Spatiality at the Periphery in European Literatures and Visual Arts

Book excerpt: Spatiality at the Periphery in European Literatures and Visual Arts analyzes the impact migrations, both internal and external, have on Europe’s literary and visual representations in the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. The volume aims to subvert a centripetal reading of European cultural production by including peripheral thinkers, writers, and visual artists operating in transcultural contexts. The essays highlight and investigate the fertile artistic discourses generated in the spatial peripheries outside of Europe or its inner peripheries. The volume addresses the need for geocritical readings that overcome the engrained dichotomy of centers-peripheries. By doing so, the book brings a more nuanced approach to national literatures and proposes the idea of “contact zones of imaginative interaction”.