RUTGERS SEMINAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK
2010-2011 - Public lecture
SONIA CANCIAN (Concordia University/Université de Montréal)
The Poetics and Politics in the Intimate Worlds of Immigrant and Homeland
Epistolarity
Thursday, 31 March - 5 p.m. (Teleconference Lecture Hall, Alexander Library)
ABSTRACT
"The letter--perhaps the most intimate manifestation of our humanity for
millennia." Ivar Ivask
One vehicle that has maintained links between kin, friends, and lovers was
the letter. Personal letters written to loved ones in international
migration are an expression of the letter writers' poetics and politics
captured in their intimate worlds. Drawing from my recently published
book, Families, Lovers, and their Letters: Italian Postwar Migration to
Canada (University of Manitoba Press, 2010), I will be discussing the
relationship between migration, the experience of emotions, and the
intimate letters that were written within the epistolary spaces of
migrants and their loved ones who remained in the homeland. In doing so,
this paper invites scholars to consider the immigrant letter as more than
a narrative about women and men's acculturation and integration into a
host society. Moreover, its two-fold purpose compels researchers and
scholars to consider a different kind of letter as part of the epistolary
narrative in international migration: the largely neglected love letter.
In this discussion, emotions related to romantic and filial love are
explored within epistolary communications exchanged between women and men
in both receiving and sending societies--a medium that continues to engage
migrants and homeland letter-writers around the world. The presentation
will conclude with a discussion on a research initiative--with which I am
associated--on immigrant letters at the Immigration History Research
Center at the University of Minnesota, the Immigrant Narratives Online:
Letters in International Archives Project (INO), a project that is
increasingly attracting attention from researchers, students, and
archivists in North America and beyond.
More about RUTGERS SEMINAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK 2010-2011 events and
directions at:
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/book_history/RSHOB_2010-2011.html
For their support for the lecture series, the Rutgers seminar in the
History of the Book would like to thank the following programs and units
at Rutgers:
Center for Cultural Analysis | Departments of English, French, and History
| Program in Early Modern Studies | Rutgers University Libraries | School
of Arts and Sciences (Dean's Office) | School of Communication and
Information | The Transliteratures Project
--
Marija Dalbello
Associate Professor
School of Communication and Information
4 Huntington Street
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901-1071
Voice: 732.932.7500 / 8215
FAX: 732.932.6916
Internet: [log in to unmask]
http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/directory/dalbello/index.html
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