Colloquium

(Un)mapping the Mediterranean

Graduate Student Colloquium

March 13-14, 2015

poster

Friday, March 13, 2015

5:00 – 7:00PM Keynote Address and Reception
Illini Union 210
The Mediterranean: A Cradle of Civilizations Amongst Others
Zeev Gourarier: Director of Science and Collections at the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilizations in Marseille, France

7:30PM Dinner for Colloquium Participants
Bread Company

Saturday, March 14, 2015
Lucy Ellis Lounge, Foreign Languages Building

8:30 – 9:10AM Breakfast

9:10 – 9:20AM Welcome Address

Jean-Philippe Mathy: Director of the School of Literatures, Cultures, and Linguistics; Professor of French and Comparative and World Literature

9:20 – 9:30AM Opening Remarks
Corey Flack and Jessica Sciubba: Department of French and Italian

9:30 – 11:00 Tracing Lines/Unsettling Borders across the Mediterranean
Chair: Eric Calderwood: Professor of Comparative and World Literature, Spanish and Portuguese

  • Jazīrat al-maghrib: Connecting Two Seas Through the Western Island
    Peter Kitlas: Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University
  • Shifting Borders, Shifting Identities: Melilla’s Problematic Construction in Melillenses (2004)
    Amanda Rector: Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Questioning Migrants’ Agency: Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami
    Federica Di Blasio: Program of Comparative and World literatures, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

11:00 – 12:00 Charting Sea Power
Chair: Jamie Jones: Visiting Professor of English

  • Horace and the Dangers of the Sea
    Jen Stanull: Department of Classics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Performing Englishness in Salé: The Captivity Narratives of Mr. T.S. and Robinson Crusoe
    Paige Milligan: Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Michigan

12:00 – 1:00 Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 (Un)mapping Identities
Chair: Heather Grossman: Professor of Architecture

  • In Divisione Orbis Terrae: Concord and Discord in Sallust’s Mapping of North Africa
    Matthew Keil: Department of Classics, Fordham University
  • Mare Claustrum? Peter Chrysologus’ Anti-Pelagian Offensive and Italy’s Western Pivot
    Michael Brinks: Department of History, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • (Un)Mapping the Medieval Mezzogiorno: Nilo of Rossano and the Italo-Greek Saints
    Kalina Yamboliev: Department of History, University of California Santa Barbara

2:30 – 3:30 Destabilizing Patriarchal Coordinates
Chair: Emanuel Rota: Professor of French and Italian, History, and LAS Global Studies

  • Tracing Female Genealogies in Igiaba Scego and Cristina Ali Farah
    Jessica Sciubba: Department of French and Italian, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • Retrospective Reconstruction: Narrative Ambiguity and Agency in ‘L’últim patriarca’
    Teresa Greppi: Department of Spanish and Portuguese, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

3:30 – 3:45 Break

3:45 – 4:45 Roundtable
Eric Calderwood, Zeev Gourarier, Heather Grossman, Jamie Jones, Emanuel Rota

4:45 – 5:00 Closing Remarks

We would like to express our gratitude to all of our sponsors, without whom this colloquium would not be possible. Specifically, we would like to thank the European Union Center, the School of Literatures, Cultures, & Linguistics, the Department of French and Italian, KAM-Krannert Art Museum and the Unit for Criticism & Interpretive Theory.