11th Fenix Congress: Call for Papers

Forging a Space of one’s own:

Networks of European Women Intellectuals in Latin American Exile (1933-1989)

During the mid-twentieth century, Europeans found themselves compelled to flee the continent due to armed conflicts and totalitarian regimes. Among these displaced individuals, women intellectuals remained in obscurity for many years, only recently gaining recognition. Thus, we propose to focus this special issue on these female exiles, including writers, artists, philosophers, pedagogues, journalists, editors, scientists, actresses, and more.

How did these women, hailing from diverse European backgrounds, carve out a ‘space of their own’ in Latin American exile? A space where they could engage in intellectual and artistic pursuits and unleash their creative and intellectual potential? To investigate this issue, we draw upon Doreen Massey’s definition of space, which emphasizes social relations, interactions, and networks (1993: 66, 2005: 9). In this context, it becomes evident that their ‘space of their own’ is constructed through interrelations and networks.

Within the context of migration and anthropological studies, Nora Glick, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-Szanton proposed a transnational approach to address migrant communities and identities. This approach introduces the concept of ‘transnational topography’ as a space of interaction not defined by spatial distance among participants but by the “density and frequency of community practices” (Besserer 2004: 8, my translation). The transnational angle creates a context where unifying characteristics such as gender, culture, ideology, and language supersede dividing factors like national borders and spatial separation.

In addition to the notion of ‘transnational topography’, primarily used to describe contact between individuals who remain in their country of origin and those who have left, we introduce the term ‘interexilic topography’. This concept encompasses the interactions between exiled intellectuals from diverse origins who establish connections in the same host country or between different host countries. Hence, ‘interexilic topography’ signifies a space of interaction where German, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian or other exiled Europeans interact based on their affinities, with the experience of exile standing out prominently.

The field of emotions, which has flourished since the early 21st century, offers a complementary perspective on networks. In his book, The Navigation of Feelings, William Reddy posits that societal conventions and practices govern our emotions (Reddy, 2001:129). However, within this framework of regulations, there exist spaces that function as ‘emotional refuges’ where greater emotional freedom and relaxation are permitted compared to societal norms. Reddy’s approach allows us to consider the networks formed by exiled women intellectuals as spaces of ‘emotional refuge’.

Within the realm of literature, Tomás Albaladejo recently introduced the notion of ‘ectopic literature’. This term refers to literature “produced outside one’s own place, outside the space or territory, both geographically and culturally, in which the subject producing such literature was born or raised. It is literature that lies beyond the subject’s habitual topos and is situated in another topos […]” (2011:143, my translation). Albaladejo’s perspective can be applied to the networks of female intellectuals in exile which are ‘ectopic’ in relation to the initial or habitual realm of these women.

This inquiry into the construction and dynamics of women’s networks in exile, from a ‘transnational’, ‘interexilic’, ‘emotional’, ‘ectopic’ or other perspective, seeks to give a renewed form to the “Room of One’s Own” advocated by Virginia Woolf. This special issue puts forth the hypothesis that the networks constructed by female intellectuals in exile can be regarded as ‘spaces of their own’. According to our hypothesis, such spaces empower these exiles to surpass their seclusion, to interact in an atmosphere of confidence and understanding, and to cultivate prospects for crafting artistic and intellectual work.

The 11^th FENIX conference invites submissions focusing on networks of European women intellectuals in Latin American exile. The conference organization and article editing, to be published as the 16^th FENIX Special Issue in the LECTORA journal (Lectora: revista de dones i textualitat. Lectora: Journal of Women and Textuality, vol. 31, 2025), will be overseen by Dr. Eugenia Helena Houvenaghel (Universiteit Utrecht) and Dr. Paola Bellomi (Università degli Studi di Siena).

Proposals (abstracts of around 500 words) can be written in Spanish or English and should be sent to the email address enbusquedadeunlugarpropio@gmail.com before December 15, 2024.

Bibliography

Albaladejo, Tomás. 2011. “Sobre la literatura ectópica”. Rem tene, verba sequentur! Gelebte Interkulturalität. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag des Wissenschaftlers und Dichters Carmine/Gino Chiellino. Adrian Bieniec, Szilvia Lengl, Sandrine Okou, Natalia Shchyhlebska (eds.). Thelem, pp. 141-153.

—. 2019. “European crisis, fragmentation and cohesion: the contribution of ectopic literature to Europeanness”. Journal of European Studies 49(3–4), pp. 394-409.

Besserer, Federico. 1999. “Estudios trasnacionales y ciudadanía transnacional”. Fronteras fragmentadas. M. Gail (ed.). Colegio de Michoacán-CIDEM. pp. 215-238.

—. 2004. Topografías transnacionales. Hacia una geografía de la vida transnacional. Plaza y Valdés Editores.

Glick Schiller, Nina; Linda Basch y Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1992. “Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration”. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 645 (1), pp. 1-24.

Massey, Doreen. 1996. Space, Place, and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Massy, Doreen. 2005. For Space. London: Sage

Reddy, William M. 2001. The Navigation of Feeling. A Framework for the History of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Woolf, Virginia. 1989 [1929]. A Room of One’s Own. New York: Harcourt.