CFP- IACLALS ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2020
IACLALS ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2020
CO-HOSTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY
FEBRUARY 5-7, 2020
Reimagi(ni)ng Identities in the Global South: Challenges, Transgressions and Articulation
“Freeing yourself was one thing. Claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
In the words of Toni Morrison, the most treasured of all human events in modernity has been the achievement of freedom by the individual and by peoples. ‘Claiming ownership’ of these free selves has been the most daunting of tasks in the postcolonial era. With the new millennium we have reached a new world order in which the ‘global south’ has emerged as a significant geopolitical imaginary to displace older concepts of the ‘Third World’ or ‘Developing Countries’ in a bid to challenge the hegemony of more affluent and economically developed countries of the ‘global north.’ The ‘global south’ pledges itself to south-south cooperation across the national borders, and does not wish to confine itself to a mere adversarial or oppositional relationship to the former colonizing nations. But it is yet to assume leadership on the basis of equitable and cooperative standards of interaction within its own countries and peoples or with the rest of the world. Moreover, the ‘global south’ is not so much a fixed category as an umbrella term subsuming transgressive identities in their dissenting plurality and identity conflicts arising in the process of self-assertion, even as it attempts to situate itself in a redefined world order.
Whether it be the rise of new power blocs, globalization, new manifestations of capitalism and imperialism, post-humanism, post-truth, or the post-secular, recent debates and discussions across disciplines revolve around questions of reimagi(ni)ng identities in the global south and the new modes of life, literature, institutions, arts, media, technology and market economy that are associated with it. With a view to addressing how identities in and of the ‘global south’ are being shaped (or deformed/reimagined or reimaged?) in a variety of new ways in representations and ‘readings’ of literary, social and cultural texts and practices, this conference invites papers that would address some of the concerns below (abstracts proposing to explore the primary theme of the conference from other perspectives than the ones mentioned below are also welcome):
Hovering around the post and reconsidering the past
This theme would explore post-human/ post-truth/ post-secular/ post transition/ post memory construction and redefinition of identities in political discourse, social media, literature and other cultural texts of the global south.
Transgression and dissolution of accepted b/order(s)
This theme would look at how any sense of homogeneous identity, such as one based on the idea of the nation state/ religious fundamentalism/fixed categories of gender and/or sexuality, is dissolving and giving way to transnational identities, regional communities, emergent religiosities, transgender identities and multiple sexualities in representations and readings from the global south.
Marginal/Dominant/Center and the periphery
This theme would engage with the complex issue of the importance of the center. While there has been a considerable rise in the voices from the margins, the political concept of one belief and one nation has also gained in currency. What is then more important? What determines the individual identity in these new times? How do the hegemonic notions tend to influence the concepts of nation and ideologies of nationhood? The importance of the social media and digitization in creating/recreating identities.
Demanding justice and claiming rights
This theme would explore reconfigurations of caste, class, gender and ethnic identityarising out of demands for justice as well as the role of social movements and popular struggles in shaping identities around events of dispossession, development and resistance through their representations and readings.
Changing rural and urban landscapes
This theme would focus on the rapidly changing topography of rural and urban sectors and their impact on reshaping identities. The concept of the use of space is in flux. Concepts of private and public space have also undergone modifications. Changing landscapes, alternate ideas of tourism and the whys and ways of claiming of spaces and by whom have altered over time. An important issue is environmental depredation/degradation.
Distorted notions of childhood/adolescence/ adulthood
This theme would explore how notions of the child/adolescent/adult have been radically unsettled in these new times in the global south where children experience war/rape/plunder, child labour, military training of adolescents, loss of adolescent life due to playing video/online games.
Myths, Visions, Identities, Memories
This theme would be concerned with how identities of race/class/caste/nation are imagined and reimagined through narratives of myth, visions of the ideal, construction of identities and the role of memory in the construction/reconstruction of all discourses.
Crimes and criminality
This theme would explore to what extent reimagining identities in literary and cultural representations of the global south has reinforced, deconstructed or broken out of colonial and postcolonial stereotypes of crime and criminality, bringing into purview, for example, such frequently discussed cases of human rights violation as cybercrimes and commodification of body parts,which are still considered to be the civilizational index of underdeveloped countries.
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize for the Best Paper published in the previous block of two years (2018-19) by a member of the IACLALS. Please submit your published paper with all details to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by October 20th, 2018. You must have been a member of IACLALS when you published the paper. Past winners of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize can submit entries for the prize only after the completion of three years from the year they received the award. Papers submitted for the award earlier cannot be submitted again.
