CFP
1.1 Crime and its fictions in Africa: a conversation across disciplines
1.2 ‘Re-evaluating the Postcolonial City: Production, Reconstruction, Representation
1.3 SOCIAL, ÉNONCIATION ET SINGULARITÉS DU ROMAN FRANCOPHONE (HORS FRANCE ET QUÉBEC)
1.4 The Legacy of the Algerian War
1.5 Comparing Centres, Comparing Peripheries
1.6 Empire and Tourism Symposium
1.7 Voicing the Community: Questioning Gender and Race in French and Francophone Literature
Calls for contribution
2.1 Reading/Speaking/Writing the Mother Text: Essays on Caribbean Women’s Writing Publications
Publications
3.1 Légitimité, légitimation
3.2 Spheres Public and Private: Western Genres in African Literature
Other news
4.1 Winds of change: a season of cinema from Muslim societies at the ICA in London
4.2 The 3rd Annual Postcolonial Studies Association / Journal of Postcolonial Writing
Postgraduate Essay Prize 2012
CALLS FOR PAPERS
1.1 Crime and its fictions in Africa: a conversation across disciplines
The story of Africa in the world is in some ways a history of crime: from
the Atlantic slave trade to the Nigerian ³419² email scam, violence and
illegality have often been the means by which the continent is inscribed
in the Western imagination. On a more local level, crime has also served
as the medium through which Africa and its peoples have negotiated
engagement with globalization. Besides the obvious movement of illicit
goods onto the global market, this is evident in the intricate
international networks for smuggling people across the Sahara; in the
prostitution rings that link parts of Africa to parts of Europe; and in
the poaching syndicates driven by Asian demand for exotica such as rhino
horn. The problematic role of law and/or its absence has long been the
focal point of historical and social scientific work on Africa, though not
without controversy over the line between voyeurism and observation.
Increasingly, fiction writers and literary scholars have also got in on
the act. In South Africa, authors such as Deon Meyer and Margie Orford
have topped the best-seller lists with their crime fiction, and the genre
has gathered steam across the continent. What explains this development?
What, if any, is the connection between the boom in writing about crime,
and the problem of crime as it is experienced day to day? Finally, how can
we both acknowledge crime¹s dominant place in African narratives (and
narratives about Africa), and question the limitations of this negative
paradigm?
We invite scholars from across the disciplines working on crime in Africa
and related subjects to a conference at Yale University on March 23rd,
2012.
Young and established scholars are welcome at what we hope will be an open
and informal forum for pondering these issues. Those interested in
delivering papers as part of themed conference panels should submit
abstracts to crimeinafrica@gmail.com by no later than December 9th, with
copies of accepted papers to be submitted no later than March 16th.
Jeanne-Marie Jackson & Jacob Dlamini
Contact: crimeinafrica@gmail.com
1.2 ‘Re-evaluating the Postcolonial City: Production, Reconstruction, Representation’
ICPS-PSA Postgraduate Conference 2012
2nd-3rd February, University of Leeds
Keynote Speakers: Caryl Phillips, Javier Stanziola
Organised under the auspices of the Institute of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies (ICPS), University of Leeds, and the Postcolonial Studies Association (PSA), this two-day interdisciplinary conference re-evaluates the postcolonial city-space as a site of cultural production. The postcolonial city has reconfigured itself in literature and culture, as an urban space that incessantly explores its modernity along various, conflicting lines of identity, representation and consumption. The event brings together practicing cultural producers and their critics, early career scholars and postgraduate students working with the subject of the postcolonial city. In order to re-evaluate the impact of the postcolonial city on lives beyond the remit of the academy, we seek to posit the figure of the cultural producer as a primary focus area of our conference. How do cultural producers construct the postcolonial metropolis? Do they reconstruct existing colonial spaces and ideologies? Or do they produce new spaces to engage with the problematic questions of hybridity, decentred subjectivities and the popular? How do cultural industries, ranging radically from those of internationally acclaimed publishers and reviewers to the street loafer, represent the discourse of the postcolonial city in both innovative and commercially viable ways? What patterns of consumption influence the production, reconstruction and representation of the postcolonial city across both local and global markets?
