Cornelia Gräbner | Lancaster University (original) (raw)

Cornelia Gräbner

Performance and Spoken Word Poetry -- when it is socially and politically committed and outspoken -- plays with the adventurous poetic words, critical self-awareness, social situatedness, obstinate curiosity, political poignancy and joy in experimentality. It militates against the elitist contempt for oral cultures, and against the nationalist, völkisch /folkish and fascist denigration and destruction of some, and appropriation of others. It enacts and pre-figures alternatives to such contempt, disdain, denigration and destruction. In my engagements with performance poetry I seek to contribute to practices of listening and response that are astute, attentive, committed and open-minded, that strengthen the relevance of spoken word poetry to other areas of life, that nurture the capacity of organizers and poets to resist appropriation and dispossession by market forces and neoliberal cultural politics, and that share their struggle when they go counter to contemptuous aesthetics.

Committed writing -- in fiction and non-fiction, in poetry and prose -- is based on listening closely to those who are not listened to at all, or who are listened and responded to in ways that are not commensurate with their experiences, intentions and desires. The listening practiced before and during committed writing recognizes that the refusal to listen at all, as well as the refusal to (learn to) listen appropriately and respectfully, are political and ideological, even and especially when their practitioners claim neutrality for themself. Committed writing invites readers to practice different practices of listening: practices that work towards undoing privilege, create the potential for solidarity, and that engage with, and position themselves towards, the intensities of those who have committed politically. My research on committed writing -- often from Mexico and other Central American countries -- proposes practices of listening and response from a position that owns up to commitments and responsibilities; as part of it, I'm working with others on knowledges and pedagogies that are based on clear ethical and political positions (see blog series The Aliveness of Memory: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/languages-and-cultures/blogs/staff-blogs/cornelia-grabner/).

Imaginaries of Acquiescence in the 21st century are a constitutive feature of the cultures of contemporary low-intensity democracies, just as they have been features of totalitarian and dictatorial regimes in the past. I pick apart the hidden transcripts of acquiescence and suppression in our contemporary contexts, whereby 'acquiescence' can also refer to the engagement for, and the pacting with, authoritarian and right-wing movements on the basis of cherry-picking. Among other aspects, I address the dynamics of entanglement, the acquiescence to the stigmatization and expulsion of others, and the concatenations of submission and rendition.

Projects:

Individual: Cultural Imaginaries of Acquiescence in Contemporary Low-Intensity Democracies, funded by The Leverhulme Trust from September 2017 until May 2019.

Collaborative: "Contemporary Poetry and Politics: Research on Contemporary Relations between Cultural Production and Sociopolitical Context (POEPOLIT)" is funded by the Ministry of Economy and Competitivity of the Spanish Government (FFI2016-77584-P, 2016-2019). It is based at the University of Vigo, Galiza, Spain, and includes a core group of international researchers. See https://poepolit.blogspot.nl/p/poepolit.html

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Books by Cornelia Gräbner

The concept of “non-lyric” calls attention to the functional instability of poetry as a genre an... more The concept of “non-lyric” calls attention to the functional instability of poetry as a genre and of lyric as a discursive category today. This volume reflects on new discursive and cultural practices in contemporary poetry: the constitution of new subjects and new subjectivities, the function of the poetic in public space, enunciative hybridizations and the incorporation of intermediality. Its main purposes are to question the conventional identification of poetic with lyric and to analyze the defining elements of the non-lyric.
This volume combines discussion of theoretical and methodological aspects with case studies of various poetic and cultural spheres: the Austrian, Brazilian, Spanish, Galician, Latin American, Polish and Portuguese spheres, oral traditions, and experimental and interartistic poetry, among others.

Over the past decades, the poetry performance has developed into an increasingly popular, diverse... more Over the past decades, the poetry performance has developed into an increasingly popular, diverse, and complex art form. In theoretical and critical discourse, it is referred to as performance poetry, spoken word poetry, and polipoesía; some theorists argue that it is an independent poetic genre, others treat it as a contemporary manifestation of oral poetry or of the poetry recital. The essays collected in this volume take up the challenge that the poetry performance poses to literary theory. Coming from a variety of disciplines, including Literary Studies, Theater Studies, and Area Studies, contributors develop new approaches and analytical categories for the poetry performance. They draw on case studies from a variety of contexts and in several languages, including Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Catalan, English, French, Galician, and Spanish. Essays are organized in three sections, which focus on critical and theoretical approaches to the poetry performance, on the mediatic hybridity of this art form, and on the ways in which the poetry performance negotiates locatedness through engagements with space and place. The structure of the volume intersperses essays on theory and analysis with self-reflexive essays from performance poets on their own performance practice.

Special Issues in Journals by Cornelia Gräbner

Critical Comparative Studies, 2024

Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Aug 2015

The special issue on 'Poetry in Public Spaces' is the result of a collaborative event, organized ... more The special issue on 'Poetry in Public Spaces' is the result of a collaborative event, organized by members of the research project 'Poetry in Public Spaces', located at the University of Santiago de Compostela and funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation, with the support of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research.

Contributors explore the dynamics of poetry in public spaces in the era of neoliberalism (including its historical dimensions) specifically, mainly in Europe, South and Central America. How does the privatization of public spaces impact on our conceptions of the private and the public? How does the imbrication of public spaces with phsyical, structural and symbolic violence impact on the poetic languages developed in these spaces? How do poets and their listening publics resist, and build alternatives to, authoritarian state power, neocolonial cultural power, and neoliberal symbolic violence?

Contributions include academic papers by Ben Bollig, Urban Bálint, Constanza Ceresa, Daniel F. Chamberlain, Robert Crawshaw, Joanna Crow, Cornelia Gräbner, and Delphine Grass, on poetry in public spaces in Europe and Latin America, with a sound poem by Graham Mort, performances by Márcio-André, and video recordings by EmergenciaMX.

Special issue of on 'The Poetics of Resistance', co-edited with David M.J. Wood published in Cosm... more Special issue of on 'The Poetics of Resistance', co-edited with David M.J. Wood
published in Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 6, No 2 (2010)

Special Issue: The Poetics of Resistance

1. Introduction: The Poetics of Resistance, Cornelia Gräbner, David M. J. Wood

I. Conceptualising Resistance

2. Resistance, Roberto Echavarren

3. TINA Go Home! ALBA and Re-theorising Resistance to Global Capitalism, Thomas Muhr

4. Movement and the Paradox of Resistance, Paulina Aroch

5. Antagonism And Subjectification in the Poem of Resistance, Arturo Casas

II. Writing as Resistance

6. The Concept of Resistance in Contemporary Galician Culture: Towards a Poetic Ecology, María do Cebreiro Rábade Villar

7. ‘Four Paths Five Destinations’: Constructing Imaginaries of Alterglobalization Through Literary Texts, Cornelia Gräbner

8. Translation as Aesthetic Resistance: Paratranslating Walter Benjamin, Burghard Baltrusch

III. Resistance in Cultural Praxis

9. Aesthetic Communities, Peripheral Identities and Social Movements, Marcos Giadas

10. Education as Resistance in Literary Criticism and Journalism: Between Professionalization and Democratization of Literature, Nathalia Jabur

11. Film and the Archive: Nation, Heritage, Resistance, David Wood

Papers by Cornelia Gräbner

A Series of posts: Introduction Encounters and Journeys Listening Otherwise Rodrigo Solis Alejand... more A Series of posts: Introduction Encounters and Journeys Listening Otherwise Rodrigo Solis Alejandro Reyes Poetic Words and Shared Truths: The EZLN In the Heart of the Conch: Libraries A Gift: Reading as Receiving: Oral Storytelling Mexico City, a Metropolis of Exile: Norma Lopez Suarez' War Stories

espanolResena de John Gibler, I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of... more espanolResena de John Gibler, I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of the Attacks against the Students of Ayotzinapa. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2017. EnglishReview of John Gibler, I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of the Attacks against the Students of Ayotzinapa. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2017.

This article (written in German) is part a non-specialist publication on the 'concert-reading... more This article (written in German) is part a non-specialist publication on the 'concert-readings' of the German-Chilean performance poets Urs M. Fiechtner and Sergio Vesely. It complements other contributions to the volume with its analytical approach to the concert-reading as one manifestation of performance poetry, and with the close analysis of several performed poems.

