CFP: Call for Additional Chapters--Reiterating #Urbanisms: Staging the City in #Literature and #Media from the Global South

 

We are seeking additional chapters for our volume. Proposals for chapters discussing cities of Southeast Asia and Latin America are invited. Proposals for essays within 500 words and a short bio are to be submitted by April 30, 2024, with complete articles within 8,000 words (excluding works cited and endnotes), expected by June 15, 2024. We are using the MLA Handbook 8th Edition in this book. Submissions of abstracts, completed essays, and queries will be directed to citiesglobalsouth@gmail.com. For details regarding the scope of the volume, please refer to the original CFP below.

 

Original CFP below:

The Global South has become a representative of political, social, economic, and, to some extent, geographical markers of the countries that fall under the scaffolding of the term. However, the Global South is more than the sum of its parts: it has been gradually shaping up to be a cultural denominator that shapes national and cultural imaginaries into producing artefacts of literary and media consumption, sociopolitical/geopolitical commentaries that develop new narratives of and for the geographies that join together and form this Global South or the postcolony. For a term that has historically come to categorise nations with lower levels of industrialisation, lower per capita incomes, and a history of colonialism or dependence on the Global North, stretching across Africa, Latin America, Asia (barring Japan), and the Caribbean, the Global South is the site for massive upscaling in urbanisation as demographies strive to shift from areas of geographical disadvantage to urban centres that offer better amenities and economic prospect. Current urbanisation projections suggest that cities in the Global South, especially in East Asia, South Asia, and Africa, could be at the receiving end of 96% of an over three billion increase in urban population by 2050 (UN-Habitat 2020), while the global projections for net urban demography stand at growing from 55% presently to 68% by 2050. The growth in the urban population in the Global South far outpaces the growth of population, let alone urban demography growth in the Global North, which has started to show a decline in urbanisation over the past couple of decades (Quintero and Restrepo 2019). Starting with the postcolonial epoch beginning towards the end of the long nineteenth century and lasting till the later decades of the twentieth, the Global South has slowly and surely carved out an identity for itself and its population centres, urbanising in its own way, not resorting to the practices laid out by the Global North, but rather adapting the cities to the unique demographies that reside in them, the issues of resources, overpopulation, congestion, residual underdevelopment, disparities, deficits, and marginalisation. Due to the significant affiliation that urbanisation has had with the psyche of the Global South, these urban clusters are an intricate part of their cultural manifestations.

Whether it is the postcolonial city itself (Mumbai, Delhi, Rio De Janeiro, Manila, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Cairo, Lagos, and many others) or the postcolonial subject in a city of the Global North, manoeuvring the politics of the colonial geography with their postcolonial identity, literature, and media from the Global South has interacted heavily with the city. These interactions have also, in turn, produced new historiographies of the city, new hagiographies, geographies, radical politics, social and cultural paradigms, and polarisations, and the affectations of overlapping media, languages, religions, and practices in a boiler pot often found missing in their counterparts from the Global North. Cities are not merely historical or cultural but simultaneously ahistorical and influential characters in these artefacts. As such, it is often difficult to isolate the idea of the urban from the works of literature and visual media that conform to these standards. Whether it is in the fiction, poetry, and theatre of Rushdie or Achebe, Garcia Márquez, Emecheta, Naipaul, Mistry, Anita and Kiran Desai, Ondaatje, Karnad, Davis, Fugard, Suleri, Césaire, Walcott or Adichie, or the cinema of Mrinal Sen, Satyajit Ray, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Wong Kar-wai, Ann Hui, Lav Diaz, Tsai Ming-Liang, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Eric Khoo, Fernando Meirelles, Alejandro Amenábar, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Alfonso Cuarón, Neill Blomkamp, Garin Nugroho, Moufida Tlatli, Djibril Diop Mambéty, and Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina among several others, the city has been a staple that has either been the staging ground for the narrative, part of the ecology, stood in contrast or as an opposition to the focus of the narrative. 

The proposed edited volume seeks to look at this dynamic relationship between cities and their cultural artefacts, the literary and other medial production that emerges out of the interactions between the geography and the writer/director, and acts as a performative agent or actant towards developing a new consciousness for the cultural manifestations of the Global South. We seek essays looking at authors, poets, playwrights, directors, and artists whose works have explored the dynamism between the population and the urban centres, directly or tangentially. Essays could focus on multiple works by the same creator, their entire oeuvre, or individual pieces, or even offer comparative studies between the works of diverse creators, but must seek to unravel the urban ethos contained within these narratives or how the city functions within the narrative paradigms laid out by their creators.

Deadline for Submissions: 

April 30, 2024

Full name / Name of organization: 

Subashish Bhattacharjee and Indrajit Mukherjee

Contact email: 

citiesglobalsouth@gmail.com

CFP: International Conference "Literary transitions / Transitional literatures"

Vitoria-Gasteiz, Faculty of Arts, UPV/EHU,  Spain ,January 15-17, 2025

The concept of transition – characterized as a historical moment with a beginning and an end, encompassing a defined and significant period – awaits systematic reflection, according to Cristina Moreiras-Menor (2011). Although Richard (2001) points out that transition, as a proper noun, represents a temporal rationale, this term is generally understood as the shift between two times, a before and an after, presented linearly and laden with transformations. A transition is an evanescent stage that precedes another that emerges with remarkable power. This evanescent stage feels like an abyss that represents the ruin of a past and the emergence of an unwritten future.

We focus on the historical collapse that the transition entails, the landscape of change from one historical moment to another, and how that change is mirrored in literary and cultural documents. We specifically examine literary documents that contemplate the end of an era and explore the transition towards a new phase that accompanies this end. This transition is often portrayed as either innovative or as the dismantling of the preceding period. This time of transition – of change, uncertainty, and contradiction – is a time to confront the inherited legacy and transform it into something different, into a promise that implies several future directions. As Derrida (1995) suggests, a legacy is never univocal and natural; instead, it challenges interpretation by presenting itself as a secret to unveil. Thus, we are particularly interested in interpreting, deciphering, and reinterpreting that legacy on its emotional, subjective, political and ideological levels.

We understand transitions as a time of change in the historical trajectory – this trajectory can be collective and individual, vital, or literary – and as a stage in which new knowledge, new epistemologies, and new ways of understanding life and society are formulated. This separation between the past and the future opens a space for emerging discourses, new imaginaries, new expressions of experience and new individual and social identities. Besides, it affects all traditions. Precisely for these reasons, the members of the research group “IdeoLit: Literature as a historical document” have organized this conference, which is aimed at all those researchers who study the concept of transition in literature from the classical times to the present day.

1. Personal/Individual Transitions:
   • Growth, coming of age or Bildungsroman
   • Gender transition (trans realities)
   • Childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age, relationship with death (our own or someone else's death and its effect on the individual
   • Change/awareness
2. Collective transitions:
   • Political transition: regime changes and their implications in different fields
   • Social transition: revolutions, social movements, and other social transitions.
   • Changes in the emotional, family and community sphere
   • Ecology: structural changes to face climate disaster, collapse, degrowth or energy transition, among other aspects.
   • Transitional process of societies going through collective trauma
   • Technological transition: AI, posthumanism
3. Literary transitions:
   • Generic or formal transition: exhaustion or appearance of literary genres, in new forms
   • Aesthetic transition: changes in aesthetic currents, ruptures
   • Thematic transition: in relation to the historical context, the appearance of new themes that represent that moment of transition
   • Comparatist transition: opening of new lines, new perspectives that break with the past

Bibliography:

Derrida, Jacques (1995): Espectros de Marx: el Estado de la deuda, el trabajo del duelo y la nueva internacional, Madrid: Trotta.

Jameson, Fredric (2000): Las semillas del tiempo, Madrid: Trotta.

Moreiras-Menor, Cristina (2011): La estela del tiempo. Imagen e historicidad en el cine español contemporáneo, Madrid-Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana-Vervuert.

Rancière, Jacques (2006): Política, policía, democracia, Santiago de Chile: LOM.

Resina, Joan Ramon (ed.) (2000): Disremembering the Dictatorship: The Politics of Memory in the Spanish Transition to Democracy, Amsterdam: Rodopi.

Richard, Nelly y Alberto Moreiras (eds.) (2001): Pensar en la posdictadura, Santiago de Chile: Cuarto Propio.

Ricoeur, Paul (1980): “Narrative Time”, Critical Inquiry 7, 1 (On Narrative), autumn, pp. 169-190.

Subirats, Eduardo (2002): Intransiciones. Crítica de la cultura española, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.

Vilarós, Teresa M. (1998): El mono del desencanto. Una crítica cultural de la transición española (1975-1993), Madrid: Siglo XXI.

 

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Proposals must include the following information for ALL authors: name and surname, organization or institution, email, the title of the proposal, a 15-20 line abstract, and biographical information (maximum: 10 lines).

Proposals can be sent to the following email address in Word (or compatible) format until May 31: congresotransicion.ideolit@ehu.es

The organizing committee's decision will be notified by July 15.

Proposals will be accepted in Spanish, Basque, English, French or German. Each speaker will have 20 minutes for their presentation, followed by a brief Q&A session. All presentations must be made in person.