We welcome contributions from creative writers, artists, performers, postgraduate researchers and early career scholars. The conference will comprise mixed panels showcasing presentations of perspectives on the postcolonial city from academics and cultural practitioners/producers. To this end, we invite proposals for papers, readings and performances. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words for 20 minute papers along with a short biography (200 words max.) to <thepostcolonialcity2012@gmail.com> by 24th October 2011. Updates relating to the conference may be found at <http://thepostcolonialcity2012.wordpress.com>.
It is both a pleasure and privilege to confirm our keynote speakers for the event: internationally acclaimed author and academic, Caryl Phillips; and Latin American playwright, Javier Stanziola, currently a lecturer in Cultural Policy at the University of Leeds.
Topics for papers, panels, presentations, workshops and performances may be based on, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- Exploring the postcolonial city as a global and local space;
- Colonial memory and the postcolonial city;
- ‘Post’-colonial cities and today’s empires;
- Architecture as narrative in the postcolonial cityscape;
- Technology, virtual space and the postcolonial urban;
- Urban identities, essentialism and hybridity;
- Cultural production and popular consciousness in the fashioning of postcolonial modernity;
- Challenging patriarchal narratives of the postcolonial city;
- The cultural industry in the postcolonial city;
- Negotiating artistic creativity and commercial viability when producing ‘postcolonial culture’;
- Theatre and performing the postcolonial city;
- Shoppers, eaters, clubbers and flâneurs: postcolonial consumption and the pleasures of the city crowd;
- Revisiting the ‘carnival’ in the postcolonial city;
- The artist, the disseminator and the audience: discursive mediations of the postcolonial metropolis.
This conference draws its inspiration particularly from the ‘Postcolonial City’ seminar series, convened during the 2010-11 academic session by the School of Modern Languages and Cultures in conjunction with the Institute of Colonial and Postcolonial Studies at the University of Leeds.
1.3 SOCIAL, ÉNONCIATION ET SINGULARITÉS DU ROMAN FRANCOPHONE (HORS FRANCE ET QUÉBEC)
La Chaire de recherche du Canada en Littératures africaines et Francophonie, en collaboration avec le professeur Kasereka Kavwahirehi (de l’Université d’Ottawa), a le plaisir de vous informer qu’elle organise un colloque destiné aux jeunes chercheur(e)s en littératures francophones (hors France et Québec). Le colloque sera axé sur la permanence du social dans les textes et dans les discours sur ces littératures, mais surtout sur la façon singulière dont chaque romancier opère le traitement du matériau social. Les étudiants de doctorat ainsi que les stagiaires postdoctoraux sont invités à venir mettre à l’épreuve leurs hypothèses de recherche et les partager avec d’autres chercheurs.
Les communications orales (de vingt minutes tout au plus) s’efforceront de montrer, à partir des exemples typiques d’analyse des textes, comment les romanciers francophones enquêtent sur l’univers social, dévoilent les défauts et failles du corps social, explorent méthodiquement la complexité du monde, les échanges et les rapports entre les groupes sociaux et les peuples, en relation avec un imaginaire et une écriture qui traduisent la liberté et la servitude de l’écrivain.
Le colloque se tiendra les 1er et 2 mai 2012 à l’Université Laval, à Québec.
