Mediterranean Crossings

Through an interdisciplinary analysis of literary, musical, and visual works, this book proposes a cultural and historical reconfiguration of the Mediterranean.

The stories of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe have made the headlines in the news over the last twenty years. How have these human itineraries been represented in contemporary culture? This book considers the migrant's story as portrayed in literature, cinema, museums and festivals in Italy and France, in order to explore the widespread ethical complexities related to agency and advocacy. While typically produced in support of migrant communities, these narratives often confine the experience of displaced individuals within a Eurocentric, humanitarian discourse that is difficult to overcome. Through an interdisciplinary and postcolonial approach, the book analyses, among others, recent works by Laurent Gaudé and Emanuele Crialese, the Musée National de l'Histoire de l'Immigration in Paris and a community festival in Lampedusa, to highlight the complexity of advocating for migrants from a European perspective.

This book investigates the interactions between Muslims and Christians in the late medieval and early modern period from the perspective of sexual and gender transgressions. The first part analyses normative discourses and literary texts in the Arabic, Turkish Ottoman and Spanish worlds, highlighting continuities and fractures. The second part explores concrete interactions between Muslim and Christians, reconstructed through the study of criminal sources from the archives of the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions. The essays collected here reveal to what extent reflecting on sexual and gender non-conformity constitutes a vantage point for reconstructing the cross-cultural interactions between Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean world. On the one hand, proscribed sexual behaviours and gendered performances opened the possibility for connections in semi-clandestine networks of sociability that would have been inconceivable in other settings. On the other, cross-religious sexual and emotional exchanges sometimes favoured processes of religious hybridisation or the development of skeptic attitudes towards institutionalised faiths.

"Written by leading scholars in the field, this collection analyses the notion of travel writing as a genre, while tracing significant examples of Mediterranean travel writing that return us to Ancient Greece, to Medieval pilgrimages, to Venetians diplomatic missions, to an Egyptian's account of Paris in the nineteenth century, to French artistic journeys in North Africa and to contemporary narratives of privileged resettlement, death and dislocation."

The analyses of German and Brazilian cultures found in this book offer a much-needed rethinking of the intercultural paradigm for the humanities and literary and cultural studies. This collection examines cultural interactions between Germany and Brazil from the Early Modern period to the present day, especially how authors, artists and other intellectuals address the development of society, intervene in the construction and transformation of cultural identities, and observe the introduction of differing cultural elements in and beyond the limits of the nation. The contributors represent various academic disciplines, including German Studies, Luso-Afro-Brazilian Studies, Cultural Studies, Linguistics, Art History and the social sciences. Their essays cover a wide range of works and media, and the issues they address are relevant not only for each of the scholarly disciplines involved, but also in discussions of current cultural practices in connection to all forms of media. The collection thus serves as a model for further intercultural research, since it calls into question the very terms through which we understand the relationships between cultures, as well as their products, practices, and perspectives.

The Mediterranean Sea is now the deadliest region in the world for migrants. Although the death toll has been rising for many years, the EU response remains fragmented and short sighted. Politicians frame these migration flows as an unprecedented crisis and emphasize migration control at the EU's external boundaries. In this context, At Europe's Edge investigates why the EU prioritizes the fortification of its external borders; why migrants nevertheless continue to cross the Mediterranean and to die at sea; and how EU member states on the southern periphery respond to their new role as migration gatekeepers. The book addresses these questions by examining the relationship between the EU and Malta, a small state with an outsized role in migration politics as EU policies place it at the crosshairs of migration flows and controls. The chapters combine ethnographic methods with macro-level analyses to weave together policymaker, practitioner, and migrant experiences, and demonstrate how the Mediterranean is an important space for the contested construction of 'Europe'. This book provides rich insight into the unexpected level of influence Malta exerts on EU migration governance, as well as the critical role migrants and their clandestine journeys play in animating EU and Maltese migration policies, driving international relations, and producing Malta's political power. By centring on the margins, the book pushes the boundaries of our knowledge of the global politics of migration, asylum, and border security.

This book investigates the interactions between Muslims and Christians in the late medieval and early modern period from the perspective of sexual and gender transgressions. The first part analyses normative discourses and literary texts in the Arabic, Turkish Ottoman and Spanish worlds, highlighting continuities and fractures. The second part explores concrete interactions between Muslim and Christians, reconstructed through the study of criminal sources from the archives of the Spanish and Portuguese inquisitions. The essays collected here reveal to what extent reflecting on sexual and gender non-conformity constitutes a vantage point for reconstructing the cross-cultural interactions between Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean world. On the one hand, proscribed sexual behaviours and gendered performances opened the possibility for connections in semi-clandestine networks of sociability that would have been inconceivable in other settings. On the other, cross-religious sexual and emotional exchanges sometimes favoured processes of religious hybridisation or the development of skeptic attitudes towards institutionalised faiths.