“Stranger in a Strange Land”

On 15 April 2016, the South African Society for General Literary Studies/ \nSuid-Afrikaanse Vereniging vir Algemene Literatuurwetenskap (SASGLS/ \nSAVAL) hosted a colloquium at the University of South Africa on the topic \n“Stranger in a strange land”. The colloquium’s theme was taken from the \nKing James version of the Bible and refers to Moses’ sojourn in a foreign \ncountry after being exiled from Egypt, marrying his host’s daughter: “And \nshe bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been \na stranger in a strange land” (Exodus 2: 22). The theme was proposed in \n2015 against the backdrop of renewed outbreaks of xenophobic violence in \nSouth Africa and the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Europe as a result \nof ongoing civil war in their country. However, the theme was also meant to \nelicit papers on any other aspects of the figure of the stranger, alienation and \nalterity. The call for papers noted that the phrase “stranger in a strange land” \nwas used as the title of a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein (1961). As \na theme (taken out of biblical context), the phrase covers not only physical \ndisplacement (both spatial and temporal) but also psychological, cultural, \nsocial and political alienation

Epistemology · Sociology · Philosophy · Social Movements and Cultural Identity · South African History and Culture · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction