By its geographical position, the University of Perpignan has first-hand experience of what it is like to occupy a border-zone and it is therefore natural that its research centres explore the notion of cultural and literary interzones (specially in the context of the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the Pyrenees) . It has developed over the years two very different methodological approaches to the study of texts and images: an "anthropology" of the imagination, which explores the representative faculties of the human mind, and Heterologies, which explores precisely those phenomena where the concepts of identity and representation are no longer pertinent. Doctorate students will be invited to navigate between these conflicting ways of conceptualising interzones and to participate in an on-going elaboration of the notion.
Interzones research units
The doctoral school InterMed embraces three research centres in the field of he humanities: 1° Voyages, Echanges, Confrontations, Transformations (VECT), which unites specialists in English, French, Classical and Comparative Literature, as well as in Anthropology and Sociology; 2° The Centre de Recherches Ibériques et Latino-Américaines de l'Université de Perpignan (CRILAUP), which unites three smaller groups: the Centre Européen de Recherche sur le Theatre Méxicain (CERTM); the Groupe de Recherche sur les Noirs en Amérique Latine (GRENAL); Exil et diaspora en Espagne et Amérique Latine ; 3° The Centre de Recherches Historiques sur les Sociétés Méditerranéennes (CRHiSM) has also adopted a resolutely transdisciplinary approach : using iconographical and anthropological methods, it unites specialists in the fields of economic and social history, the history of art and architecture, cinema and audio-visual studies.