CFP Scritture migranti 21 (2027)

Call for Papers – Scritture Migranti, No. 21 (2027)

Border Studies and Contemporary Literature

With a Special Section dedicated to the work of Gazmend Kapllani

Edited by Paola Del Zoppo and Fabio M. Rocchi

The journal Scritture Migranti dedicates its twenty-first issue to the theme of borders, explored through the lens of Border Studies and brought into dialogue with voices and forms of contemporary literature.

Over the last decades, Border Studies have disclosed how the concept of the border extends beyond the geopolitical dimension. Today, borders are known to be territorial and maritime, but also linguistic, cultural, gendered, social, and medial. Understood as a dynamic and diffuse space, the border becomes a site of friction and passage where new identities, power asymmetries, and forms of resistance emerge. In this context, contemporary literature does not merely represent borders; rather, it inhabits them and examines processes of crossing from within, transforming exile, diaspora, translation, and identity negotiation into practices of writing. The written text thus emerges as a critical act capable of exposing mechanisms of control and imagining new forms of coexistence.

This volume welcomes contributions that investigate these issues through comparative and international perspectives, engaging with postcolonial theory, geocriticism, and studies of global mobilities. We particularly encourage submissions focusing on literary texts, narrative practices, poetic forms, and dramatic works in which the border functions as a central interpretive framework, whether as a space of conflict and memory or in relation to translation and border poetics.

Special Section: Gazmend Kapllani

This special section is devoted to Gazmend Kapllani, an Albanian-born writer and intellectual whose work has engaged extensively with the experience of Balkan and Mediterranean borders, and one of the most significant writers in portraying the disorientation, irony, and complexity of life lived across borders. Born in Albania and having migrated to Greece in the 1990s, Kapllani transformed the experience of border crossing into a foundational element of his writing, making it the basis of both a literary and a political vision.

In his novels and essays (written in Greek, Albanian and English), the border emerges as a place of fear and violence, while simultaneously functioning as a space of transformation, self-reinvention, and critical interrogation of national identities. His writing consciously challenges myths of cultural homogeneity and explores tensions between memory and oblivion, mother tongue and adopted language, belonging and marginality.

Contributions may address his work from perspectives including:

• Thematic and stylistic analyses of his fiction and essays;
• The Balkan and Mediterranean border as a symbolic space;
• Writing, autobiography, and testimony;
• Language, self-translation, and translingualism;
• Representations of otherness and constructions of the enemy;
• Post-communist memory and migration narratives;
• Kapllani within the context of contemporary European migration literature.

Suggested Areas of Inquiry

The issue also welcomes theoretical and analytical contributions addressing one or more of the following themes:

1. Theoretical Perspectives and Geographies of the Border

This area invites reflection on the conceptual genealogies and methodological developments that define Border Studies within literary criticism, exploring notions such as border, frontier, threshold, and liminality. Within this framework, the border is examined as both a biopolitical and narrative device, encouraging comparative and transnational approaches that engage with postcolonial, diaspora, and global mobility studies. Focusing on literary representations of European borders—particularly in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, and Eastern Europe—as well as maritime migration routes and borderland literatures, this area also extends to internal borders, global metropolises, and contemporary narratives of transit spaces such as camps, hotspots, and detention centres.

1. Linguistic Borders, Translation, and Translingual Writing

This area focuses on the linguistic dimension of the border, understood both as a barrier and as a space of identity negotiation. Contributions are invited on writing practices in adopted languages, multilingualism, and linguistic hybridity, where translation and self-translation become forms of border crossing. Attention is given to how language choice and language policies reflect symbolic power relations, transforming literary texts into sites of self-redefinition within migratory and diasporic contexts.

1. Subjectivity, Identity, and the Experience of Limits

This area explores the relationship between geopolitical or symbolic borders and the construction of contemporary subjectivities. Contributions may address diasporic identities and multiple forms of belonging, extending the concept of the border to questions of gender, sexuality, embodiment, and racialisation. Through the lenses of memory, trauma, and post-memory, we’d like to examine narratives of exile and statelessness, asking how literature gives voice to the identity fractures produced through encounters with limits.

1. Narrative Forms, Media Borders, and the Political Imaginary

This area investigates the intersections between literature, visual arts, and digital media, encouraging analyses of hybrid and experimental narrative forms, from web-based and transmedial writing to graphic novels and graphic narratives. It also includes documentary, testimonial, and reportage writing. Within the political imaginary, contributions may address representations of walls, barriers, and surveillance systems, as well as border dystopias, the relationship between borders and the climate crisis, and literature’s capacity to challenge mechanisms of control and imagine renewed forms of community.

Selected Bibliography

On Border Studies

Agnew, J. (2008). Borders on the mind: re-framing border thinking. «Ethics & Global Politics», 1(4), 175–191. https://doi.org/10.3402/egp.v1i4.1892

Alcoff, L. M., Hames-García, M., Mohanty, S. P. und Moya, P. M. L. (Hg.), Identity Politics Reconsidered, Palgrave Macmillan US, New York.

Anzaldúa, G. (2022). Terre di confine. La frontera. La nuova mestiza. Edizioni Black Coffee. (Prima pubblicazione Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza 1987).

Bhabha, H.K. (2004). The Location of Culture. Routledge.

Baasner, F., Wertheimer, J. (2014) Grenzen, Nomos.

Hofmann, B. und Mueller, M. (Hg.), Performing ethnicity, performing gender: Transcultural perspectives, Routledge research in cultural and media studies 91, Routledge, New York.

Weber, F., Wille, C., Caesar, B. und Hollstegge, J. (Hg.), Geographien der Grenze, Springer VS, Wiesbaden, S. 287-300.

McClennen, S. A. (2004) The Dialectics of Exile: Nation, Time, Language, and Space in Hispanic Literatures. Purdue University Press.

Moretti, F. (1997). Atlante del romanzo europeo: 1800-1900. Einaudi.

Rosello, M. (2002). Postcolonial Hospitality: The Immigrant as Guest. Stanford University Press.

Schimanski, J. & Wolfe, S. (eds). (2017). Border Aesthetics: Concepts and Intersections. Berghahn Books.

Tlostanova, M., Thapar-Björkert, S. und Koobak, R. (2016). Border thinking and disidentification: Postcolonial and postsocialist feminist dialogues. «Feminist Theory», Vol. 17 Nr. 2 (211-228).

Waghid, Z., Hibbert, L. (2018). Advancing border thinking through defamiliarisation in uncovering the darker side of coloniality and modernity in South African higher education. SAJHE, Vol. 32 Nr. 4 (263-283).

Westphal, G. (2011). Geocriticism: Real and Fictional Spaces. Palgrave Macmillan.

Woons, M. und Weier, S. (Hg.), Critical epistemologies of global politics, E-International Relations, Bristol, England.

 

Theoretical and sociolinguistic area

Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. Routledge.

García, O. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Wiley-Blackwell.

García, O., & Wei, L. (2014). Translanguaging: Language, bilingualism and education. Palgrave Pivot.

Glissant, É. (1990), Poétique de la Relation.

Simondon, G. (2020). L'individuazione alla luce delle nozioni di forma e di informazione. Mimesis. (L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information 1958).

Li Wei. (2020). Multilingualism and translanguaging. In J. Dam & H. Knudsen (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Education (236–248). Routledge.

Wallerstein, I. (1974) The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Academic Press, New York.

 

On Literary Translingualism, Transcultural Literature, and Albanian Migration Literature

Comberiati, D. (2010). Scrivere nella lingua dell'altro: La letteratura degli immigrati in Italia (1989-2007). Peter Lang.

Comberiati, D. & Bond, E. (eds). (2013). Il confine liquido. Rapporti letterari e interculturali fra Italia e Albania. Besa.

Comberiati, D. & Mengozzi, C. (eds). (2023). Storie condivise nell’Italia contemporanea. Narrazioni e performance transculturali. Carocci.

Del Zoppo, P. (2021). ‘Una traduzione senza testo originale’. La poesia come autotraduzione continua, in «Testo a fronte» 64–65 (2021) (55–85).

Del Zoppo, P. (2022). Un dialogo alla fine del mondo. Limine, generatività, memoria nella poetica di Hilde Domin. Del Vecchio Editore.

Di Gianvito, S. (2015). In balia delle dimore ignote: La poesia di Gëzim Hajdari. Besa.

Gnisci, A. (ed). (2006). Nuovo Planetario Italiano: Geografia e antologia della letteratura della migrazione in Italia. Città Nuova.

Gnisci, A. (2003). Creolizzare l'Europa. Letteratura e migrazione. Meltemi.

Kellman, Stephen G. (2000) The Translingual Imagination. University of Nebraska Press.

Kellman, Stephen G. (2003) Switching Languages: Translingual Writers Reflect on Their Craft. University of Nebraska Press.

Mengozzi, C. (2021). Narrazioni contese. Vent’anni di scritture italiane della migrazione. Carocci.

Moll, N. (2015). L'infinito sotto casa. Letteratura e transculturalità nell’Italia contemporanea. Pàtron Editore.

Parati, G. (2005). Migration Italy: The Art of Talking Back in a Destination Culture. University of Toronto Press.

Pezzarossi, G., & Sangiorgi, I. (eds). (2015). Dalla letteratura di migrazione alla letteratura post-coloniale italiana. Mimesis.

Rocchi, F. M. (2021). Le prime voci dell’italofonia albanese. Artemide.

Romeo, C. (2018). Riscrivere la nazione. La letteratura italiana postcoloniale. Mondadori Education.

Sinopoli, F. (2014). Interculturalità e transnazionalità della letteratura. Bulzoni.

 

Types of Contributions

 

In addition to traditional academic articles, the following types of contributions will be considered:

• Interviews with authors and artists;
• First-person testimonies / oral histories;
• Theoretical interventions;
• Comparative and transdisciplinary contributions.

For these formats, submissions from disciplines beyond literary studies are particularly encouraged, including sociology, anthropology, cultural geography, and other relevant fields. Special consideration will be given to international and comparative perspectives.

Submission Guidelines and Deadlines

 

Proposals (maximum 1,500 characters, including spaces), accompanied by a short biographical note (maximum 500 characters), should be submitted by 30 August 2026 to:

 

paola.delzoppo@uniurb.it
fabio.rocchi@unitir.edu.al

 

Authors will be notified of the outcome of the selection process by 15 September 2026.

 

Accepted articles, which may be written in Italian, French, German, or English, must be submitted by 30 January 2027.

 

We are living an historical moment in which borders have once again become sites of tension and conflict, but also spaces of creativity and resistance, this issue of Scritture Migranti approaches contemporary literature as a critical laboratory to rethink the world from its thresholds. In continuous dialogue with literary practices, Border Studies understand the border not as a simple line of demarcation, but as a dynamic space of relation, translation, and transformation. By exploring works, poetics, and forms of writing that inhabit and traverse borders, this volume seeks to contribute to a collective reflection on contemporary forms of belonging and otherness and their political implications, offering theoretical and critical tools for understanding the cultural challenges of our present.