This article looks at poetic language in public letters which disrupt the 'neoliberal etiquet... more This article looks at poetic language in public letters which disrupt the 'neoliberal etiquette', a pattern of behaviours and of language which hold in place neoliberal hegemony. The article engages Ramon Jakobson's notion of 'poeticity' with Paulo Freire's theorization of thought and action in the 'true word', and draws out the affinities between Freire and the Neo-Zapatistas. The analysis focuses on disruptions of the 'phantom language' which is the result of a structural preference for language that disrupts the relationship between 'the word', reality and experience; and on the constitution of resistant subjectivities through the use of the 'true word'.

The Cambridge Companion to British Poetry, 1945–2010

In this chapter I look at the emergence of countercultural performance poetry in Britain in the 1... more In this chapter I look at the emergence of countercultural performance poetry in Britain in the 1960s. The chapter introduces the poetry performance and its main characteristics. I then engage in greater detail with the work of the Mersey Poets during the 1960s as part of a countercultural scene embedded in the culture of Liverpool; with the International Poetry Incarnation in London as a specific event which was crucial to the emergence of the 'London Underground'; and end on a reflection on how the poetry performance invites a 'listening differently' - an invitation that we still need to fully take it up on.

Cosmos and History: the Journal of …, 2010

Cosmos and History: The Journal of …, 2010

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 6, No 2 (2010). ...

Routledge eBooks, Dec 7, 2018

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, Sep 10, 2010

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 6, No 2 (2010). ...

Critical Comparative Studies, 2024

Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, Aug 2015

Special Issue: The Poetics of Resistance

1. Introduction: The Poetics of Resistance, Cornelia Gräbner, David M. J. Wood

I. Conceptualising Resistance

2. Resistance, Roberto Echavarren

3. TINA Go Home! ALBA and Re-theorising Resistance to Global Capitalism, Thomas Muhr

4. Movement and the Paradox of Resistance, Paulina Aroch

5. Antagonism And Subjectification in the Poem of Resistance, Arturo Casas

II. Writing as Resistance

6. The Concept of Resistance in Contemporary Galician Culture: Towards a Poetic Ecology, María do Cebreiro Rábade Villar

7. ‘Four Paths Five Destinations’: Constructing Imaginaries of Alterglobalization Through Literary Texts, Cornelia Gräbner

8. Translation as Aesthetic Resistance: Paratranslating Walter Benjamin, Burghard Baltrusch

III. Resistance in Cultural Praxis

9. Aesthetic Communities, Peripheral Identities and Social Movements, Marcos Giadas

10. Education as Resistance in Literary Criticism and Journalism: Between Professionalization and Democratization of Literature, Nathalia Jabur

11. Film and the Archive: Nation, Heritage, Resistance, David Wood

The Cambridge Companion to British Poetry, 1945–2010

Cosmos and History: the Journal of …, 2010

Cosmos and History: The Journal of …, 2010

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 6, No 2 (2010). ...

Routledge eBooks, Dec 7, 2018

Cosmos and history: the journal of natural and social philosophy, Sep 10, 2010

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, Vol 6, No 2 (2010). ...

Person entry on the Mexican novelist, poet, scholar, and translator Carlos Montemayor

Bulletin of Latin American Research

Tropelías: Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada, 2012

The argument put forward here takes Antonio Skármeta's short novel El cartero de Neruda (Ardi... more The argument put forward here takes Antonio Skármeta's short novel El cartero de Neruda (Ardiente paciencia) as a theorization of the relationship between poetry and politics, by way of the concept-metaphors (Mieke Bal) that are deployed in the novel. Skármeta stages the public role of poetry through the telling of a story about the poet Pablo Neruda and his postman Mario Jiménez. The relationship between poetry and politics is analysed with reference to Hazard Adams' concept of «the offense of poetry» and Roland Barthes' reflections on the total scandal of language in his essay «Écrivains et écrivants» (1964), here adapted as «the total scandal of poetry». In contradistinction to Barthes, who argues that the total scandal of language is impossible because of the absorption of scandalous language by the literary institution, Skármeta's short novel suggests that the total scandal of poetry is indeed possible when, as in the case of Pablo Neruda, Mario Jiménez and Salv...

"This paper explores the role of poetry in public spaces, and possible critical responses to it, ... more "This paper explores the role of poetry in public spaces, and possible critical responses to it, during what has been described as one of the apotheoses of neoliberalism: the escalation of structural and physical violence in Mexico in the early 21st century.
The argument focuses on three points. Firstly and relatively briefly, on a reflection on the impact of neoliberal policy on the public sphere in Mexico, and on the role of poetry and the poetic word as a form of resistance to not only direct manifestations of violence, but also the fundamentally violent mindset that underpin neoliberal hegemony. In the end of this part of the lecture I will outline some of the challenges that critical methodologies face with regards to this situation.
These challenges I will illustrate with a case study. In 2011, the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity formed as a response and alternative to the violence that ravaged the country. Poetry and the poetic word were crucial to the movement and to the encounters that were constructed when adherents of the movement travelled the country: each assembly started with a poetry reading, and many people – named and unnamed – contributed poetry as readers or listeners. Poetic language became one way of finding a language for pain, and encounters in the public space created the listening space where such experiences could be shared.
The third part of the paper focuses on the possibilities of response from Europe as one way of carrying further the poetic word as deployed by the MPJD, into other encounters and as a part of building global resistances to neoliberalism. The poetics of resistance are one such possible response. I will outline this methodology, including some terms adapted from the work of Boaventura de Sousa Santos (the poetics of absences and the poetics of emergences); and I will critically discuss the limits of critical methodologies and their relationship to other participants in what Alex Khasnabish has termed an ‘insurgent public sphere.’
"

This paper focuses on the work of the Brussels Poetry Collective. The collective consists of poet... more This paper focuses on the work of the Brussels Poetry Collective. The collective consists of poets of different nationalities who write in different languages, translate each other, and are committed to discover and articulate poetry that is already and invisibly part of the city of Brussels; one of their projects is The European Constitution in Verse, an alternative to the document produced by the European Union. The Collective’s work challenges visions of Europe articulated by corporate and neoliberal Europe, as well as literary theory’s obsession with the figure of ‘the Poet’, an obsession which produces academic illiteracy when it comes to the appreciation of collective and egalitarian efforts which do not subsume the individual into a collective.
By developing the poetics of absences and emergences (see Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ sociology of absences and emergences) in a dialogue with the work of the Brussels Poetry Collective, this paper seeks to contribute to building literacy in what the Europe of coloniality and of corporate globalisation has rendered absent in its capital Brussels, and in what is emergent when Europe rediscovers itself in a public space that invites constructive egalitarian interactions with Europe’s many ‘Others.’

In this paper I enquire into the relationship between writing and critical utopias in contemporar... more In this paper I enquire into the relationship between writing and critical utopias in contemporary Latin America, and with a focus on how literary theory can open up, or close off, the possibility of reading and writing for and about critical utopias (in Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ sense of a utopia based on potentialities and possibilities). In my discussion of literary theory I will draw on Nelson Maldonado-Torres’ and Chela Sandoval’s work on decodification, and on the centrality of the category of the damnés in both their works. I will argue that literary theory as it stands cannot ‘read’ (or ‘hear’) the voices of the damnés because their creative articulations are not recognized as ‘literature’; they are ‘hidden’ in other genres such as journalism, documentary, public letters, etc. Within such a framework it also becomes impossible to pick up on self-expression when this does not include the recognition of the North-Western reader’s authority over the speaker; in literature, the damnés can therefore only be heard when they articulate themselves through demands addressed to a recognized authority. However, as Sandoval argues, it is only from the damnés that the equivalent of critical utopias can emerge. As a consequence of this inability to read the invisibilized, the North-Western discourse on critical utopias is deprived of the ability of literary language to bring together the individual and the collective; and literary theory is reified into a sophisticated discursive affirmation of the status quo. As one possible solution I borrow from Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ ‘sociology of absences’ and ‘sociology of emergences’, and adapt these to literary theory. Bringing Santos’ sociological approach together with Sandoval’s literary/theoretical approach, I argue that literary theory can potentially become one way of detecting what has been consciously made absent, and what is emerging. Crucial to this is what I will call ‘irreverent’ reading, which consciously and strategically offends conventions of literary theory in order to visibilize what has been made absent, and in order to perform its commitment to what is emergent. In this way what we call ‘literary theory’ can become a powerful tool to access critical utopias as articulated in committed writing.
In the second part of the paper I will then adapt this approach to a reading of texts that are perched on the intersections of different literary genres. Focusing on the motive of digressive and quixotic journeys in works by Subcomandante Marcos and Manu Chao, I will trace the presence of the poetic word – defined through Jakobson’s notion of poeticity – in artefacts which at first sight do not seem to be ‘literature’; and I will argue that the ‘poetic word’ is linked by affinity through what the Zapatistas have called the ‘true word’. In closing, I will make a case for expanding the notion of literature through the ‘true word’, and for a ‘literary theory’ which anticipates critical utopias by practising and educating readers and writers to speak and to listen to the ‘true word’.

