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The Research Group for the Study of the Literature of Concentration Camps at Wilfrid Laurier University seeks articles for a collective volume on the Literature of Survivors of Concentration Camps world-wide.

Whereas we take the Shoah as the paradigm from which to establish a conceptual framework for the study of the literature of survivors of concentration camps, we endorse Giorgio Agamben's understanding of the concentration camp as a "dislocating localization" set up by the State, which represents the "hidden matrix of the politics in which we are still living" (Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life). We are therefore open to the analysis of any type of literature produced by survivors of a legally sanctioned place of exclusion where the condition inhumana forces human beings to confront the spectre of bare life.

We are particularly interested in papers that approach the subject from a comparative literary perspective. Studies of texts and contexts that have not yet been analyzed in depth and/or that challenge to the previous study of the subject are especially welcome. We also encourage interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches, drawing from developments in such domains as philosophy, history, psychoanalysis, politics, pedagogy and legal studies.

Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:

1. Comparative approaches to the literary representation of time and space.
2. The status of the testimony (third-person testimony, artificial memories).
3. The importance of the literature of survivors of concentration camps for current politics.
4. Gender differences in the literature of survivors of concentration camps.
5. Literature of survivors and ideology as strategies of survival.
6. How life "after the event" is presented and problematized through literature.
7. Silence and writing (questions related to the unspeakable, the importance of dreams as representation of life before, during and after the event).
8. The transmission of the experience as represented in the second and third generations.
9. Different literary genres (such as poetry, theatre and opera) for the transmission of limit experiences.
10. The language of testimony (transmitting the experience through a second or third language).

Manuscripts should be in English. Authors must provide English translations of all citations not originally in English. Please use the most recent MLA guidelines for documentation style. Maximum Length: 20 pages.

Please send manuscripts in electronic version along with CV to Dr. Marta Marin at: mmarin_at_wlu.ca. Please use the same address if you need further information.
Deadline for submissions: June 30, 2006

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Received on Sun Nov 27 2005 - 16:44:33 EST