does it cross racial frontiers and enact solidarity across class and
cultural lines? What are the politics of memory embedded in such works?
What are the effects of the reification of immigrant cultures, and the
commercialization of immigrant cultural production?

In the course of this workshop, a group of four to six internationally
known scholars from Europe and the United States will be invited to
convene in order to discuss these questions in an informal, intimate
setting.

If interested please contact: Dr. Maria Stoilkova,
stoilkov at anthro.ufl.edu <mailto:stoilkov at anthro.ufl.edu>  and Dr. Esther
Romeyn, esromeyn at ufl.edu <mailto:esromeyn at ufl.edu> .

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