This paper looks at the role of poetry in the context of the Movement for Peace with Justice and ... more This paper looks at the role of poetry in the context of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity. The movement was initiated by the poet Javier Sicilia, who publicly renounced poetry after the assassination of his son in the context of the Mexican drug war; during the apotheosis of neoliberalism.

First I will look at Sicilia's refusal to continue writing poetry; a stance which resonates with that taken by Theodor Adorno. For Adorno, a poem is and has to remain an 'open wound'; once it gives consolation, like a painkiller, it renounces poetry. I read Sicilia's refusal to write poetry as a renunciation of a consolation that would have prevented people from taken action for social change.

I then turn to two poems that were recited during public meetings, and which were documented by the collective EmergenciaMX. The first oem functions as an 'open wound' and enquires into the social function of the pain caused by the destruction of the social fabric.The second functions as a mirror in the Zapatista sense. This poem returns to the poet and the listener not only who they are, but also who they would like to be and, more importantly, all those who are by their side but who they cannot see because they remain outside of the peripheral vision.

Thus, poetry during the apotheosis of neoliberalism is only possible as resistance to the culture that normalizes the destruction of the social fabric; and it becomes poetry because it emerges from a collective.

This paper examines the ways in which the concepts, ideas and forms of action articulated in Neoz... more This paper examines the ways in which the concepts, ideas and forms of action articulated in Neozapatismo are present in documentaries and writing which aim at an international audience, and how these cultural products contribute to the articulation of imaginaries of the other world that is possible. I will trace the use of particular formal characteristics – the interpenetration of different genres and the use of different voices – in a variety of cultural products.
Firstly, I will focus on intertextualities between some writings by the Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, and works by Eduardo Galeano and José Saramago. The intersection between storytelling and analysis will be foregrounded here.
Secondly, I will look at the use of voices in John Gibler's journalistic writing on Mexico, Manu Chao's Clandestino, and Nicolas Défossé's documentary ¡Viva México! These texts, which were created with the intention to travel easily between a Mexican and an international audience, combine self-reflexiveness regarding the parameters of representation, with an implicit appeal for dialogue to the readers/viewers.
Drawing on these case studies, I will outline a re-conceptualization of the relationship between commitment and autonomy in, along the lines of dialogical, consensus-based and horizontal forms of interaction and of political organizing.

This talk explores a poetic disruption of what I call the 'neoliberal etiquette': a tightly circu... more This talk explores a poetic disruption of what I call the 'neoliberal etiquette': a tightly circumscribed pattern of behaviour which is produced and perpetuated by a combination of policy and discourse. It defines the relationship between human beings, the societies they live in, and their relationship to their environment, in the transactionary terms of neoliberal economism. Conversely, poetry can have the ability to violate the neoliberal etiquette and to interrupt its uncontested perpetuation of neoliberal ideology, policies and discourse.

Here, I will take The European Constitution in Verse, and Xavier Queipo's participation in the project, as one example of such a disruption. My analysis will focus on the re-conceptualization of authorship and of the role of the poet in the context of collective projects, and the ramifications this has for political commitment in poetry; and on the 'trafficking of genres' (Manuel Rivas) as one stylistic device that disrupts the cohesive and seemingly impenetrable neoliberal project.

In 2006, a popular uprising shook the Southern Mexican city of Oaxaca, a popular tourist destinat... more In 2006, a popular uprising shook the Southern Mexican city of Oaxaca, a popular tourist destination. A teacher's strike turned into a popular uprising, and citizens barricaded themselves into the city and organized the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO), in order to obtain an officially declared status of 'ungovernability' and force the governor to resign.

This paper looks at the ways in which three U.S. American cultural producers who were in the city at the time represent the events: case studies are Jill Freidberg's documentary A Little Bit of So Much Truth, John Gibler's writing and reporting from Oaxaca, and Peter Kupper's illustrated diary of Oaxaca. All three re-define the tourist city as a 'rebel city', albeit from very different political positions and through different media of representation. At stake is the difference between art as representation and art as intervention, between objectivity and commitment, and the position of the cultural producer or artist as interlocutor, observer, activist, and/or cultural translator.

The concept of the 'rebel city' - often used and rarely defined - is the central category of my analysis. By treating as 'frames' the different conceptions of rebellion employed by the three cultural producers, I will explore how the concept of the 'rebel city' informs the imagining, documenting contemporary social movements.

En este taller vamos a explorar la relación entre las propuestas políticas del neo-zapatismo méxi... more En este taller vamos a explorar la relación entre las propuestas políticas del neo-zapatismo méxicano, y el trabajo creativo de varios artistas que comparten estas propuestas. Entre ellos están el músico Manu Chao, el periodista y escritor John Gibler, y el documentalista Nicolas Défossé.
Primero, vamos a dar un resumen del proyecto de los neozapatistas desde el 1994 hasta ahora; eso incluye un resumen de su proyecto político y social, y del desarrollo de algunos conceptos y estrategias claves. Entre los conceptos están autonomía, rebeldía, y resistencia; y entre las estrategias destaca la de 'hablar con el corazón' y 'escuchar con el corazón', una estrategia que asegura que el nuevo mundo que está por construír respeta las diferencias y la 'otredad' de todos los grupos y individuos involucrados.
En un segundo paso veremos como los artistas mencionados interactúan con este proyecto político. Sus trabajos se caracterizan por una coexistencia de distintas voces y realidades, con el afán de crear 'un mundo donde caben muchos mundos'; por una re-consideración del papel del 'artista comprometido'; y por el entendimiento del trabajo cultural como espacio donde se puede 'hablar con el corazón' y 'escuchar con el corazón'.
El estudio de caso para este taller son dos documentales del documentalista francés Nicolas Défossé: el corto La Yerbabuena, y el documental ¡Viva México! El primero documenta la lucha de una comunidad en el estado de Colima, donde las autoridades quieren desalojar a los habitantes de la comunidad La Yerbabuena por un proyecto de turismo de lujo. El segundo documental íViva México! muestra la misma comunidad, esta vez en el contexto de la otra campaña de los zapatistas.

This paper analyses the representation of encounters between Latin America and Europe in the work... more This paper analyses the representation of encounters between Latin America and Europe in the works of journalist Ramón Chao and musician Manu Chao. Both artists draw on the motive of travel, and on the literary strategies of mixing genres, bricolage and digression, to explore and develop shared imaginaries of left-wing resistance struggles in Europe and Latin America by way of an artistic staging of cultural and political ‘encounters’.
The concept of ‘encounter’ is developed with reference to the theory and practice of Neozapatismo, and placed in a tense relationship to cosmopolitanism and internationalism. ‘Encounter’refers to a temporally and spatially situated meeting between Self and Other, and between different cultures and traditions of resistance. Its political potential starts to unfold in the continuation of this moment by way of a practice of dialogue; and may then be realized through joined action.
Case studies focus on intertextuality between Che Guevara's 'Motorcycle Diaries' and R. Chao's 'The Train of Ice and Fire' and 'Prisciliano de Compostela', and on the continuity of some of these motives and artistic traditions in Mano Negra's 'Casa Babylon' and M. Chao's 'Próxima Estación...Esperanza'.

This paper explores the interaction of historical and poetic discourses in literary rewritings of... more This paper explores the interaction of historical and poetic discourses in literary rewritings of History in literature, within the context of alterglobalization literature. The analysis presented here forms part of a wider research project on the role of poetic language in the literary articulation of imaginaries of alternative globalization. The re-invention of political language through poetic language is crucial to the work of many writers and musicians who have an affinity with the so-called ‘alter-globalization movement’, for example José Saramago, Eduardo Galeano, or Subcomandante Marcos. Literature and also journalism here come to replace the - ethically compromised - political arena as the location of this re-invention. The re-writing of History is one important component of this overall project, because the way in which it is done contests the teleology and linearity of historical narratives that are tied in with notions of modernization and neoliberal globalization. As a concrete example, I will focus on texts by Eduardo Galeano, José Saramago, and the Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Stylistically, these texts are characterized by the use of bricolage, through the combination of stylistic elements taken from historiography, journalism, and storytelling; and filtered through poetic language. Their use of bricolage reflects the multiplicity of experiences and realities that form the basis for a poetic telling of ‘History’ which highlights the experience of ‘those from below’ and which filters narrativity through poetic language.

