Kategorie: Call for Papers

September 29 – October 1, 2022, Düsseldorf

https://www.postcolonial-participation.hhu.de/fileadmin/redaktion/Fakultaeten/Philosophische_Fakultaet/Anglistik_und_Amerikanistik/Ang5_Anglophone/Dateien/PoCo_Call_for_Papers.pdf

Deadline: June 30, 2022

Participation both depends on and produces agency. Therefore, it is always embedded in power structures and power remains unequally distributed. Though empires are long gone, neo-colonial structures of domination continue to exploit the so-called Global South, to privilege Eurocentric knowledge traditions over non-Eurocentric knowledge, and to exclude racialized subjects or people and communities from erstwhile colonized countries from power positions. For decades, postcolonial subjects have worked against imperial forms of oppression. They continuously labor to create space for local and hitherto marginalized world views and experiences. Processes of (self-)translation produce spaces of articulation and enable participation. Particularly in migratory contexts, knowledge and experience travel and are translated (or not), allowing for self-assertive and dynamic participation. Through complex practices of translation as well as a multiplicity of other strategies, postcolonial subjects reclaim their right to participate in diverse fields of global exchange such as economy, politics or discourse.

Although postcolonial literatures facilitate discursive and social participation of marginalized groups, the very access to literature also is subject to regulative forces such as the publishing industry, raising far-reaching questions concerning the rights and possibilities of participation in the literary field. Not only do books have to be considered marketable to enter the global literary field, but authorship as a form of participation in the broader literary and public sphere is entangled in normative structures. In this regard, factors such as race, class, sex, gender, and sexuality are highly influential: Only recently, Bernardine Evaristo became the first black woman to win the renowned Booker Prize. As she shared the prize with Margaret Atwood, a white male BBC journalist referred to the winners as “Margaret Atwood and another author”. Evidently, participation in the global literary market is marked by central institutions of the field, such as media, editors and publishing houses, which are often located in the Global North. Digital cultures and alternative forms of publishing offer platforms for participation from postcolonial cultures.

Together, Dr. Renae Watchman and Dr. ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui are co–editing an upcoming edition of Gale’s Dictionary of Literary Biography (DLB) that will focus on Contemporary Indigenous Writers (this is a working title once we finalize contributors).
Highlighting Indigenous writers is a magnanimous task. Because Gale has already published select biographies of authors up to 1999, and because of the recent publication of the Indigenous poetry anthology, When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through edited by Joy Harjo in 2020, we made the difficult decision to highlight writers who have published fiction and short stories in the 21st century. While we recognize the impossibility of acknowledging everyone who makes up the constellation of literary talent, we have come up with a working Table of Contents for the upcoming DLB and are seeking to fill many gaps (in terms of contributors). We hope to attract contributors who teach and work in Indigenous literary arts.

If you’re interested in this project, please refer to the working TOC below and send us your
name, institutional affiliation, and author preference. You may select more than one! We will respond and confirm your choice. In the event of overlaps, we will consult before deciding. Entry length will vary, but you can expect to write anywhere from 3000–10K words. For now, we have allocated most authors at 3000 words to allow for more coverage. If, by the end of April, some writers have not been assigned, we will rethink word–length and inclusion.
Proposed Timeline:
• confirmation of contributors May 15, 2022
• July 1, 2022: your draft contribution due.
• mid–September 2022: we will return these back to you with editorial comments.
• Mid–November 2022: final revisions due.
• We are aiming to submit a complete DLB anthology by the end of December 2022 for
publication in 2023.
If you commit as a contributor, we will follow up with more specifics, including a sample
biographic entry from a previous DLB edition, as well as a contract from Gale.
mahalo, ahéhee‘, thank you for your consideration,
Renae Watchman and ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui
renae@mcmaster.ca and kuualoha@hawaii.edu

Extended deadline for abstracts: April 30, 2022
September 21-23 , 2022 at University of Białystok, Poland

The 9th Congress of Polish Canadianists / 9ème Congrès des Canadianistes Polonais

In the midst of global Covid-19 pandemic, not only Canada, but all the states, experienced challenges they had never faced before. The crisis forced individuals, communities and countries to rethink and question the way modern societies operate on manifold levels. The strain put on health care, education and welfare systems has significantly reshuffled the workplace and family dynamics, exacerbating existing inequalities related to gender, class and ethnicity and affecting communities of colour, as well as other disadvantaged, marginalized and excluded groups in a disproportionate manner. Confined to their homes, many people have found perpetual isolation overwhelming and experienced long-term psychological impacts. As a response to these feelings of exclusion, on both individual and collective levels, new ways of connecting with others have emerged, giving rise to as varied new phenomena as zoom meetings, online panel discussions, workshops and conferences, virtual support groups, and digital cultural initiatives, including exhibitions, concerts, performances and other live-stream events. The economic discrepancies and social injustice aggravated by the pandemic as well as attempts to foster a sense of belonging make us reflect upon past and present forms of exclusion and inclusion.

Oct 19-21, 2022, Vienna

Deadline: May 6, 2022

Organizers: Prof. Dr. Teresa Hiergeist (Romanistik); PD Dr. Stefanie Schäfer (Amerikanistik)

In contemporary popular culture, representations of shooting women abound: Super heroines, warrior goddesses, and female avengers brandish their weapons in movies, cartoons, comics and novels, advertisements, and on the shelves of toy stores (Inness 2018, 4); stories of cowgirls, huntresses, and female police officers and soldiers have received increased media attention in the past 30 years (Browder 2008; Browder and Pflaeging 2010; Patton and Schedlock 2012). This new omnipresence of the gun-toting woman in the cultural imaginary indicates her great potential to concentrate different discourses about gender, the legitimacy of violence, and social cohesion. She exposes the values, norms and attitudes of contemporary individuals, groups and societies. In this respect it comes as no surprise that narratives of shooting women negotiate a variety of positions and identities.