Border Crossings : Mapping Identities in Modern Europe

This volume assesses the importance of border crossings in the evolution of European culture and identity, as reflected in the work of modern European writers and film-makers. Contributors chart the processes of transition from stability to change, from the known to the culturally unsettled, treating the themes of migration, exile, allegiance and belonging, journey, marginality, the legacy of war and displacement, memory and the denial of memory. What emerges is a cross-disciplinary reappraisal of the concept of identity, in which fixity is replaced by movement, and in which the dynamic process of story-telling, with its narratives of migration, exile, and borders crossed, mirrors the shifting and nomadic pluralities of modern existence.