The performance of poetry is often conceptualized as a poetic form that questions or sidesteps po... more The performance of poetry is often conceptualized as a poetic form that questions or sidesteps poetic conventions, and that stands in conflict with or opposition to the poetic tradition and literary criticism. How or why performance poetry finds itself in this contestatory space, often remains vague. In order to get a clear analytical understanding of the relationship between performance poetry, the poetic tradition, literary theory and the academy, I propose to appropriate and redefine the term 'poetic licence' as an analytical concept. The use of this concept permits a meaningful analysis of how poetic traditions as different as orality, countercultural poetry, avant-garde poetry and slam interact in performance poetry, and how they situate themselves towards the poetic tradition and the theory of poetry.

Panel Organizers: Cornelia Gräbner (Lancaster University), David M.J. Wood (UNAM) In a special ... more Panel Organizers: Cornelia Gräbner (Lancaster University), David M.J. Wood (UNAM)

In a special issue on 'The Poetics of Resistance' published in 2010, we started an enquiry into the changing meanings of 'autonomy' with regard to creative resistances to neoliberal capitalism. In this panel we wish to continue this reflection by inviting papers that explore the relationship between different forms of creativity, art, the political, and different notions of autonomy.

"Autonomy" suggests independence, freedom and, etymologically, self-governance or the ability to shape the set of laws that establish one's own behaviour. Artistic autonomy has frequently been bound up in romantic notions of pure or disinterested art or of individual genius. In the political realm, meanwhile, autonomy is related to self-determination and the capacity to establish a local or collective political project that evades or transcends the limitations of broader existing institutional structures. In much contemporary politicised artistic praxis, however, the implied contradiction between these two definitions is undermined. Autonomy has become an important tool to define and defend creative production that engages with and participates in political projects that seek to explore and build 'the other world that is possible', 'the world in which many worlds fit'; that is, political projects that exceed existing categories and paradigms. Examples include projects those related to the Zapatistas, the Mapuche and other indigenous movements, and groups on Latin American urban peripheries.

We invite papers that explore the relationship between autonomy and creativity with regards to art, collective organisation, the relationality between individuals and collectives, and resistant and alternative political imaginaries

"Symposium: Contemporary Poetry in Public Spaces 22nd May 2013, Lancaster University ‘Conte... more "Symposium: Contemporary Poetry in Public Spaces

22nd May 2013, Lancaster University

‘Contemporary Poetry in the Public Spaces’ took place at Lancaster University on 22nd May 2013. This interdisciplinary workshop brought together researchers based in the UK and Canada for a day of presentations and debates on contemporary poetry in the public space. Contributions focused on poetry and poetic practices from the Americas and Europe, through an interdisciplinary and comparative framework and from a transnational and transcultural perspective.

Keynote Leccture by Professor Daniel F. Chamberlain, Queens University: ‘Paul Ricoeur’s Theory of Lived Spaces and the Mexican corrido’
The workshop introduced the interdisciplinary research project ‘Contemporary Poetry in the Public Space: Intervention, Transfer and Performativity’, funded by the Spanish Ministry for Science and Innovation and based at the University of Santiago de Compostela. The international group of researchers associated with the project explored the ways in which poetry occupies, presents or actualizes itself, and intervenes in spaces shared by a community of citizens; whereby citizenship is interpreted as transnational. Poetry functions here as a conduit for, or act of translation between, different elements of public life. Research of the project’s members’ focuses on the ways in which poetry publicly interacts with and constitutes subjectivities, (trans) mediality, and space. It is hoped that this workshop will have initiated a dialogue between project members and colleagues from other UK institutions.

For queries please contact Cornelia Gräbner at c.grabner@lancaster.ac.uk"

Throughout the late 20th century, poetry has emerged as a crucial form of resistance in Latin Ame... more Throughout the late 20th century, poetry has emerged as a crucial form of resistance in Latin America: as a form of testimony, as prophecy, as a mode of survival, as an act of unifying public speech. In this panel we wish to explore lineages from these practices that lead into the 21st century. We invite papers on all aspects of the relationship between poetry and resistance; for example on specific poetic practices, on the relationship between poetry and social movements, and on the place of poetry in cultural politics.

We are interested in contributions that investigate the place of poetry in public space; the relationship between poetry, resistance and the natural environment; and the role of poetry in the ALBA countries.

'Poetry' is here not equivalent with 'the poem' or with a discipline whose characteristics are defined by academics and critics: it is also an 'event' in the sense of Alain Badiou, and the use of poetic language is not exclusively present in poems. The public letters of the Zapatistas, for example, invite a discussion regarding the relationhip between 'poetry' as a genre and 'poetic language' as a way of breaking through the confines of a world that cannot imagine an alternative, and as building the linguistic foundations for the other world that is possible. 'Resistance' is taken to refer to the resistance to the global hegemony of neoliberal capitalism; thus, poetry that is contextualized within non-capitalist alternative political visions can also be considered within the scope of this panel.

Symposium at the University of Amsterdam, 5th – 7th June 2019 Keynote speakers: Sarah Clancy, J... more Symposium at the University of Amsterdam, 5th – 7th June 2019

Keynote speakers: Sarah Clancy, Jim Hicks, Frank Keizer

Deadline for proposals: 15th April 2019

Dates: The event will commence in the late afternoon of 5th June and end by early afternoon of 7th June

A collaboration of ‘Contemporary Poetry and Politics’ (FFI2016-77584-P), The Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, The Amsterdam Center for Globalization Studies, and the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis.

Organizers: Cornelia Gräbner (Lancaster University), Joost de Bloois (University of Amsterdam).

CFP: We invite paper proposals for a proposed seminar at the Annual Meeting of the American Compa... more CFP: We invite paper proposals for a proposed seminar at the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, to be held at the University of Georgetown from 7th-10th March 2019

Seminar title: Just the Way It Is: Acquiescence in Literature and Film

Deadline for Proposals: 20th September 2018, 9am EST

Organizers: Cornelia Gräbner, Lancaster University; Ilka Kressner, SUNY-Albany

From Heinrich Mann’s The Underling and Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here, to Tom McCarthy’s Satin Island, Eduardo Rebasa’s La suma de los ceros, Laura Restrepo’s Los Divinos, and Alejandro Zambra’s The Private Lives of Trees, acquiescent characters have been exposed as the steadfast accomplices of those committed to upholding the status quo. Non-fictional works such as John Perkin’s Confessions of an Economic Hitmen or Philip Agee’s Inside the Company: CIA Diary explore the acquiescent disposition from the authors’ experiences. Yet, the disposition sustained by ‘quietism in movement’ (Eduardo Rebasa) seems to be immune to fierce denunciation, sustained exposure and incisive pranksterism alike.

Acquiescence has been defined as the “passive assent to, or compliance with, proposals or measures” and the “acceptance of something undesirable” without objection (OED). This quiet and discrete alignment with the status quo tends to work to the advantage of reactionary, populist, proto-fascist and fascist forces, and against those who have clear proposals for radical democracies that function within anti-racist, anti-sexist, egalitarian ethics.

The purpose of this seminar is to identify, expose and analyse imaginaries, discourses and practices of acquiescence, from a range of disciplines, and with reference to the past as well as the present, as long as the relevance to contemporary situations is made explicit. Papers may interpret acquiescent fictional or non-fictional works, or texts on acquiescence; expose practices that produce or perform acquiescence with the status quo; explore practices and imaginaries of rebellion and resistance, which are a counter-force to acquiescence; or critically analyse practices that present themselves as acting in defiance of an acquiescent mainstream society.

