Dear colleagues,

Please find below and via the following link an open call for participation in a potential MESA panel: https://mesana.org/annual-meeting/call-for-participation#Arabic

Arabic Speculative Literature amidst Destruction, Repression & Trauma

The challenges to Arabic culture today range from the fear of extinction to the loss of one´s home and collective memories, and from war to censorship. How does Arabic literature deal with such severe existential and political threats? How can it preserve cultural heritage, restore hope, and contribute to visions for the future?

The envisaged panel seeks to explore Arabic speculative literature from Palestine and beyond. It welcomes analytical engagements with primary texts as well as conceptual investigations of literary forms which may range from magical realisms to appearances of the fantastic, science fiction, utopias/dystopias, and futurisms.

The panel is inspired by the project “Magical Realisms and Speculative Literature” hosted by Beatrice Gründler at the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective” (Freie Universität Berlin):https://www.temporal-communities.de/research/future-perfect/projects/magical-realisms-speculative-literature/index.html. The project hosts a regular colloquium accessible both in-person and online. If interested in joining these events, please just get in touch.

Organized by: Hanan Natour (Freie Universität Berlin)

Please submit a 300-word abstract and a short bio (150 words) to Hanan Natour (hanan.natour@fu-berlin.de) by February 10^th.

With kind regards from Berlin, Hanan Natour 

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Freie Universität Berlin 

EXC 2020 Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective 

Research Area 3 “Future Perfect”