‘Traversing beyond Borders: Intermediality and Cross-Cultural Communication’

We will not only explore the interaction between different cultures and languages in world literature, but also discuss the intersection between different forms of media, such as poetry and visual arts, music and literature, especially the artist creations whose inspiration is connected to literary works. The conference also plans to invite artists to participate as panellists and workshop leaders in the spirit of encouraging the collaboration between academia and creative industries.

We are enormously delighted to announce that we have invited London-based Turkish artist Merve İşeri to be our keynote speaker, whose creation is based on the unique understanding of immigration, displacement of identity, cross-cultural experience, and memory. For more information about İşeri’s works, please see her website: https://www.merveiseri.com/

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

09:00-09:30: Registration and welcome notes
Serena Qihui Pei (UCL) and Gefan Wang (KCL)

09:30-11:00 Panel 1: Mapping the Chronotope: Mythology, religion and Literature
Ruth McNeil (KCL): Exploring Textual Expressions of ‘Being Yogi’ within the Practices of Modern Postural Yoga
Yueying Wu (Newcastle University): Female Characters and Oppression in Transnational Magic Realism: a Comparative Study between Mo Yan, Murakami Haruki, and Gabriel García Márquez
Archit Nanda (QMUL): The Time and World of Literature: Kunwar Narain and Kumarajiva
Chenjia Ma (KCL): Queering Chinese Myths: Transmedia Reimagination of Nezha in the Homoerotic Landscape

11:00-11:10 Comfort break

11:10-12:20 Panel 2: Ebb and Flow: Music, Literature and Theatre
Emily Moore (UCL): ‘I keep trying to get freer. You know, mixing my words with whatever I wants to mix them with’: Reading the Intermedial Praxis of Gayl Jones’s Mosquito alongside the Music of Wyclef Jean, Mary Lou Williams, and Thelonious Monk
Annika (Niki) Cleland-Hura (University of Edinburgh): Paper Jazz: Oral Tradition in Black American Literature
Dolly Sharma (SOAS): Nautanki Mission Suhani: Indian Diaspora, NRI Marriages and Transnational Theatre

12:20-12: 50 Lunch

12:50-14:20 Panel 3: Travelling Tales and Identities: Reimagining Transnational and Cross-Cultural Conversations
Leslie Wong (KCL): Adapting “Western” Classics in the Far East – A Tale of Two Webtoons
Dr Azadeh Mehrpouyan (Velayat University): Exploring Intermediality in Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies: A Study of Cross-Cultural Communication in the Diaspora Context
Lisu Wang (University of Leicester): Gaskell’s Travel in China: Translation and Reception
Jingshu Peng (IOE, UCL): Becoming Transnational Professionals: Narrating the Self and Negotiating Transnational Mobility

14:20-14:35 Tea and coffee break

14:35-16:05 Panel 4: Visuals in Vision: Images, Words and Voices
Keni Li (University of Glasgow): Intermediality of Contemporary Exhibition Space: novels, domestic space and Cinematic Cartography
Chenghao Wen (Tisch School of the Arts, NYU): Contemporary Vietnam Independent Documentary: From Visual Anthropology to Video Art
Xin Yan (University of Chicago): Carpe Clichés: Authenticity as Contingency in the Time of Memetics – A Study of “Past Lives” and “Great Buddha+” on Diasporic Identities in Buddhist Films
Donnie Ibn Malik Ali McClendon (University of South Florida): ‘When 4 is 6’ (Poetry Performance)

16:05-16:20 Tea and coffee

16:20-17:50 Panel 5: Echoes between Now and Then: Confronting Trauma, Memory and Boundaries
Qiao Fei Cheah (University of Edinburgh): ‘Never Forget’: Traversing Beyond Borders and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis
Hicham Diouane (Independent Researcher): Negotiating Identity in Exile: Wahhabism and Political Activism in the Narrative of Taqiuddin Al Hilali
Laura Osorio Salazar (University of Edinburgh): Learning to Live on the Edges: Nationhood, Migration and Non-Spaces in Limbo (Ben Sharrock, 2020)
Mary Campbell (University of Pennsylvania): Beyond Speaking: Representations of Trauma and Absence in Conjunto Vacío by Veronica Gerber Bicecci

17:50-18:00 Comfort Break

18:00-18:30 Artist Performance: Three decades of cultural resistance in Iraq: a literary and musical journey
with Hadani Ditmars, author of Dancing in the No-Fly Zone and PhD candidate in English at KCL, accompanied by oud player Ehsan Al-Emam.

18:30-19:00 Keynote speech
Merve İşeri: Symbiotic Languages

19:00-19:10 Q&A, ending and thanks

19:10-20:00 Wine reception
 

If you have any questions, please contact Serena Qihui Pei (UCL) and Gefan Wang (KCL) at traversingbeyondborders2024@gmail.com