We are interested in including papers that compare imaginaries and practices of acquiescence across different political systems and time periods. We invite papers that take on the discursive invocation of acquiescence by fascist activists and by right-wing populists who posit themselves as rebels against the establishment and against an acquiescent society; and in analyses of the conservative and reactionary claim to lawfulness and neutrality expressed in their denunciation anti-fascists for violating the right to free speech or the state’s monopoly of violence when they contest or blockade fascist claims over the public space and (often urban) territory – as exposed by Peter Weiss in his Aesthetics of Resistance. We are also interested in papers that critically engage with the ‘whitewashing’ of hazardous ecological practices, the mental and creative effort involved in discursive strategies of naturalizing abuse and complicity, the gradual take-over of state institutions by organized crime, and laundering the profits of illegal practices.

For queries please contact the seminar organizers Cornelia Gräbner c.grabner@lancaster.ac.uk und Ilka Kressner ikressner@albany.edu.

The seminar proposal can be viewed here: https://www.acla.org/just-way-it-acquiescence-literature-and-film

Paper proposals are to be submitted here: https://www.acla.org/node/add/paper

You will be notified of the acceptance or decline of your paper proposal by 4th October 2018. The ACLA panel will then review the complete seminar proposals. You will be notified of the final acceptance of the seminar in early November 2018. Please note that the acceptance of your paper proposal by the seminar organizers does not guarantee the acceptance of the complete seminar by the ACLA panel.

Propuesta de artículos para el número especial de la revista E-Lyra sobre poesía actual y políti... more Propuesta de artículos para el número especial de la revista E-Lyra sobre poesía actual y política

Número monográfico de E-Lyra (fecha de publicación aproximada: julio de 2018)

"Poesía frente a regímenes y normas actuales"

Esta convocatoria de artículos para el monográfico especial de E-Lyra parte del proyecto de investigación "Poesía actual y política: Análisis de las relaciones contemporáneas entre producción cultural y contexto sociopolítico (POEPOLIT)" (FFI2016-77584-P, 2016-2019) que pretende estudiar el carácter político de expresiones poéticas actuales en Occidente. A partir de análisis no solamente textuales, sino también de fenómenos intermediales, queremos indagar en cuestiones como si una poesía estéticamente compleja tiene menos probabilidades de ejercer una influencia política que una poesía más popular; si poesía y poetas deberían ser más ampliamente reconocidas/os como agentes portadores y potenciales conformadores de una visión o epistemología especial; cuál es su influencia sobre la sociedad y, en caso afirmativo, si la sociedad reconoce esta influencia; o cuáles serían las consecuencias o los riesgos implícitos para una poesía que se asume como apolítica o ‘separada’ de la sociedad; cómo se pueden expandir los actuales horizontes de 'lo político' a través de nuevos lenguajes poéticos y analíticos; entre otros aspectos.

En este sentido, solicitamos el envío de análisis de fenómenos poéticos de la actualidad provenientes de diferentes ámbitos culturales (hispanoamericano, lusófono e ibérico en general, francófono, germanófono o anglófono). Nos interesan las prácticas de mediación poética y su incidencia política; las prácticas verbales de intervención política, particularmente en los repertorios de protesta de los movimientos sociales contemporáneos; la relación entre poesía y política a partir de la noción y figura autorial; o la relación entre poesía y política en la ciudad neoliberal.

En el marco de la investigación en poesía contemporánea, es usual encontrar posturas diversas sobre la relación que se establece entre la poesía y los regímenes identitarios, estéticos, políticos o ideológicos. Más allá de cualquier aproximación textualista, ya sea concibiendo la poesía como ejemplo de la producción cultural contemporánea, ya como bastión de resistencia ante ideas y prácticas que buscan homogeneizar las experiencias de vida, creemos esencial visualizar las formas de poesía o expresiones poéticas en contacto con lo social.

Es evidente que poesía y política no han tenido una relación estable y mucho menos han sido un par dicotómico, de ahí nuestro interés en trabajos que actualicen lo que ocurre en esos espacios de constante acción, atendiendo a toda su complejidad. Para esta convocatoria de artículos para el monográfico especial de E-Lyra, editado por Alethia Alfonso (Universidad Iberoamericana, México), Alba Cid y Cristina Tamames (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela) y Burghard Baltrsuch (Universidade de Vigo, privilegiaremos propuestas inéditas, originales que contribuyan a explorar la relación de aspectos citada.

La propuesta para artículos comprende, sin excluir otras temáticas:

• Poesía contemporánea y su relación con regímenes políticos, ideológicos y estéticos.
• Poesía contemporánea e identidad personal, social, nacional, cultural, religiosa, sexual o política.
• Poesía contemporánea y derechos humanos, perspectivas de género.
• Poesía contemporánea y su relación con la homogeneización de la vida cotidiana.
•Poesía contemporánea y sinergias: comunidades, el mundo del trabajo, relaciones de
inclusión/exclusión.
• Poesía contemporánea y espacialidad: periferia y centro, subalternidad y hegemonía, modernidades globales y transatlánticas, movilidad, migraciones y sujetos migrantes, refugiados, exilios.
• Poesía contemporánea e historia reciente: literaturas sin estado, discursos decoloniales.
• Poesía contemporánea y ética del compromiso: la figura autorial, l’engagement.

Los artículos podrán ser redactados en lengua castellana, gallega, inglesa o portuguesa y deberán tener una extensión y un formato de acuerdo con las normas editoriales: http://www.elyra.org/index.php/elyra/about/submissions#authorGuidelines.

La fecha límite para enviar una propuesta es el 15 de abril del 2018.

Para mayores informes, escriba a las editoras del número:
Alethia Alfonso, a8.alfonso@gmail.com
Burghard Baltrusch, burg@uvigo.es
Alba Cid, alcife@gmail.com
Cristina Tamames, cristina.tamames@usc.es

Call for Participation (edited volume) Poetic Words in the 21st Century Neoliberal City Which a... more Call for Participation (edited volume)

Poetic Words in the 21st Century Neoliberal City

Which alternatives to the capitalist and neoliberal status quo is the poetic word involved in constructing, by participating in expression, response, spatial occupation or collective organisation? Conversely, in what ways has poetry in public spaces become a tool for readying urban spaces for gentrification? Which strategies do poets and cultural organizers employ to resist such a re-signification of poetry by those in power, and to defend and recuperate the poetic word as processes that practice radical democracy and are committed to social, political and spatial justice?

We invite essay proposals that explore the ways in which poetic words engage with the material and the immaterial in the contemporary urban world, marked by spatial injustice (in lines with Edward Soja’s “thirdspace”), racism, sexism and the related phenomena of segregation, marginalization, gentrification, or deliberate decay. This specifically includes essays that pick apart neoliberal and authoritarian mystifications and instrumentalizations of ‘Poetry’ in the contemporary urban context. We welcome investigations of the relationship between poetry and the city’s role in producing categories, such as “illegal” immigrant, that criminalize and exclude, as well as considerations of poetry generated in response to the production and policing of “internal borders” within the cityscape. We are looking for research on poetry and the city’s complicity in neoliberal legal, carceral and penal systems that have targeted migrants, the poor, and racialized populations. How has poetry participated in discourses, or been instrumentalized by forces, that have remade the city as a zone of privilege, homogeneity, and wealth?

Our planned edited volume seeks essays that explore the role of the poetic word as a critical response to, and as an engaged critique of and intervention into, the social, affective and political realities of today’s cities that are marked by post-industrial, neo-colonial and neoliberal structures. We are looking for analyses and experiential engagements of a variety of poetic expressions from diverse urban zones, and particularly invite research on cities and towns that are not capitals, a relatively less studied topic in the broader area of investigation.

Many examples of contemporary urban poetry speak about, and from within, spaces marked by the watershed of neoliberal policies and beliefs, and the financial crises of the beginning of our century. The short form, read, performed, exchanged, written on the urban surface, or hidden within the palimpsestic layers of the city, can challenge notions of possession or productivity. This world-making poetic expression, which is sometimes the fruit of cooperative or communal endeavors, and sometimes the cherished hidden gem in a hostile environment, furthermore problematizes traditional ideas of the public and the private and reexamines conventional notions of enunciation and authorship. In the best of cases, it is an exercise in democratic, urban imagination that allows for an active, sense-imparting relationship with the environment.

Studies may include, but are not limited to, strategies of writing against monumentalization, poetry in relation to the city as tourist attraction and object of consumption, street art’s sensory responses to urban rhythms (in line with and beyond the historical vanguards), poetry and touch in an urban context, poetry of resistance to the language of advertisement, art in relation to an economy of sharing, and lyrics of dispossession and discarded objects. Other possible topics include: poetic resistance to, and defense against, neoliberal violence, and poetries of occupation and solidarity, what Kristin Ross (along with the Communards) calls “communal luxury.”

