The RIALE research group from the Universitat de València holds the 20th International Congress of the Goethe-Gesellschaft in Spain, which will take place from 5 to 7 November 2025 at the UV Faculty of Philology, Translation and Communication. Entitled Zwischenland. Konturen der Grenze in der deutschsprachigen Literatur und Kultur, the meeting will gather international specialists to reflect on the multiple forms of borders in German-language literature and culture.
The congress intends to analyse the border not as a fixed separation line, but as a dynamic space for transit, ambivalence, and transformation, in tune with contemporary theoretical frameworks such as the Thirdspace. During three intense conferences, current key issues will be tackled —violence, migration, memory, identity, gender, or climate change— from a literary, cultural and interdisciplinary perspective.
The programme includes plenary lectures, communication tables and discussion spaces, exploring topics like new research paradigms on violence from gender, postcolonial and postmigratory perspectives; literature as a means of resistance and as a place for building transnational memories; and travel literature, specially that written by women, as a privileged way of representing border experience and intercultural meeting, among others.
The outstanding contents include analysis on literary representation of the Holocaust, wars of the 20th century and contemporary disputes, as well as studies on hybrid identities, transit spaces and narratives questioning established cultural hegemony. The congress places great emphasis on women’s travel writing, raising awareness of travel stories that problematize ethnic, religious and gender borders from historically outcast perspectives.
The organisation is undertaken by a committee comprised of female professors and researchers from the Universitat de València, in cooperation with an international scientific committee from European and American universities. The programme finishes with institutional activities of the Goethe Society in Spain, and with a literary reading and conversation, that reinforce the dialogue between academic research and contemporary creation.
With this congress, the Universitat de València, becomes established as a benchmark location for the study on German-speaking literature and culture, and the RIALE group reaffirms its commitment to critical research on literary speeches that, from a position of ‘in-betweenness’, contribute to understanding and reconsidering social and cultural challenges of the current world.
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