Les propositions de communications de 15 lignes au maximum sont à envoyer, au plus tard le 30 décembre 2011, à :
jeunes.francophonie@fl.ulaval.ca
1.4 The Legacy of the Algerian War: Between History, Memory, and Representations
March 22-23, 2012
The aim of this conference is to interrogate the legacy of the Algerian War fifty years hence. The Algerian War acts as a metonymy, concentrating colonial conflicts as it appears in the movie by Gillo Pontecorvo, The Battle of Algiers (1966). Trough Pontecorvo’s film, the Algerian war will permanently represent metonymically the event of the war, the violence of colonialism and anti-colonial struggles in general. The legacy of the Algerian war could be understood beyond France and Algeria. It is not only the War of Algerian or French people, but it has also become a symbol, maybe a myth, allowing for reflection and discussion on anticolonial struggles. It is still the symbol of resistance to oppression. This is the reason why questioning the legacy of the Algerian War implies addressing the legacy of colonial memory in general. The conference will be a privileged moment to question today’s legacy of what was called in French, “les événements d’Algérie”, but also “la guerre d’Algérie” (Algerian War), or in Arabic, “al thawra” (the revolution), “harb al tahrir” (the war of independence). As the negative reaction to the recent movie by Rachid Bouchareb Hors-la-loi, (Outside the law), 2010, shows, the Algerian War is still controversial. It is still a symbolic divide between France, Algeria and their oppositional memories of the conflict, just as it still represents the opposition between the colonizer and colonized in general. To quote Benjamin Stora, we can write this history only with two voices alluding to what was done by historians, novelists, directors, artists, from both shores of the Mediterranean sea, who try to show the complexity of the clash between memory and History. Important works have already been accomplished around the History of the Algerian Revolution. We will not only address history, but also movies and novels that discuss and rewrite the Algerian War as the turning point for the new postcolonial era. We will consider a time beyond colonialism that could lead to a transnational understanding of History and representations and provide an answer to our questions. We will discuss in terms that articulate imaginaries and real politics, representations and actual discourses, erasing the strong limits between history and fiction. As outlined by Benjamin Stora, there is a resistance to acknowledge that the Algerian War -as other wars in the History of Independent movements– has only a bilateral history, imposing the need to deconstruct a linear understanding of memory and a rigid writing of History as informed by national borders. Maybe the work of fiction could help by displacing borders of Historical discourse as reinforcing nations?
Major perspectives that will be considered:
1- The Global legacy of the Algerian War
2- The impact of the Algerian War on French thought
3- How to write a transnational memory of the Algerian War ?
4- Fiction and Memory of the War: What can History learn from fiction?
Please send an abstract between 200 and 300 words before December 15th, 2011 to Maya Boutaghou, Assistant Professor of Modern Languages and Women’s Studies,fboutagh@fiu.edu.
Responsable : Maya Boutaghou et Pascale Becel
Adresse : Florida International University Modesto A. Maidique Campus Deuxième Maison, Office 21011200 SW 8th Street Miami, FL 33199
1.5 British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA)/ SOAS Research Students Conference: 19-21 Jan 2012, SOAS, UK. Comparing Centres, Comparing Peripheries
Keynote speakers: Prof. Susan Bassnett (Warwick), TBA
How do we, as young researchers in the humanities, identify what is central and peripheral to our topics, fields, academic circles? How does our work follow and challenge existing positionings?
The problematic of the centre and the periphery presents itself as crucial for comparative research in the humanities. For example, literary or cultural comparison and translation are employed and studied as means of understanding what is relatively peripheral or unknown in terms of what is more central or familiar. Work on national literatures reveals intricate dynamics between the central and the peripheral, as well as the past and the present. Postcolonial research examines constructions of centres and margins in colonial, postcolonial, or neo-colonial settings, while studies of ‘world literature’ attempt to map literary capitals and provinces.
The conference intends to bring together postgraduate researchers from all universities working in comparative literature, literary studies, postcolonial studies, translation studies, world literature, or other related fields. N.B.: students whose research has a non-literary focus while engaging with these themes are also welcome.
Papers may address questions which include, but are not limited to, the following:
– Comparison as a movement from centre to periphery or in reverse
– Translation as an exchange between centres and peripheries
– Postcolonial challenge to the opposition of centrality and marginality
– World literature, its capitals, provinces, and geographies
– Relationships between comparative literature, postcolonial studies, translation studies, world literature, and other related fields: perceived centres, overlaps, and peripheries
– Topics and concerns at the centres of our disciplines; topics marginalized within those disciplines; new research shifting the centres of the disciplines
– Centrifugal and centripetal forces in interdisciplinary research
– Relationship between the core/periphery binary and contemporary academic practice
– Academic centres and margins; publishing centres and margins
– Centres and margins of the past, as seen today
– Centres in dialogue and conflict
– Peripheral traffic, bypassing the centre
– Peripheries within centres and centres of peripheries
Please send a 250 word proposal for a 20 minute paper and a short bio to Dorota Goluch and Rashi Rohatgi at d.goluch.09@ucl.ac.uk and researchsoc@soas.ac.uk by 20 November 2011. Please use the same contacts for queries.
