Edited volume: Writing Heritage, Performing Migration

Edited volume: Writing Heritage, Performing Migration

Yvonne Zivkovic (Universität Graz), Sandra Vlasta (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) (eds.), to be published with Vernon Press

Knowledge about heritage and migration is still predominantly derived from quantitative and qualitative methods in the social sciences. In recent decades, new approaches in literature and cultural studies have challenged conventional narratives by exploring how narratives of and about migration contribute to negotiating national identity and collective memory. The exploration of the aesthetic negotiations of migration represents a much-needed supplement to the more policy-oriented research on migration and displacement. This volume will offer a forum for new research methodologies at the intersection of literary studies, the arts and the social sciences. We therefore seek proposals by scholars from literary studies, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, human geography, education and related subjects. The volume will also contain a section on creative reflections by authors and performance artists and shine a light on disciplinary crossovers. Questions to be explored could include, for example, how the use of ethnographic interviews for anthropological research compares to the role of auto-ethnography in migrant writing, or how transnational identities are performed at migration museums and poetry slams.

The book particularly seeks to investigate the role of literature, the arts, and intangible heritage, which has received increased attention since the 2003 UNESCO convention calling for the safeguarding of more mobile forms of heritage. Moving away from a dominant focus on material heritage, intangible heritage refers to forms of cultural expression that provide collective identification but emphasize mobile, performative and dynamic elements – examples include oral storytelling, dance, the production of crafts, food cultures, language/dialect, and ritual. Literary production finds itself in a curious in-between position – on one hand, certain literary works and authors are considered part of national heritage (Shakespeare for the U.K., Goethe for Germany), but the materiality of the printed word has led to its exclusion from the concept of the intangible. On the other hand, literature serves an important function in recording, preserving and circulating intangible heritage, something that has become vital for migrant writers in their experience of displacement. New forms of written culture such as digital platforms, online readings and magazines, as well as street and performance art have made a binary distinction between the material and the intangible dimension of literature even more challenging. The proposed volume seeks to put the arts, literature and performance studies at the center of the discussion around heritage. By bringing together contributions from an interdisciplinary group of international scholars working on modern heritage studies and migration, this book intends to fill a major gap in heritage research, while offering a forum in which the narratives, performances and legacies of migration can be explored.

Please send your abstracts of contributions (max. 300 words) to the two editors, Yvonne Zivkovic (yvonne.zivkovic@uni-graz.at) and Sandra Vlasta (sandra.vlasta@gmail.com), by October 25, 2021. The deadline for articles will be January 30, 2022.