On Migration

This volume is based on the section “Transnationalities – Transidentities – Hybridities – Diasporization”, organized by the Ibero-American and Francophone Research Centres of the University of Leipzig as part of the First Annual Conference of the Centre for Area Studies at the University of Leipzig. By now, already a decade has passed since our conference section took place and it is due to various circumstances that this volume has not been published earlier. It carries along, in some sense, its own migration trace. Nevertheless, the questions examined in the contributions have reached even more relevance since then in both, the Old World and the New, due to the various political, social, economic and ecological crisis around the globe that have led to the increased arrival of refugees to Europe and the harsh discussion about a concrete or “intelligent” wall to shield the USA from Latin American migrants, among others. Today, there is an urgent political and social need for concepts of living together in much more heterogeneous and much less familiar societies. The questions, notions and cases explored in the nine contributions that comprise this publication focus on this emergency. Participants on the volume: A. Chanady; A. de Toro; W. Ch. Dimock; D. Ingenschay; J. Mecke; M. Rössner; G. Pisarz-Ramirez; C. Sieber. ALFONSO DE TORO is Professor emeritus for Spanish, Portuguese, Ibero-American and Francophone Literatures and Cultures at the University of Leipzig. He is the founder and director of the Ibero-American and Francophone Research Centers (IAFS and FFSL). His research and publications are focused on theatre, narrative, and poetry in France, the Maghreb, Spain, Latin America, and Italy; as well as on culture, post-modern, post-colonial theories and hybridity and diaspora theories. CORNELIA SIEBER is Professor for Spanish, Portuguese and Latin-American Culture at the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz – Germersheim. She is director of the Centre for Latin American and Transatlantic Studies (CELTRA) and Co-Director of the IAFS. Her research and publications are focused on transcultural and migratory dynamics, gender structures and post-coloniality.