1.6 Empire and Tourism Symposium
University of Bristol, Monday 5th December 2011
WUN/ Centre for the Study of Colonial and Postcolonial Societies, University of Bristol
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Professor Charles Forsdick (University of Liverpool) – Slavery, memory and tourism Professor Tim Youngs (Nottingham Trent University)
This one-day symposium aims to bring together postgraduates and academics from a variety of disciplines to explore a broad range of themes relating to Empire and Tourism.
Participants are encouraged to think broadly about the practice of travel and tourism within Empire, the visual representations of this activity across different media, the historical origins of tourism within Empire, and also links between colonial travel and present-day tourism.
Topics to consider might include:
> – Magazine articles about travel
> – Colonial war reportage
> – Travel guides
> – Novelistic representations of colonial travel
> – Tourism, travel and links to colonial administration
> – Postcolonial tourism; decolonising tourism
Papers will have a duration of 20 minutes. Please submit an abstract of c.250 words and a C.V. on one side of A4 to Claire Thomas (claire.thomas@bristol.ac.uk) before 23rd September.
1.7 Voicing the Community: Questioning Gender and Race in French and Francophone Literature
A conference funded by the HRC (Humanities Research Centre), University of Warwick
Guest speakers: French Writer Joy Sorman and Dr Sophie Marnette (Balliol College, Oxford)
Taking place on Saturday 4th February 2012 at the University of Warwick, this conference will reconsider the concept of community in French and Francophone literature from the Middle Ages to the present day by linking the problematical concepts of race and/or gender to notions of textual voices.
We aim to approach literary texts through the famous question -‘d’où tu parles?’: a question ideologically associated with May 1968 and the nineteen seventies but which remains highly relevant today. Despite the seemingly accusatory tone of this question, it nonetheless underlines that the place from which someone speaks (in a literal and figurative sense) often plays a decisive role for communal identification, since to represent the collective through discourse is really, to a large extent, to constitute it. For example, in Imagined Communities Benedict Anderson has shown that in the case of nationalism, community is above all a matter of representation. The members of such a community are not all able to meet face to face and they come from a variety of backgrounds so they must imagine common ties and thus invent their sense of communion. In this respect, Anderson notes, ‘communities are to be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in which they are imagined’ (p.6). Judith Butler has similarly shown this for gendered and sexed communities: even if these categories are necessarily artificial because they are socially constructed, the supposed members can exploit the performative power of such categories either to reinforce them or to break away from them, both individually and collectively.
This approach to the imagining of communities through discourse facilitates a reconsideration of recent theoretical divergences around the concepts of gender and race. For instance an Anglo-American context favours approaches such as those of women’s writing or black writing, whilst a French one often seems averse to such divisions, just as it is often reluctant to use the term ‘community’ itself unless it is to highlight negative elements (such as the pejorative connotations of ‘communautarisme’ or ‘repli communautaire’). The literary voice has a major impact upon these representational issues. On the one hand, a single work can stage particular discourses and thus allow the author a certain rhetorical freedom; yet on the other hand, since its phenomological bearing is based upon a shared imaginary, the voice of a text can equally be perceived as the echo of a voice that is at least collective if not communal. A close study of the literary voice will allow us to rethink traditional conflicts (such as between differentialism and universalism and between identity and collective) by underlining the pertinence and the rhetorical implications of the community as a textual object. We have therefore adopted a fundamentally stylistic approach: D’où parle le texte? – Where does the text speak from? That is to say, how and why does a text voice a community? Who has the voice to represent gender, ethnicity or race? What strategies does it use to legitimatise the voicing of such categories? How does the text allow us to probe the complex process of collective imaginary formation through the meshing of these voices?
Possible topics for submissions include but are in no way limited to:
– The notion of writing community (black writing/ women’s writing/ gay and lesbian writing/ spiritual writing) and the literary construction of a communal imaginary
– The specificity or the trans-historical import of notions of gender and race
– The forms and workings of racial, ethnic or gendered representations
– The study of diverse voices in the text: narrative voices, polyphony, stereotypes, use of direct/indirect speech, performativity etc.
