Diasporas of the Mind

Jewish and Postcolonial Writing and the Nightmare of History

Event Information and Booking

12th December, 2013
6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Birkbeck, University of London, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX. Room B35, Torrington Square main entrance
Professor Bryan Cheyette, University of Reading; Professor Robert Eaglestone, Royal Holloway, University of London; and Professor Susheila Nasta MBE, The Open University
Holocaust Memory, Literature, Migrants, Postcolonial Theory
Global
20th century, 21st century
Caryl Phillips, Edward Said, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, Philip Roth, Primo Levi, Salman Rushdie

Bryan Cheyette’s important and original new book, Diasporas of the Mind, sheds new light on a wide range of modern and contemporary writers to explore the power and limitations of the diasporic imagination after the Second World War.

In this round-table discussion, Bryan is joined by Robert Eaglestone, who has written extensively on Holocaust literature and contemporary fiction and internationally renowned literary critic and broadcaster, Sushelia Nasta, to explore the writings of Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, Primo Levi, Caryl Phillips, Philip Roth, Salman Rushdie, Edward Said, Zadie Smith and Muriel Spark, among others. They will discuss the ways in which histories and cultures can be imagined across national and communal boundaries and consider Bryan’s argument for a new comparative approach which encompasses both Jewish and postcolonial writers.

A book-signing will follow the discussion.

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