Figures of the Migrant: The Roles of Literature and the Arts in Representing Migration

This volume seeks to investigate the representation of the migrant and migration in literary texts and the arts. Through studies that examine works in a range of art forms ‒ novels, theatre, poetry, creative non-fiction, documentary films and performance and video installations ‒ that evoke a variety of historical and (trans)national contexts, the volume focuses on the question of the roles of literature and the arts in representing migration. An important issue considered is the extent to which artistic figuration can act as a counterpoint to social discourse on migrants that often involves stereotypes and reductive views. The different contributions to the volume illustrate that literature and the arts can provide readers and viewers with a space for fluid knowledge production and affective expansion and that within that overarching function, artistic works play three main roles with regard to representing migration: undertaking a socio-political and cultural critique, presenting alternative views to stereotypes that highlight the singularity and complexity of the migrant and providing proposals for different futures.

Siobhan Brownlie is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, UK. With a background in Translation Studies, currently her main research interests lie in the fields of Intercultural Studies and Memory Studies. She has published three monographs of which the most recent is titled Discourses of Memory and Refugees: Exploring Facets (2020). Siobhan is also a creative artist and has recently written a play titled British Women Seeking Asylum.

Rédouane Abouddahab is Professor of American Literature at Le Mans Université, France. His research, which draws on psychoanalysis, philosophy, poetics and anthropology mainly, is centred on the notions of identity and otherness (in the sociocultural, psychic and ontological senses) in modern and contemporary American literature and the way in which poetic writing brings the experience of limits into play. He has published numerous books and articles on these matters, both in French and in English.