The Dialectics of Orientalism in Early Modern Europe
October 7-8, 2011, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Levis Faculty Center
Keynote speakers:
Roberto Dainotto (Dept. of Romance Studies, Duke University)
His research interests include the Italian historicist tradition (Vico, Cuoco, Manzoni, Labriola and Gramsci), the formation of national identity between regionalism (including the so-called “Southern Question” and “Jewish Question”) and European integration, Italian cinema, and modern and contemporary Italian culture. He is the author of Place in Literature: Regions, Cultures, Communities (Cornell UP, 2000), and the editor of Racconti Americani del ‘900 (Einaudi, 1999). His last book, Europe (in Theory) (Duke UP, 2007), winner of the 2010 Laura Shannon Prize of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, argues that Europe not only defined itself against an "Oriental" other but also against elements within its own borders: its South.
Barbara Fuchs (Dept. of English / Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, UCLA)
Trained as a comparatist (English, Spanish, French, Italian), Prof. Fuchs works on European cultural production from the late fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, with a special emphasis on literature and empire. Prof. Fuchs is now working on the occlusion of Spain in English literary history and, with Aaron Ilika, on a translation and critical edition of two maurophile novellas, The Abencerraje and "Ozmin and Daraxa." She is a past editor of Hispanic Review has also co-edited two special editions of MLQ, on Postcolonialism and the Past (2004) and Genre and History in Early Modern Studies (2006), and edited a special issue of Hispanic Review, on Re-envisioning Early Modern Iberia: Visuality, Materiality, History (2009). She is an editor for the Norton Anthology of World Literature and the Norton Anthology of Western Literature. She is the author of Mimesis and Empire: The New World, Islam, and European Identities (2001), Passing for Spain: Cervantes and the Fictions of Identity (2003), Romance (2004), Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain (2009), and The Bagnios of Algiers and The Great Sultana: Two Plays of Captivity, ed. and trans., with Aaron Ilika (2009).
Nabil Matar (Dept. of English / Dept. of History, University of Minnesota)
Dr. Matar’s research in the past two decades has focused on relations between early modern Britain, Western Europe, and the Islamic Mediterranean. He is author of numerous articles, chapters in books and encyclopedias, and the trilogy: Islam in Britain, 1558-1685 (Cambridge UP, 1998), Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (Columbia UP, 1999), and Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689 (UP of Florida, 2005). He wrote the introduction to Piracy, Slavery and Redemption (Columbia UP, 2001) and began a second trilogy on Arabs and Europeans in the early modern world: In the Lands of the Christians. (Routledge, 2003), Europe through Arab Eyes, 1578-1727 (Columbia UP, 2009). He is currently working on the third installment. His next publication is forthcoming with Professor Gerald MacLean, Britain and the Islamic World, 1558-1713 (Oxford UP, 2010). With Professor Claire Jowitt, he is preparing an edition of three early modern English plays featuring Muslim women (forthcoming, the Revels Series, Manchester UP, 2012); and with Professor Judy Hayden he is co-editing a collection of essays on travel to the Holy Land in the early modern period (forthcoming Brill, 2012).
Conference participants:
Adam G. Beaver (Princeton University)
Karoline Cook (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
L. Elena Delgado (University of Illiois at Urbana-Champaign)
María Antonia Garcés (Cornell University)
José Luis Gasch Tomás (European University Institute, Florence)
Catharine Gray (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Waïl S. Hassan (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Aigi Heero (Tallinn University)
Stephanie M. Hilger (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Valerie Hoffman (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Eva Johanna Holmberg (University of Helsinki)
Javier Irigoyen-García (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Marcus Keller (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Seth Kimmel (Stanford University)
Craig M. Koslofsky (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Heather Madar (Humboldt State University)
Natalia Maillard Álvarez (European University Institute, Florence)
Laurence Mall (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Opher Mansour (University of Hong Kong)
Raúl Marrero-Fente (University of Minnesota)
Mariselle Meléndez (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
David Moberly (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
Feisal Mohamed (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Lori H. Newcomb (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Carl Niekerk (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
David J. O'Brien (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Natalio Ohanna (Western Michigan University)
Robyn Radway (Rutgers University)
Ana María Rodríguez-Rodríguez (University of Iowa)
Lisa Rosenthal (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Emanuel Rota (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
D. Fairchild Ruggles (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Maris Saagpakk (Tallinn University)
Kaya Sahin (Tulane University)
José Alberto R. Silva Tavim (Centro de Estudos Africanos e Asiáticos do Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, Lisbon)
Lydia M. Soo (University of Michigan)
Eleonora Stoppino (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Carol Symes (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Mara Wade (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaing)
Toby Erik Wikström (Tulane University)
Oumelbanine Zhiri (University of California-San Diego)