Please send your 3-4 page proposal (max. 1100 words, MLA style) to ashea@cca.edu, ikressner@albany.edu, c.grabner@lancaster.ac.uk by September 1, 2016. The deadline for submission of complete essays (max. 8,000 words) is November 1, 2016.

European Poetry and Statelessness (1900-) Workshop ‘Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Lan... more European Poetry and Statelessness (1900-)
Workshop
‘Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française’ Research Laboratory (ATILF), CNRS, Nancy
4 May 2017

« La parole poétique est, dans son essence même, un risque, celui de l’apatridité. Habiter la parole – il s’agit d’une limite inatteignable -, c’est avoir quitté l’espace et le temps usuels pour un chemin qui ne mène nulle part. » (Jacques Sojcher, La Démarche poétique).

While the theme of exile has enjoyed extensive attention in literary studies, that of statelessness is to date largely unexplored. If we consider the exile as one who has left a given place and subsequently arrives at another, the legibility of that transition becomes questionable once the bounded intactness of territories can no longer be assumed. Indeed, insofar as ‘stateless’ designates a subject position which is no longer identical with that of the citizen, it is additionally possible to be stateless within the state, ‘contained within the polis as its interiorized outside’ (Judith Butler), thereby experiencing a diminished kind of participation in a language and a world held in common (Hannah Arendt). Sharing aspects of the condition of exile (through the topoi of dispossession, displacement and non-belonging), statelessness, whether elective or forced, thus elicits an additional set of problematics concerning space, civil identity, and the accession to speech among others.

This workshop will explore the extent to which the paradigm of statelessness can be seen to illuminate evolving conceptions of poetry, ‘ce genre qui se pense et se laisse penser par un état d’exception au sein du langage’ (Michael G Kelly), in Europe since 1900. The exceptionality characterising the poetic may in some understandings be grasped through its attenuation of categories of personhood, place and presence. Yet if part of the risk of the poem is its placing of speech in extremis, poetry nonetheless also bears the potential to turn its position of vulnerability and/or provisionality into one which generates new possibilities of enunciation and interrogates centralised conceptions of meaning and authority.

Offering a paradigm by which to consider the work of poets (among them Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Celan, Yvan Goll, Gherasim Luca or Tristan Tzara) whose trajectories are marked by issues such as migration and multilinguality, statelessness more broadly speaks to poetry’s difference, prompting a range of possible areas of reflection. In what sense might ‘statelessness’ offer a model to theorise the status of the poetic, to account for the figurative or metaphorical framework of individual poems, or to elucidate the adoption or rejection of established poetic forms? How might the poetic utterance figure - and deflect – the cognitive or spatial displacement which produces the condition of statelessness? Contributors may wish to accord special consideration to linguistic issues: at a semantic level (through the presence to a greater or lesser degree of lexicons related to exile, loss, space or the dispossession of identity); at that of morphology or syntax (particularly concerning the movement of poets between languages and the ways in which the host language absorbs, restructures ou erases traces of the native language); and/or at that of stylistics.

Potential themes may include:

Spatiality and place: exile and non-belonging
Stateless poets
Linguistic estrangement, translation, multi-linguality
Poetry and the polis
Provisionality and the poetic utterance
Poetry within stateless literatures
Poetic/cultural/institutional models

Contributions in English or French of 20 minutes on any European language are invited for this workshop. Proposals should be sent by email before November 18th 2016 to the following addresses:veronique.montemont@univ-lorraine.fr and greg.kerr@glasgow.ac.uk.

Organisers: Greg Kerr and Véronique Montémont, Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française research laboratory, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université de Lorraine, Nancy.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951)
Judith Butler & Chakravorty Spivak, Who Sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging (Oxford: Seagull, 2007)
Michael G. Kelly, ‘Pureté de l’impur. Robert Desnos et Le Grand Jeu’,Robert Desnos: Surrealism in the Twenty-First Century, ed. By Marie-Claire Barnet, Eric Robertson and Nigel Saint (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2006), 43-56
Jacques Sojcher, La Démarche poétique (Paris: Union générale d’Éditions, 1976)

Poésie européenne et apatridie (1900-)
Journée d’études
Laboratoire de Recherche « Analyse et Traitement Informatique de la Langue Française », CNRS, Nancy
4 mai 2017

Alors que le thème de l’exil a fait l’objet d’une attention soutenue dans les études littéraires, celui de l’apatridie reste encore largement inexploré. Si l’on considère l’exilé comme celui qui quitte un lieu donné avant d’arriver dans un autre, la lisibilité de cette transition est remise en cause dès lors que les territoires ne peuvent plus être conçus comme des espaces limités et confinés. En effet, dans la mesure où « apatride » désigne une position de sujet qui n’est plus identique à celle du citoyen, il est en outre possible d’être « apatride » à l’intérieur de l’État, « contenu au sein de lapolis comme son extérieur intériorisé » (Judith Butler), faisant ainsi l’expérience d’une moindre capacité à prendre part à un monde et un langage communs (Hannah Arendt). Tout en reprenant certains aspects de la condition de l’exilé (à travers les topoï de la dépossession, du déplacement et de la non-appartenance), l’apatridie, qu’elle soit choisie ou forcée, soulève ainsi nombre de problématiques supplémentaires relevant de l’espace, de l’identité civile et de l’accession à la parole entre autres.

Lors de cette journée d’études on s’interrogera sur l’apatridie comme paradigme susceptible d’éclairer l’évolution des conceptions poétiques en Europe depuis 1900, la poésie étant « ce genre qui se pense et se laisse penser par un état d’exception au sein du langage » (Michael G. Kelly). L’exceptionnalité qui caractérise le poétique peut selon certaines définitions être appréhendée à travers l’atténuation qu’elle opère des catégories de l’identité individuelle, du lieu et de la présence. Or, si une partie du risque du poème consiste dans le fait qu’il précarise la parole, la poésie est néanmoins susceptible de trouver dans sa vulnérabilité et son caractère provisoire une position génératrice de nouvelles possibilités d’énonciation et apte à interroger des conceptions centralisées du sens et de l’autorité.

Présentant un paradigme susceptible d’éclairer l’œuvre de poètes dont les trajectoires sont marquées par les questions de migration et de plurilinguisme (Guillaume Apollinaire, Paul Celan, Yvan Goll, Gherasim Luca, Tristan Tzara), l’apatridie permet de faire valoir la différence qui est le propre de la poésie, sollicitant ainsi plusieurs champs de réflexion possibles. En quoi « l’apatridie » pourrait-elle présenter un modèle apte à élaborer une théorisation du poétique, à rendre compte du système figuratif ou métaphorique du poème, ou à éclairer la posture de reprise ou de rejet de modes versificatoires classiques ? En quoi l’énoncé poétique permet-il de retracer voire de détourner le déplacement cognitif ou spatial qui conduit à l’état d’apatridie ? Les études pourront faire une place particulière aux problématiques linguistiques à divers niveaux : sémantique (présence plus ou moins assumée de lexiques renvoyant à l’exil, la perte, l’espace ou la dépossession identitaire) ; morphologique et syntaxique (en particulier, s’agissant du passage du poète d’une langue à l’autre et de la façon dont la langue hôte absorbe, remodèle ou gomme les traces de la langue d’origine) ; et/ou stylistique.

Les communications peuvent aborder les sujets suivants sans toutefois s'y limiter :

Spatialité et lieu : exil et non-appartenance
Poètes apatrides
Étrangeté linguistique, traduction, plurilinguisme
Poésie et polis
Caractère provisoire de l’énoncé poétique
La poésie dans les littératures sans état
Modèles poétiques/institutionnels/culturels

Nous invitons les chercheurs à soumettre des propositions de communication d’une durée de 20 minutes sur n’importe quelle langue européenne. Les propositions sont à adresser par courriel, en anglais ou en français, avant le 18 novembre 2016 aux deux adresses suivantes :veronique.montemont@univ-lorraine.fr et greg.kerr@glasgow.ac.uk.