– The distribution, placing and importance of speakers in the text
– The voice of the author within and beyond the text
– The tension between individual and collective within discourse
– The question of representativeness
– The coherence and consciousness of community
– The representation of otherness
– The literary construction of militant discourses and/or ideologies (for instance through the racial/racist under- and over-tones of crusading texts or the feminist impact of a piece of fiction)
Proposals (300 words) for twenty-minute papers in either English or French along with a brief biography to be submitted by 15th October 2011 to the organisers: Victoria Turner (V.C.Turner@warwick.ac.uk) and Virginie Sauzon (V.Sauzon@warwick.ac.uk).
CALLS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
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NEW TITLES
3.1 Ozouf Sénamin Amedegnato, Sélom Komlan Gbanou et Musanji Ngalasso-Mwatha (dir.). Légitimité, légitimation. Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2011. ISBN 978-2-86781-734-2. 409 p. (Broché, 16 x 24)
L’ambition de cet ouvrage est de reformuler, sous plusieurs éclairages, une question universelle : celle de la reconnaissance et de la consécration des objets culturels que sont les œuvres littéraires et les langues qui les portent. Il s’agit d’explorer les mécanismes d’élaboration d’un statut institué aussi bien du texte écrit que de la figure de l’écrivain à travers les concepts de légitimité et de légitimation. La réflexion porte sur des corpus littéraires situés sur des aires géographiques variés et à différentes époques de l’histoire. Cette problématique, qui intéresse plusieurs domaines (littérature, linguistique, sociologie, histoire, philosophie), gagne à être approchée de manière interdisciplinaire.
Problématiser les notions de légitimité et de légitimation ne veut pas dire seulement faire l’inventaire des processus de reconnaissance par lesquels l’écrivain se voit investi d’une valeur qui le distingue dans sa corporation ; cela signifie aussi, et peut être d’abord, analyser les modes et les modèles opératoires dans le champ de la reconnaissance où le pouvoir se fait un allié sûr du savoir en le cautionnant et même en le produisant.
Liste des contributeurs au volume : Yamna Abdelkader (Université Bordeaux 3), Ozouf Sénamin Amedegnato (University of Calgary), Immaculata Amodeo (Jacobs University Bremen), Philippe Basabose (Memorial University), Marie-France Chambat-Houillon (Université Paris 3), Paul-André Claudel (Université de Nantes), Yves Clavaron (Université de Sainte-Etienne), Kanaté Dahouda (Hobart and William Smith Colleges), Pascale Delormas (Université Paris 13), Omar Fertat (Université Bordeaux 3), Sélom K. Gbanou (University of Calgary), Maria Chiara Gnocchi (Università di Bologna), Eileen Lohka (University of Calgary), Awah Mfossi (University of Calgary), Christiane Ndiaye (Université de Montréal), Musanji Ngalasso-Mwatha (Université Bordeaux 3), Paola Pacifici (University of Calgary), Marie-Dominique Popelard (Université Paris 3), Sylvie Roy (University of Calgary), Joubert Satyre (University of Guelph), Emilie Sevrain (Université Paris 13), Vincent Simedoh (University of Lethbridge), Fatima Youcef (Université Lyon 2).
Pour les commandes, consulter le site web de l’éditeur à l’URL suivante : http://pub.u-bordeaux3.fr/FicheOuvrage.php?OUV_CMD=1080
3.2 Spheres Public and Private: Western Genres in African Literature
Edited by Gordon Collier
Rodopi, Amsterdam/New York, NY 2011. X, 712 pp. (Matatu 39)
ISBN: 978-90-420-3375-7 Bound
ISBN: 978-94-012-0074-5 E-Book
Online info: http://www.rodopi.nl/senj.asp?BookId=MATATU+39
The coverage displayed here is predominantly on sub-Saharan literary
production, and with a – perhaps systemic – focus on important aspects of
political history and socio-political structures (including marxian analyses
of the ‘public sphere’) and such crucial arenas as religious discipline, the
tension between tradition and modernity, ecological awareness, family, and
gender.
