Exilic Time
Seminário
Data: 18 de Dezembro de 2007
Local: Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa

Exile by definition entails a wrenching relocation in space, but exile also can disarrange, by fracturing, the sense of time. I will examine the double time of exilic life, what Nabokov in Pnin calls physical time and spiritual time. Physical time accentuates the pangs of exile - inhabitating a present so radically different from the familiar but quickly receding past. Spiritual time, in which memory and nostalgia seek refuge, is more mobile and more creative; it can recall a vanished world back into existence and even project a future return. I hope trace the theme of exilic time through its modern variations in Conrad's Under Western Eyes, Sebald's Austerliz, and, if time permits, Tarkovsky's "Nostalgia".