Notre Dame, IN. Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance, a research collective and lecture series focused on the study of literatures of the global Middle East/Southwest Asia and North Africa, founded by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi and housed at the University of Notre Dame’s Initiative on Race and Resilience, is excited to announce the launch of its new website, litofexile.nd.edu.
The website was redesigned to reflect the growth of the research collective and its online event series. The new website includes an archive of recorded events featuring transnational writers and scholars from Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Colombia, Chile and the United States whose work bears witness to truth and history and to the global struggle for freedom.
“Literatures of Annihilation, Exile & Resistance is a space for writers and artists who consider art as a form of transformational testimony,” said Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi. “It is a space for examining in our own words and images how resistance movements and political violence in our ancestral and adopted homelands have shaped our language, narratives, and collective and individual identities.”
The site features an interactive map that traces the personal migration routes of featured guests, along with members of the research collective. Writers such as Sonallah Ibrahim, Sinan Antoon, Solmaz Sharif, Ibtisam Azem, Isabella Hammad, Elias Khoury, Susan Abulhawa, and Mosab Abu Toha are featured alongside scholars who study literatures that have been shaped by transformational movements, decolonization, migration, and human rights violations. Together, their migration paths illustrate trends of movement over the Mediterranean Sea and across the Atlantic Ocean. Users of the interactive map can learn more about each writer/artist/scholar through links to recorded conversations, written interviews, and more. The map was developed by poet, artist, and researcher Amira Hanafi.
Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance invites visitors to explore the new website and to register for upcoming events, which are held monthly live on Zoom. Lina Meruane and Nadia Owusu are featured guests on Friday, February 25, 2022 at 12:00pm EST. Randa Jarrar and Zeyn Joukhadar come into conversation with Mejdulene B. Shomali on Friday, March 25, 2022 at 12:00pm EST. Visitors can also watch videos of past events featuring literary readings and conversations between writers, filmmakers, and scholars.
About Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance
Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance is a research collective and lecture series taking an interdisciplinary approach to the global Middle East/Southwest Asia and North Africa. Launched by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, it is co-sponsored by the University of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters and by the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and housed at the Initiative on Race and Resilience, directed by Mark Sanders, Professor of English and Africana Studies.
The Literatures of Annihilation, Exile & Resistance research collective includes Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies faculty members Asher Kaufman, Ebrahim Moosa, Atalia Omer, and Ernesto Verdeja, and College of Arts and Letters faculty members Alison Rice, Perin Gürel, Olivier Morel, Ernest Morrell, Francisco Robles, and Mark Sanders. External collaborators include Chana Morgenstern, co-founder of the Archives of the Disappeared Initiative and Associate Professor in Postcolonial and Middle Eastern Literatures at Cambridge University; Sinan Antoon, Iraqi poet, novelist and translator, and Associate Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University; Refqa Abu-Remaileh, Associate Professor of Modern Arabic Literature and Film at Freie Universität Berlin and Principal Investigator of PalREAD; Amir Ahmadi Arian, Iranian novelist, journalist, and non-fiction writer, and Ammiel Alcalay, poet, novelist, translator, critic, and professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center.
Media Contact
Amira Hanafi
Coordinator
ahanafi@nd.edu
Originally published by at litofexile.nd.edu on February 08, 2022.