About our hosts
The Department of English, Jadavpur University, in Kolkata, West Bengal, one of the oldest Departments of the University, was established in 1956. Since its inception the Department has been the hub of teaching and research activity, attracting students and research scholars from all over the country. In 2004, it became the first Department of English in India to be awarded the status of Centre of Advanced Study by the UGC. The Department has hosted several luminaries as visiting faculty from all over the world, and has collaborated on many international research networks. While the Department provides a hospitable environment for every kind of research, the work done by faculty in new areas has had a significant impact on arts and humanities research in India. It continues to innovate in research and the development of pedagogical practices and courses. Faculty members of the Department also contribute to the University’s national and international standing, as coordinators and members of School for Media Communication and Culture, Centre for Victorian Studies, Renaissance Centre and the School of Cultural Texts and Records and the Centre for Disability Studies.
The Organizing Secretary is: Dr Nandini Saha, Professor & Head (email: sahanandini7@gmail.com, nandini.saha@jadavpuruniversity.in)
Members of the host committee:
Dr Nilanjana Deb (email: nilanjanadeb@yahoo.com)
Dr Sonia Sahoo (email: soniasahoo25@gmail.com)
Dr Kaustav Bakshi (email: kaustav.bakshi@gmail.com)
Dr Ramit Samaddar (email: ramit.samaddar@jadavpuruniversity.in)
Information about registration formalities will be given with the acceptances of paper proposals.
GJV Prasad
Chairperson, IACLALS
Editor, JSL
Professor
Centre for English Studies
School of Language Literature & Culture Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi 110067 India
http://www.pencraftinternational.com/pencraft_violets.html
https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/india-in-translation-translation-in-india-9789388414197/
http://gjvprasad.wordpress.com
CO-HOSTED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY
FEBRUARY 5-7, 2020
Reimagi(ni)ng Identities in the Global South: Challenges, Transgressions and Articulation
“Freeing yourself was one thing. Claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
In the words of Toni Morrison, the most treasured of all human events in modernity has been the achievement of freedom by the individual and by peoples. ‘Claiming ownership’ of these free selves has been the most daunting of tasks in the postcolonial era. With the new millennium we have reached a new world order in which the ‘global south’ has emerged as a significant geopolitical imaginary to displace older concepts of the ‘Third World’ or ‘Developing Countries’ in a bid to challenge the hegemony of more affluent and economically developed countries of the ‘global north.’ The ‘global south’ pledges itself to south-south cooperation across the national borders, and does not wish to confine itself to a mere adversarial or oppositional relationship to the former colonizing nations. But it is yet to assume leadership on the basis of equitable and cooperative standards of interaction within its own countries and peoples or with the rest of the world. Moreover, the ‘global south’ is not so much a fixed category as an umbrella term subsuming transgressive identities in their dissenting plurality and identity conflicts arising in the process of self-assertion, even as it attempts to situate itself in a redefined world order.
Whether it be the rise of new power blocs, globalization, new manifestations of capitalism and imperialism, post-humanism, post-truth, or the post-secular, recent debates and discussions across disciplines revolve around questions of reimagi(ni)ng identities in the global south and the new modes of life, literature, institutions, arts, media, technology and market economy that are associated with it. With a view to addressing how identities in and of the ‘global south’ are being shaped (or deformed/reimagined or reimaged?) in a variety of new ways in representations and ‘readings’ of literary, social and cultural texts and practices, this conference invites papers that would address some of the concerns below (abstracts proposing to explore the primary theme of the conference from other perspectives than the ones mentioned below are also welcome):
Hovering around the post and reconsidering the past
This theme would explore post-human/ post-truth/ post-secular/ post transition/ post memory construction and redefinition of identities in political discourse, social media, literature and other cultural texts of the global south.
Transgression and dissolution of accepted b/order(s)
This theme would look at how any sense of homogeneous identity, such as one based on the idea of the nation state/ religious fundamentalism/fixed categories of gender and/or sexuality, is dissolving and giving way to transnational identities, regional communities, emergent religiosities, transgender identities and multiple sexualities in representations and readings from the global south.
