Reading the European Semi-Periphery: Narrative, Legacy, Collective Memory

This seminar delves into the underexplored literary contributions from the European semi-periphery. It focuses on narrative fiction and literary non-fiction from the 1990s to the present and aims to explore how these narratives reconfigure traditional imaginaries of Europe. By gathering scholars working with different European languages and literary and critical traditions, we wish to highlight the vital role of peripheral European literatures in reconceptualizing the continent and its diverse cultural production. The sessions will explore how these narratives challenge dominant discourses and value the poetics emerging from these regions in order to reconsider the asymmetric dynamics of literary circulation and translation that often marginalize these voices, considering four major areas:

Theoretical framework. Participants will contribute to define the concept of European semiperiphery and the diverse frameworks that underpin the authors’ rejection of hegemonic views, including new scholarly approaches to a more decentralized perspective in the study of minor European literatures and their less translated authors.  
European Imaginaries. We will examine how narratives from the European semi-periphery disrupt traditional Eurocentric views, offering alternative perspectives on European identity and cultural heritage. This includes exploring narratives that engage with diasporic, displaced, migrant, and border experiences and which undermine inherited notions of Europeanness and contribute to new transnational imaginaries. 
Exploratory Poetics. Through critical case studies, participants will engage in the exploration of the formal and aesthetic agency of these narratives. Special attention will be paid to topics such as gender, identity and memory, narratological devices for collective representation and trauma management. 
Literary Circulation. The seminar will also explore the uneven circulation of peripheral European literatures by means of studies on patterns of translation, critical reception, processes by which these works achieve recognition, and the analysis of cultural politics that may impact the dissemination of works outside their borders.