Most of the discussions are traditionally content-oriented, but there are at
least two essays (on Soyinka’s Aké and on Amma Darko’s The Housemaid) that
attempt to come to grips narratologically with the medium of prose fiction
itself. A quartet of essays with a more general purview – including a
refreshing demontage of exclusive obeisance to (Western) écriture – is
followed by a section on poets, some canonical, others emergent: Ogaga
Ifowodo, Jack Mapanje, Olu Oguibe, Tanure Ojaide, Okot p’Bitek, Wole
Soyinka, Ladé Wosornu. Essays on fiction cover general topics (women’s
fiction; political writing in Nigeria; the nightmare of Biafra), and
landmark texts both anglophone (Chinua Achebe, Amma Darko, Festus Iyayi,
Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka), francophone (Mariama Bâ, Mongo Beti, and
Ousmane Sembène), and – a novum for Matatu – hispanophone (Donato Ndongo).
The theatre section has essays on Ama Ata Aidoo, Zakes Mda, Anne Tanyi-Tang,
Soyinka, and Ahmed Yerima, as well as Ngugi and Mugo.
We are especially pleased to be able to offer accomplished original poetry,
short stories, and a complete drama text. Four comprehensive essay-reviews
(on literary criticism, cinema, graphic art, and traditional African
society) round out this issue.
Contributors: Arinpe Adejumo, Gordon Senanu Kwame Adika, Sola Afolayan, Jude
Agho, Augustine H. Asaah, Babatunde Ayeleru, Ayodele Bamidele, Joanna
Boampong, Cristina Boscolo, Reuben Chirambo, Ademola O. Dasylva, Kola Eke,
Sule E. Egya, Mabel I.E. Evwierhoma, Nelson Olabanji Fashina, Ayo Kehinde,
Edgar O. Lake, Charles Marfo, Busuyi Mekusi, Sam Raiti Mtamba, Emmanuel N.
Ngwang, Joseph Nsiah, Izuu Nwankwo, Akin Odebunmi, Ode Ogede, Ogaga Okuyade,
K.K. Olaniyan, Senayon Olaoluwa, Masood Ashraf Raja, Wumi Raji, Brian C.
Smithson, Nick Mdika Tembo, Françoise Ugochukwu, Kenneth Usongo, Tracie
Utoh-Ezeajugh, Lifongo Vetinde, Tracey Watts, Udu Yakubu.
OTHER NEWS
4.1 Winds of change: a season of cinema from Muslim societies at the ICA in London
21 September 2011 – 13 October 2011
For information visit:
http://www.ica.org.uk/29968/Seasons/Winds-of-Change-Cinema-from-Muslim-Societies.html
4.2 The 3rd Annual Postcolonial Studies Association / Journal of Postcolonial Writing
Postgraduate Essay Prize 2012
The Postcolonial Studies Association and the Journal of Postcolonial Writing are delighted to announce details of the 2012 postgraduate essay prize.
Applicants are invited to submit an essay on any topic relating to postcolonial studies. We welcome essays from all academic disciplines, including cultural studies, geography, politics, literature, film, and development studies. The competition is open to any postgraduate student who is registered at any institution worldwide by, or within three months of, the submission deadline (1st December 2011). Entries will be accepted from 1st August 2011.
Essays are subject to a professional and anonymous peer review process, and the winning essay will – subject to editorial approval – be published in the Journal of Postcolonial Writing. In addition, the winner will be awarded £250 prize money, while the runner-up will have their work notably mentioned. Should the winner not already be a member of the PSA, they will receive a complementary year-long membership.
Essays should not be longer than 7500 words (including bibliography and any additional notes), and should conform to the MLA referencing style. Only one submission per person is allowed, and no essay will be considered that has been published in any form elsewhere. However, applicants who have previously entered the competition are welcome to enter again, using a different piece of work.
The author’s identity should not be identifiable in any way from the essay itself (electronic tags, such as those on Microsoft Word, should be removed). The essay should be emailed (preferably as a word or rich text document) along with a completed submission form (see attached), to the following address:psajpw@postcolonialstudiesassociation.co.uk
The deadline for the receipt of essays is 1st December 2011. The winner will be informally notified at the end of January 2012, and a formal announcement of the prize will be made at the 2012 biennial PSA Postgraduate Conference, which will be held at the University of Leeds (2-3 February 2012).
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