Life Writing Trajectories in Post-1989 Eastern Europe

Life Writing Trajectories in Post-1989 Eastern Europe

Authors

  • Ioana Luca National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
  • Leena Kurvet-Käosaar University of Tartu

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5463/ejlw.2.51

Abstract

In May 2011, the second IABA Europe conference, entitled "Trajectories of(Be)longing: Europe in Life Writing", took place at Tallinn University, Estonia. The conference discussed questions regarding the possibility and productivity of specifically European modes and practices of life writing. Conference sessions focused on spatial mappings and sites of story-telling about Europe in life writing and their temporal dynamics with respectto major historical ruptures and transformations. The lines of inquiry focused, on the one hand, on how the modes and practices of auto/biographical representation were structured around a sense of belonging toor longing for Europe and, and on the other, on contestation, rejection and transgression of such modes of identification. Addressing the conceptual frame of Europe as a geographical, political, social and cultural entity, the conference papers explored the ways in which “life-mapping” constructs, confirms, contradicts, and erases borders within and in relation to Europe, also raising the question of Europe (and its possible Europeanness) within a larger and more fluid global framework.

Published

2013-03-26

Issue

Section

Life Writing Trajectories in Post-1989 Eastern Europe