"Narratives of Migration" Conference

Download the call for papers here. 

• Location: St Cross Building, Faculty of English Language and Literature, Oxford
• Conference Date: 16 June 2023
• Abstract Submission Deadline: 30 March 2023 

In collaboration with Migration Oxford, the Faculty of English Language and Literature, and the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, we are organising a one-day conference in Oxford that aims to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue among Humanities researchers who work in the field of migration studies.

This event seeks to foreground the role of the Humanities in migration studies by showcasing academic research cross-departmentally, and initiating avenues of connection with creative practitioners (writers, poets, and artists) whose oeuvre speaks directly to issues of migration. To this end, we invite proposals for papers addressing the topic of “narratives of migration”, broadly defined as fictional or non-fictional narratives represented in cultural forms and artefacts in visual or written form, including but not limited to literature, the visual arts, and film. We are particularly interested in exploring how political, social, ethical, and aesthetic debates emerge in cultural narratives of migration across the Humanities and even cross-cut debates in the social sciences.

The keynotes of the conference will be delivered by world-renowned Professor of World Literature in English Elleke Boehmer (Faculty of English Language and Literature), bestselling and award-winning writer Christy Lefteri, and Refugee Hosts’ Writer-in-Residence and award-winning poet Yousif M. Qasmiyeh. Through the conference, we hope to show how cultural representation enhances, challenges or opens up new routes to incorporating a Humanities perspective within migration studies.

We invite papers on “narratives of migration” across genres, historical periods, and disciplines in the Humanities. We are interested in themes including but not limited to the following:

• Intersectional approaches to the experience of migration
• The role of medium and genre in addressing the politics of representing migration
• The ethics of cultural representation in migration studies
• The role of narratives of migration in enabling a critical reflection on the personal, institutional and global impact of migration
• The role of writers, filmmakers, and artists as public figures in addressing issues of migration through their oeuvre and/or public speaking

We welcome individual papers for fifteen-minute presentations. Please submit an abstract of 150-200 words to Isavella Vouza at isavella.vouza@ell.ox.ac.uk by 30 March 2023 and please make sure to include your name, affiliation, and a short bio. Decisions will be made by 15 April 2023.

Registration details will be released in due course. The event is free of charge for all attendees.

About Migration Oxford 

Migration Oxford is an initiative and network that brings together academics working on migration and mobility from across the University of Oxford's research centres, divisions, and departments to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and collaborations through events, newsletters, and the Migration Oxford podcast. The Migration Oxford website features 175 Oxford based migration researchers. If you are a migration researcher based at Oxford and you would like to feature on the website, please fill out this form. 

About the Faculty of English Language and Literature 

Oxford’s English Faculty is the largest in Britain, and one of the most illustrious Schools of English in the world. Established in 1894, it has numbered among its members some of the most important critics and scholars in the field, including Julia Briggs, Terry Eagleton, Barbara Everett, Helen Gardner, Hermione Lee, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and many others. Graduates of the English Faculty include writers such as Caryl Churchill, Jan Morris, Jeanette Winterson and Hari Kunzru, journalists Lynn Barber and Reeta Chakrabarti, the High Court judge Deirdre Fotrell and lawyer-poet Monica Youn, actors Sam West and Emilia Fox, and activists Stuart Hall and Naseem Khan. We are now home to nearly eighty Professors, Readers, and Lecturers, with about the same number again of Tutors and Research Fellows based in Colleges. At any one time, there are roughly a thousand students studying within the Faculty at undergraduate level, and another three hundred at graduate level in the largest English graduate school in the country.

About the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages 

The Faculty is one of the leading centres for the study of European language, literature, and culture world-wide, offering expertise in the entire chronological range from the earliest times to the present day, and with specialists in film studies, cultural studies, history of the book, and cultural history as well as languages and literatures. The Faculty offers expertise in Celtic (Welsh and Irish), French, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Polish and Czech, as well as in a range of other languages spoken in Europe. Colleagues across the various languages work together in various interdisciplinary projects and research centres, which bring specialists in language and literature together with historians, philosophers, and social studies scholars. Modern Languages at Oxford has been ranked top in the world in the last two QS World University rankings.