English & Comparative Literary Studies - Events Calendar
Friday, June 21, 2019
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The Arab World as Ghurba: Citizenship, Identity and Belonging in Literature and Popular CultureFunded by the Humanities Research Centre and the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies Keynote Speaker: Dr Claire Beaugrand (University of Exeter)
The Arabic word ghurba, which literally means estrangement or separation, is typically used to refer to the state of being a foreigner in a land away from home, hence evoking feelings of alienation, loneliness and a strong yearning for loved ones. In our contemporary world, ghurba is very often associated with the migration of Arabs from Arab countries to faraway destinations, especially to the developed West. Recent political conflict in the region has intensified the flow of refugees and migrants out of the Arab world and into Europe and other destinations. Perhaps it is significant then that the word ghurba has the same root as gharb, which means west and refers to both the direction and the Western part of the world. What is absent in this understanding of Arab migration, however, is the fact that the Arab world has always been and continues to be an immigrant destination in itself, receiving flows from both inside the Arab world, what we can call inter-Arab migration, as well as from outside it. It is, in other words, also a site of ghurba, which prompts us to ask about how it has been experienced by migrants, about the situation of diasporic communities within it, and about the different ways in which self/other relationships and issues of identity and belonging take shape in this particular context.
This conference is interested in how migration to the Arab world appears in literature as well as culture more generally, and in what this documentation tells us about the Arab world as a migrant destination, or a place of ghurba. Conference papers could address but are not limited to the following topics:
Conference webpage: /fac/arts/hrc/confs/arab/
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