Borderscapes - Figures of Crossing in Contemporary Travel Writing

The Dipartimento of Studi Linguistici e Letterari (DiSLL) of the Università di Padova, together with the research group on travel writing of the European Society of Comparative Literature and the Centro Studi ‘Arti della Modernità’, is organising an International Conference on Borderscapes: Figures of Crossing in Contemporary Travel Writing to be held in Padua on 27-29 January 2027. The conference will address, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the forms and codes of borders, exploring their cultural, historical and social meanings. The discussion will focus on the symbolic uses that have made this literary motif a tool for reflecting both on the power dynamics implicit in intercultural relations and on the thresholds (between truth and fiction, verbal and visual, representation and place) specific to a complex genre such as travel writing.