Organisateurs : Greg Kerr et Véronique Montémont, ATILF, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique et Université de Lorraine, Nancy.
Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951)
Judith Butler & Chakravorty Spivak, Who Sings the Nation-State? Language, Politics, Belonging (Oxford: Seagull, 2007)
Michael G. Kelly, ‘Pureté de l’impur. Robert Desnos et Le Grand Jeu’,Robert Desnos: Surrealism in the Twenty-First Century, ed. By Marie-Claire Barnet, Eric Robertson and Nigel Saint (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2006), 43-56
Jacques Sojcher, La Démarche poétique (Paris: Union générale d’Éditions, 1976)

Writing for Liberty SOUTH AFRICA Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research and UWC C... more Writing for Liberty
SOUTH AFRICA

Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research and UWC CREATES, University of the Western Cape, in collaboration with Lancaster University, UK.

At the University of the Western Cape, 27-29 March 2017.

Keynote speaker: Professor Antjie Krog, University of the Western Cape.

Call for Papers

This will be the second Writing for Liberty conference. Its aim will be to build upon and extend the dynamic debates and discussions begun during the first WFL Conference, hosted by Lancaster’s Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research in 2015. Once again it will seek to promote debate around fundamental issues of human liberty through the agency of creative and critical writings. We are now requesting academic papers and new creative writings for reading and performance. The Writing for Liberty Conference 2 will be a three-day conference that will focus on the relationship between forms of creative writing and questions of personal, artistic, social, and political liberty. Contributions may refer to any period in history and to any social, political or cultural context, though our main emphasis will be on contemporary writing practice and critical/theoretical response.

Topics for proposals may include, but are not limited to:
- Writing and questions of textual authority
- Writing and political authority
- Writing and artistic/personal/political freedom
- Writing as resistance
- Writing as liberation
- Writing and censorship
- Writing and the nation state
- Writing between and beyond national contexts

The Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research
The central brief of the Centre for Multilingualism and Diversities Research (CMDR) at the University of the Western Cape, is to embark on a project of intellectual re-orientation, namely a significant rethinking of multilingualism and the development of a new discourse with which to approach interdisciplinary work in the humanities and the education sciences. The brief involves interrogating contemporary and historical African intellectual heritage through a critical review of the role of language and multilingualism in the colonial archive, and in the light of critical framings of multilingualism and diversity.
The Centre seeks to provide an intellectual space to further a critical rethinking of what kinds of questions we should be asking of language, literary and cultural study, strengthening existing interdisciplinary projects or leading to new ones, and enabling challenging questions to be asked of the disciplines themselves in the reconstitution of post-apartheid humanities.

UWC CREATES
UWC Creates is a unique multilingual creative writing initiative located in the CMDR that was begun at the University of the Western Cape in 2009. It was the first creative writing programme in Southern African to work multilingually (isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans) and to offers student writers and their lecturers the rare opportunity to write and dialogue across languages and literary traditions. Why all this emphasis on diversity and hybridity? We at UWC CREATES believe very strongly that being a South African writer involves engaging with our society’s cultural complexities. And South Africa is a many-tongued nation. We possess eleven official languages and embody an interconnecting matrix of different races, cultures, religions and histories. Understanding ourselves and others, means negotiating the many competing, conflicting or harmonising voices which make up this place we call home. At UWC CREATES we encourage our writing students to engage with this complexity, to build bridges of creative and social empathy, and ultimately to draw upon this greater understanding for their work. Since its inception hundreds of aspiring student writers and outreach mentees have benefited from the programme and its approach, with many going on to be published and garner critical acclaim.

Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research, Lancaster, UK
The Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research (CTWR) links writers, academics and Lancaster University’s postgraduate student community to extensive research activity in creative writing and its impact on society. Our aim is to create a transnational and interdisciplinary environment. We are committed to promoting creative writing across cultures and to studying the work of writers from a wide range of social and cultural contexts. The Centre encompasses research-as-practice, action-research projects, study of historical and contemporary creative practice, the innovative application of information technology through e-science and the interrelationship between writing and social change. We promote critical, pedagogical and theoretical accounts of praxis with special emphasis on cultural exchange between practitioners and with social and political institutions.

Proposals
Proposals should include a 200 word abstract (for academic papers) or summary (for creative contributions) and a 100 word bio of the contributors. Panel proposals should include the panel title, abstracts or summaries and bios for all presenters. Presenters will be invited to speak for 20 minutes. Please mark your email clearly as WRITING FOR LIBERTY 2 PROPOSAL.

Email your proposal to Avril Grovers at agrovers@uwc.ac.za by Friday 11 November 2016.

CFP for seminar at the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, 17-20 M... more CFP for seminar at the Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association, 17-20 March 2016, Harvard University
Creative Alternatives to Neoliberalism: The Poetic Word in Urban Spaces
Organizer: Ilka Kressner, University at Albany, SUNY
Co-Organizer: Cornelia Gräbner, Lancaster University, UK
Co-Organizer: Anne Shea, California College of the Arts

Deadline for paper submissions: 23 September 2015

In this seminar, we invite papers that explore the ways in which poetic words engage with the material and the immaterial in the contemporary urban world, marked by spatial inequality, racism, sexism and the related phenomena of segregation, marginalization, gentrification, or deliberate decay. Many examples of contemporary urban poetry speak about, and from within, spaces marked by the watershed of neoliberal policies, principles and beliefs, and the financial crisis of 2007-08.

The short form, read, performed, exchanged or written on the urban surface, interferes with established spatial orders and creates alternatives to them based on the terms of creation, instead of possession or productivity. This world-making, poetic expression, which is often the fruit of cooperative or communal endeavors, furthermore problematizes the traditional ideas of the public and the private and revisits conventional notions of enunciation and authorship. In the best of cases, it is an exercise in democratic imagination.

This seminar seeks papers that explore the role of the poetic word as a critical response to the realities of living in today’s post-industrial, neo-colonial and neoliberal cities. We are interested in studies of a variety of poetic expressions and from diverse urban zones. Studies may include strategies of writing against monumentalization, poetry in relation to the city as tourist attraction, street art’s sensory responses to urban rhythms (in line with and beyond the historical vanguards), poetry of resistance to the language of advertisement, art in relation to an economy of sharing, lyrics of dispossession and discarded objects, and the poetic word as world making.

You can view the CFP and submit a paper here: http://www.acla.org/seminar/creative-alternatives-neoliberalism-poetic-word-urban-spaces

N.B.: Not one of my own projects but one with which I have collaborated, and to which I'm connect... more N.B.: Not one of my own projects but one with which I have collaborated, and to which I'm connected in affinity and friendship.

CFP issued by Brian Barker, Chris Harris and Amit Thakkar
We are inviting proposals for chapters of an edited volume which consider how a focus on borders and border crossings might transform contemporary understandings of masculinities. The volume is intended to foster dialogues between a range of disciplines engaged in the analysis of cultural representations of gender. We are particularly interested in contributions from the fields of Modern Languages and Cultures, English Studies, Film Studies, History and Cultural Studies.

Publications concerned with the cultural representation and construction of masculinities have tended most frequently to be produced by and for scholars working in a particular discipline. Our project seeks to explore the possibility of establishing dialogues within and between fields of analysis. One major aspiration is to identify new, cross-disciplinary models and paradigms for the study of masculinities within the humanities that renew the politically- and socially-engaged emphases of intellectual frameworks such as cultural studies and postcolonialism.

Our principal focus is on cultural products of the 21st century, or the late 20th century, from any part of the world. These should be the focus of proposed chapters, though we acknowledge that such studies might also include contextual analyses of earlier processes, events and currents. We are particularly interested in papers which consider the following areas, though these are by no means prescriptive:

• the production of masculinities in the context of border crosssings
• the consequences for masculinities of dislocations occasionedd by movements across geographical and conceptual borders
• comparative treatments of differing models of masculinities iin different regions
• analyses of masculinities which take into account processes oof modernisation, (de-) industrialisation and urbanisation
• treatments of masculinities which are influenced by entrencheed historical trade relations
• affective aspects: emotion, desire and friendship
• sexualities, the body, display, performance
• relationships between power, knowledge, violence and masculinnities

Please send a 300-word abstract and a brief biography to Brian Baker (b.baker@lancaster.ac.uk), Chris Harris (c.harris@liverpool.ac.uk) and Amit Thakkar (a.thakkar@lancaster.ac.uk) by Friday 20th March.