Marginal/Dominant/Center and the periphery
This theme would engage with the complex issue of the importance of the center. While there has been a considerable rise in the voices from the margins, the political concept of one belief and one nation has also gained in currency. What is then more important? What determines the individual identity in these new times? How do the hegemonic notions tend to influence the concepts of nation and ideologies of nationhood? The importance of the social media and digitization in creating/recreating identities.
Demanding justice and claiming rights
This theme would explore reconfigurations of caste, class, gender and ethnic identityarising out of demands for justice as well as the role of social movements and popular struggles in shaping identities around events of dispossession, development and resistance through their representations and readings.
Changing rural and urban landscapes
This theme would focus on the rapidly changing topography of rural and urban sectors and their impact on reshaping identities. The concept of the use of space is in flux. Concepts of private and public space have also undergone modifications. Changing landscapes, alternate ideas of tourism and the whys and ways of claiming of spaces and by whom have altered over time. An important issue is environmental depredation/degradation.
Distorted notions of childhood/adolescence/ adulthood
This theme would explore how notions of the child/adolescent/adult have been radically unsettled in these new times in the global south where children experience war/rape/plunder, child labour, military training of adolescents, loss of adolescent life due to playing video/online games.
Myths, Visions, Identities, Memories
This theme would be concerned with how identities of race/class/caste/nation are imagined and reimagined through narratives of myth, visions of the ideal, construction of identities and the role of memory in the construction/reconstruction of all discourses.
Crimes and criminality
This theme would explore to what extent reimagining identities in literary and cultural representations of the global south has reinforced, deconstructed or broken out of colonial and postcolonial stereotypes of crime and criminality, bringing into purview, for example, such frequently discussed cases of human rights violation as cybercrimes and commodification of body parts,which are still considered to be the civilizational index of underdeveloped countries.
- The conference is open only to members of IACLALS (visit www.iaclals.com to know how to become a member).
- Abstracts (250 words) with a short bio-note (max 70 words) to be sent to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by October 30th, 2019.
- Acceptance will be intimated by November 20th, 2019.
- If you wish to be considered for the CD Narasimhaiah Prize for the Best Paper presented at the conference, please submit complete papers by December 15th, 2019. Others must submit complete papers by December 30th, 2019.
- Please note that you will have twenty minutes to read your papers.
- Registration to be completed by January 5th, 2020 (details will be sent with acceptances).
IACLALS also announces the next edition of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize for the Best Paper published in the previous block of two years (2018-19) by a member of the IACLALS. Please submit your published paper with all details to iaclalsconferences@gmail.com by October 20th, 2018. You must have been a member of IACLALS when you published the paper. Past winners of the Meenakshi Mukherjee Prize can submit entries for the prize only after the completion of three years from the year they received the award. Papers submitted for the award earlier cannot be submitted again.
About our hosts
The Department of English, Jadavpur University, in Kolkata, West Bengal, one of the oldest Departments of the University, was established in 1956. Since its inception the Department has been the hub of teaching and research activity, attracting students and research scholars from all over the country. In 2004, it became the first Department of English in India to be awarded the status of Centre of Advanced Study by the UGC. The Department has hosted several luminaries as visiting faculty from all over the world, and has collaborated on many international research networks. While the Department provides a hospitable environment for every kind of research, the work done by faculty in new areas has had a significant impact on arts and humanities research in India. It continues to innovate in research and the development of pedagogical practices and courses. Faculty members of the Department also contribute to the University’s national and international standing, as coordinators and members of School for Media Communication and Culture, Centre for Victorian Studies, Renaissance Centre and the School of Cultural Texts and Records and the Centre for Disability Studies.
The Organizing Secretary is: Dr Nandini Saha, Professor & Head (email: sahanandini7@gmail.com, nandini.saha@jadavpuruniversity.in)
Members of the host committee:
Dr Nilanjana Deb (email: nilanjanadeb@yahoo.com)
Dr Sonia Sahoo (email: soniasahoo25@gmail.com)
Dr Kaustav Bakshi (email: kaustav.bakshi@gmail.com)
Dr Ramit Samaddar (email: ramit.samaddar@jadavpuruniversity.in)
Information about registration formalities will be given with the acceptances of paper proposals.
GJV Prasad
Chairperson, IACLALS
Editor, JSL
Professor
Centre for English Studies
School of Language Literature & Culture Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi 110067 India
http://www.pencraftinternational.com/pencraft_violets.html
https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/india-in-translation-translation-in-india-9789388414197/
http://gjvprasad.wordpress.com
