MC: Helga Mitterbauer: Migration in Central and Eastern Europe: Literature, Memory, and Identity

This master class opens up discussions surrounding migration and cultural memory in Central and Eastern Europe from the perspective of literary studies and the study of culture. The master class will be composed of three parts: an impulse lecture plus Q&A, an open discussion of the provided literature, and a problem-oriented project discussion “tough-nuts-to-crack”. 

The impulse lecture will focus on the implications that an intersectional approach combining theories of migration with concepts of cultural memory can provide for the study of Central and Eastern Europe. If we agree on the idea of a collective memory, migration nolens volens interferes with beliefs and convictions that majority groups share among each other. Literary texts by writers, such as Vladimir Vertlib, Milena Michiko Flašar and Barbi Marković, reflect exactly the tensions resulting from different historic evolutions in a space that had been closely connected before WWI, then divided by Fascism and Stalinism with mass genocides and other atrocities, and which has finally been reopened after 1989. These specific historic evolutions resulted in contradictory formations of memories and myths joining together in the literature of migration.

Students attending the Masterclass are asked to send an abstract of their PhD project and their “tough-nut(s)-to-crack” by the end of May 2015 to <helga.mitterbauer@ualberta.ca>.

Suggested reading:

Mitterbauer, Helga. „Migratorische Kultur-, Identitäts- und Literaturkonzepte: Hybridität und Métissage – Diaspora, Nomadismus und Kosmopolitismus.“ Moderne. Kulturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 4 (2008), p.19-37.

A second title in English will be provided by the end of April.