CFP for Panel ‘Intersections: Autonomy, Creativity, the Political, and the Poetics of Resistance’... more CFP for Panel ‘Intersections: Autonomy, Creativity, the Political, and the Poetics of Resistance’

To be held at the Annual Conference of the Society for Latin American Studies, Aberdeen, Scotland, 17th-18th April 2015. Conference Theme: Autonomy

Panel Organizers: Cornelia Gräbner (Lancaster University), David M.J. Wood (UNAM)

Abstracts for papers can be submitted through the conference website: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/slas-2015/

The deadline for paper proposals is 28th November 2014

Call for Papers: Seminar at the Annual Conference of the American Comparative Literature Associat... more Call for Papers: Seminar at the Annual Conference of the American Comparative Literature Association, March 20-23 2014, New York University

Deadline for paper proposals: November 1, 2013

Poetry and the Poetic Word in Public Spaces: Urban Resistances to Neoliberalism from 1970 to the Present

Neoliberal policies have changed the ways in which city dwellers and visitors inhabit and experience cities. Spatial segregation, social inequality, securitization, militarization, gentrification, and the cut-backs in funding for cultural projects have compartmentalized public space and the cultural expressions that develop within it.

Poetry and the poetic word often play a significant role in the social movements, countercultures and cultures of resistance that have formed in response to neoliberalism. Examples include the insertion of poetry into public space in order to form new and resistant collectivities; the use of the poetic word as a resistance to social division; and the work of autonomous social centers on and with poetry.

On the formal level, city poetry responds to the neoliberal division of cities into separated zones of perception. In some zones, the sense of danger and the need for constant alertness highlights the importance of poetry as an autonomous way of making sense. In others, social clean-up and architectural cleanliness reduce sensory perception and encourage a withdrawal into the intimate.

This workshop invites papers that explore the role of poetry and the poetic word as a resistance and response to the neoliberal city. Interdisciplinary approaches and approaches from a variety of disciplines are welcome.

Possible lines of enquiry include
- poetry and the sensory in the neoliberal city
- subjectivities and collectivities
- the poetic word in film, music, and the visual arts
- urban social movements
- territorialities of resistance
- autonomous cultural spaces and projects
Seminar Proposal Keywords:
neoliberalism;
urban territoriality;
poetic subjectivities;
poetry collectives;
cultures of resistance;
city poetry

Please submit your paper proposal here: http://www.acla.org/submit/
For further information on the ACLA meeting see here: http://acla.org/acla2014/annual-meeting-theme/

A short blog post on how the case of the 43 students of the teacher training college in Ayotzinap... more A short blog post on how the case of the 43 students of the teacher training college in Ayotzinapa exemplifies contemporary shifts in the use of enforced disappearance as a method for state terrorism, especially with regards to deceit (as distinct to, lies) as symbolic violence.
See uploaded document for a more detailed version of the article.

Resistances and Alternatives to Violence: The Muralism of Javier Espinal Honduran painter and m... more Resistances and Alternatives to Violence: The Muralism of Javier Espinal

Honduran painter and muralist Javier Espinal
10 June 2015 10:36

The little we hear about the Central American country of Honduras usually focuses on brutal, ubiquitous, vaguely inexplicable acts of violence, and about the impunity of the perpetrators. Rarely do we get to engage with those who resist and with those who build alternatives, or with their imaginaries and cosmovisions. Honduran painter and muralist Javier Espinal created possibilities for such an encounter during a visit to the U.K. in the first months of 2015. He gave talks at several universities and painted murals with communities in Toxteth, Liverpool, and lrlam, Salford.

In a talk at Lancaster, Espinal highlighted the inseparability of culture, art and politics. His individual and community work shows how art can bring to the surface the links between systemic and structural processes, and specific events and expressions. Crucial to his art is an integrative and holistic approach that Espinal learned from the cosmovision of the indigenous Lenca people, the culture of his grandparents. The Lenca understand human beings as one with their social and natural environments, and with the past, present and future dimensions of existence. Espinal’s visual language integrates their cosmovision with mestizo and urban imaginaries of resistance, and with the experiences of his own journey as an artist. He lost compañeros, friends and acquaintances to enforced disappearance in the 1980s, when U.S. sponsored paramilitary groups launched their attacks against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and the guerrilla in El Salvador from Honduras and when a terror campaign was unleashed in Honduras itself. In July 2009, Espinal was one of the tens of thousands of people in the streets of Tegucigalpa to defend elected president Manuel Zelaya who was ousted in a coup d’état, and he was present when 18-year-old Isis Obed Murillo was fatally shot. Shortly after, Espinal lost Pedro Magdiel, who had helped paint a banner that denounced the assassination of Isis Obed. Pedro’s body was found with traces of torture and around 40 stab wounds. Since the – widely criticized – elections of 2010, Honduras has been forced open to what U.S. academic Adrienne Pine has described as ‘neoliberal plunder’; projects that primarily benefit the transnational mining and tourism industry. Resistance to such projects – see, for example, the cases of environmental activist Bertha Cáceres and that of the radio stations of the Garifuna community – is met with harassment, threats, the assassination of activists and journalists, a resurgence of the terror tactic of enforced disappearance, and the attack on and destruction of spaces and property. At the same time, Honduras has to contend with the violence of gangs and cartels.

The link between process and event, between collective and individual experience, manifests itself in Espinal’s work through the balance between resistance, denunciation, and the building of alternatives. “We don’t only denounce”, he explained, “we also look for alternative, independent, integral spaces where we can find our identity and create art, awareness, visibility, diversity, political education, action.” People’s imaginaries are brutalized when they could wake up any day to dead mutilated bodies in the street, when they are constantly subjected to the symbolic violence of slander and disdain, or when they live with the threat of being dispossessed of the spaces that they care about. Espinal’s muralism project nurtures imaginaries of dignity and non-violence. Asked about the practical aspects of the projects, Espinal explains that first of all he works with the community to agree on motives and colours. Then, the group drafts the mural. “We paint with the entire group”, Espinal explained, “Only on the last day do I work alone, to give the mural the finishing touches and to make sure that everything is well integrated.” The images can find a place on almost any surface: “We paint on rocks, fences, walls – whatever is there”, he says and shows photographs of a large painted rock in the middle of a square, wooden fences on the ‘Island of the Birds’ demanding respect for the inhabitants in the face of tourism projects, a long wall of adjacent buildings being painted on by a group of adolescents, and photographs from Italy where a corner wall has been turned into a mural. In Irlam, the adolescents who participated in the project adorned a park shelter in Princes Park with a blue bomb because that was their term for the shelter – but now the image of a blue bomb shows their ability to turn a violent image into a peaceful one. The ‘blue bomb’ exists side-by-side with paintings of the trains, viaducts and buildings characteristic of Irlam’s position within past and present, and a tree of different coloured eyes. The eyes symbolize the respectful encounter of different cultures and the learning from each other in a spirit of lucidity and openness.

Art, when it is part of a non-violent imaginary and when everyone approaches it without a sense of superiority over the Other, can turn into a space of encounter where people – including those from the Global South and the Global North – have much to learn from each other. Espinal is already planning to create another such space: during his journey he raffled several of his paintings to raise money for an International Encounter of Muralists, to take place in several cities in Honduras in April and May 2016.

Newsletter of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research, www.transculturalwriting.com

The Blog Poetics of Resistance is run by members of the network of that name. The Poetics of Resi... more The Blog Poetics of Resistance is run by members of the network of that name. The Poetics of Resistance are also a methdology of committed, critical and rigorous analysis, enquiry, and imagining. They have been developed by the members of the network ‘poetics of resistance’ for the purpose of contributing from our locations and in our different ways to the imagining, organizing and building of alternatives to the capitalist status quo. They are an expression and a practice of our commitment to social, political and cultural transformation in the spirit of global justice and high-intensity democracy. The network is intellectually autonomous, though we understand our autonomy as relational, or porous, in that we engage in relationships of solidarity with individuals and collectives with whom we share commitments and affinities.

The Poetics of Resistance are to

identify and recognize practices of resistance and seeds of alternatives in artistic expressions, cultural practice and critical thought;
nurture them by way of critical response;
share the emerging literacies of resistance through any means necessary;
to identify and expose adverse and reactionary arguments, practices, and expressions, to take them on by way of critical thinking, and neutralize their cultural power
develop appropriate ways of disentangling and unmaking the texture of deceit
grow the network on the basis of affinities, shared commitments, and organizational experience.

We critically engage with objects, events, texts, situations and practices from the arts, culture, politics, and theory. This blog is a platform to share our thinking.

For this blog we welcome contributions of up to 1200 words, on contemporary topics relevant to the poetics of resistance. Please contact the editors with expressions of interest.