Stranger in a strange land

Abstract

On 15 April 2016, the South African Society for General Literary Studies/ Suid-Afrikaanse Vereniging vir Algemene Literatuurwetenskap (SASGLS/ SAVAL) hosted a colloquium at the University of South Africa on the topic “Stranger in a strange land”. The colloquium’s theme was taken from the King James version of the Bible and refers to Moses’ sojourn in a foreign country after being exiled from Egypt, marrying his host’s daughter: “And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land” (Exodus 2: 22). The theme was proposed in 2015 against the backdrop of renewed outbreaks of xenophobic violence in South Africa and the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Europe as a result of ongoing civil war in their country. However, the theme was also meant to elicit papers on any other aspects of the figure of the stranger, alienation and alterity. The call for papers noted that the phrase “stranger in a strange land” was used as the title of a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein (1961). As a theme (taken out of biblical context), the phrase covers not only physical displacement (both spatial and temporal) but also psychological, cultural, social and political alienation.