Wall/walls: Shapes and representations of the wall in languages, literatures and visual arts (25th issue of Altre Modernità/Otras modernidades/Autres modernités/Other modernities)

Edited by Alessandra Goggio, Peggy Katelhön and Moira Paleari
Journal website: https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/AMonline

Keywords: Berlin Wall; border; narrative; identity; literature; linguistics; visual arts.

Thirty years after the German reunification, looking back at the construction and the fall of the Berlin Wall – two watershed events that completely changed the course of History, not only of Germany but of Europe itself – does not simply mean questioning the circumstances and the consequences of crucial occurrences at a social, geopolitical and economic level. Indeed, it also implies considering the developments of the new millennium, also about the reasons why other walls have appeared – from the Barrera between Mexico and the United States, to the boundary of the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, from the barriers erected for fear of the migrants to those that still separate peoples and cultures or that are built every day in relation to “diversities”.
Besides this historical-philosophical reflection, it is crucial to investigate the strategies and modalities of representation of the wall over the years, whether it is seen as a historical one, or, metaphorically, whether it is meant as a barrier/limit in an artistic, cultural and linguistic sense.
It is also necessary to rethink the functions of the wall in the course of History, not only as an element of division, but also as a space available for the creative act (suffice it to think of the tradition of the frescoes, of the modern urban graffiti or also the walls of prisons, which are often the only available surface of expression) or as a (transitable) border that triggers (or prevents) the development of strategies aimed at the circulation of ideas and of cultural products, for example, through translation practices.
Within these interpretive horizons, we should ask ourselves a few questions: is there a collective and recurrent imaginary of the wall? Is it possible to trace back modalities of narrative representation of the wall with respect to specific ages, generational tendencies and genres, or to perceive interactions between verbality and visuality? Is it possible to identify mappings and linguistic landscapes born around the concept of the wall? What were the functions performed by the Wall/the walls in History and what are they now? Are there any constant features? And what are the strategies adopted to overcome the wall meant not only as a physical barrier, but also as an ideal/linguistic/cultural one?

Potential topics to be addressed are:

• – the Berlin Wall in literature and other arts (figurative arts, cinema, comics, digital productions)
• – reflections about other walls, present and past, and their literary or linguistic representation
• – the wall as a limit/boundary/obstacle
• – wall/walls as a stimulus for a creative act
• – strategies to overcome physical and ideal walls
• – wall/walls in memory, in testimonies, in documents or as a monument
• – linguistic constructions of identity beyond the wall
• – the metaphor of the wall in texts and corpora
• – boundaries and linguistic barriers in discourse analysis
• – communication beyond ‘walls’ (questions of gender, of simplification on the basis of users, social media, etc.)

The list of topics abovementioned is not meant to be exhaustive and the Scientific Committee will consider other proposals submitted by scholars who intend to collaborate in the issue of the journal, with a view to expand the investigation of the area with articulate and original research.

If you wish to contribute to Other Modernities issue 25, you are kindly required to submit an abstract (max 200 words) alongside a short CV, by the 20th May 2020.

The complete contribution will have to be submitted by 20th September 2020.
Other Modernities accepts contributions in Italian, Spanish, French and English.
The issue will be published by the end of May 2021.

We also welcome book reviews and interviews to authors and scholars who investigate the aforementioned topics.
Moreover, Other Modernities will also consider publishing non-thematic essays in the indexed section “Off the Record”, following the conditions and deadlines indicated for thematic essays in this Call for Papers.

Contributors should feel free to contact the editors to discuss and clarify the objectives of their proposals, with a view to making the issue as homogeneous as possible also from a methodological point of view. The editors can be contacted via the Editorial Board (amonline@unimi.it).