University of Zurich, 14 and 15 May 2021
The European refugee crisis, the Brexit vote, Trump’s “build the wall” campaign: Over the last decade, public discourse on migration has been increasingly marked by a rhetoric of emergency and threat, as well as calls for a stricter policing of borders and the limitation of mobility. Against this current background, the 2021 SAUTE Conference will allow us to approach the issue of Migrations and Contacts from a historically and culturally comparative perspective. Both the English language and Anglophone literatures provide ample and timely reminders of the crucial role cross‐cultural encounters and exchanges have played throughout history – from the invasions of the British Isles through the expansion of the English (later, British) Empire to contemporary multiculturalism in all parts of the Anglophone world, where the English language and English‐language literature continue to diversify.
This conference aims to bring together contributions from the fields of linguistics and literary and cultural studies. In a workshop‐like atmosphere, we hope to enable a fruitful exchange between scholars from all career stages who are currently working on thematically related projects. More specifically, we envisage bringing together presentations covering the following areas:
Sadly, the emergence of Covid‐19 has given a new twist to the conference topic. Instead of allowing the pandemic to disrupt our scholarly exchange, however, we will nevertheless hold the meeting in virtual form, in as interactive a fashion as possible – and with sufficient breaks to avoid screen fatigue. The conference will be conducted in an interdisciplinary spirit: instead of parallel panels, there will be short thematic sessions attended by all conference participants.
Migrations and Contacts will feature two internationally renowned keynote speakers: geographer and poet Tim Cresswell from the University of Edinburgh and sociolinguist Devyani Sharma from Queen Mary University of London.