 

Contact Information

 

Main Organizers:

• M. Carmen Encinas Reguero (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU)
• Garbiñe Iztueta Goizueta (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU)
• Natalia Vara Ferrero (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU)

Contact Email

congresotransicion.ideolit@ehu.es

URL

https://www.ehu.eus/en/web/ideolit-literatura-documento-historico/call-for-pape…

Call For Articles: Special issue #CFP: #Women’s #Autobiographical #Filmmaking -Alphaville: Journal of #Film and #Screen #Media,

 Call for Papers

Women’s Autobiographical Filmmaking 

Special issue of Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, Summer 2026

Guest editors: Dr Felicia Chan (University of Manchester) and Dr Monika Kukolova (University of Salford)

Autobiographical filmmaking refers to films created by filmmakers that tell stories about their lives, experiences and memories. These may be truthful or partially fictionalised, remembered clearly or misremembered, or a combination of these, usually in ways that also explore how film as a medium itself can do this — a form of practice-as-research, if you like. We are interested in exploring with potential contributors whether there might be a gendered nature to this mode of filmmaking / life-remembering / self-narrating? Do filmmakers who identify as women tell different stories about themselves and their lives from those who identify as men, or do they do so in a different way? How do women filmmakers navigate their simultaneous objecthood and subjecthood in the eye of the camera (Everett, 2007)? Much of the canon in film studies is constituted by works of male auteurs, all in one form or another said to be exploring their lives, their pasts and their selves on screen: think of figures like Federico Fellini, Woody Allen, François Truffaut, Shane Meadows, the list goes on. This structural domination is being continually challenged (Gledhill and Knight, 2015) and moves to rehistoricise women’s filmmaking have seen increased attention on figures from Agnès Varda through to Greta Gerwig though much more remains to be done on women filmmakers in the global majority. 

There has been a longer history of scholarship on women’s literary life-writing (Smith and Watson, 1998; Neuman, 2016; Brodzki and Schenck, 2019) but less so on women’s life-writing on/through film as a mode of self-narration. How have women filmmakers had to navigate the industrial structures of filmmaking with all its gatekeeping mechanisms, including access to capital? To what extent are these gatekeeping mechanisms disproportionately discriminatory towards women?  

We are inviting proposals to explore any area of the subject, although we are especially keen to receive proposals from scholars studying the ways women in the global majority use cinema to write themselves and their memories into post/colonial histories. We would also like to invite proposals on alternative publication formats such as the video essay, and shorter provocations, interviews or reports.

Possible topics include (but are not limited to):

• Filmmaker case studies
• Close readings of individual films
• Industry analysis
• Autobiographical film as method
• Challenges to theoretical orthodoxies, e.g. auteur theory, canon-making, etc.
• Decolonial approaches to gender studies and women’s filmmaking 

Full-length articles: 5,500-7,000 words, including notes but excluding references

Video essay: Approx. 3-15 mins, plus accompanying text 500-1000 words

Short reports, provocations, reviews, interviews, reflections: 1,500-2,500 words

Full-length articles and video essays will be subject to full peer review. Guidelines here: https://www.alphavillejournal.com/Guidelines.html

Publication Timeline

15 May 2024, abstract due

31 May 2024, notification of editors’ decision

15 January 2025, full video essay / manuscript due 

Publication: Summer 2026

If you are interested in contributing to this issue, please send a 300-word abstract along with a brief biography, in the same file, to Dr Monika Kukolova (M.Kukolova@salford.ac.uk)

Feel free to contact us with any questions.

 Alphaville is a diamond open-access journal, and it requests no fee from authors or readers. Visit us at https://www.alphavillejournal.com

 

Contact Information

Dr Felicia Chan, University of Manchester, UK: Felicia.Chan@manchester.ac.uk

Dr Monika Kukolova, University of Salford, UK: M.Kukolova@salford.ac.uk

Contact Email

Felicia.Chan@manchester.ac.uk

URL

https://www.alphavillejournal.com

CFP: #Disability and Detective Fiction (theme issue of Clues: A Journal of Detection) -Clues Journal

 The guest editors welcome proposals for a theme issue of Clues focusing on the representation of disability, broadly defined, in crime and mystery fiction, television shows, films, and other media. We seek a wide range of critical and cultural perspectives on how bodymind anomalousness features in stories about wrongdoing, from the maimed and scarred villains of Conan Doyle to the neurodivergent hero-sleuths of contemporary popular culture. In what ways have impairment, disfigurement, and disease been used to raise the stakes of fear and upheaval in crime stories? How do such narratives perpetuate or challenge ableist notions of order and resolution? Does corporeal vulnerability stoke our pity, sympathy, or admiration—whether for criminals, victims, or detectives whose genius seems to triumph over adversity? Conversely, do the contours of disability facilitate alternative modes of sleuthing and lead to unexpected forms of justice? What alternate forms of knowledge do these characters and texts present and endorse? Since the genre of crime by definition entails what and how we know, how have authors—over time and around the world—engaged disability to probe the meaning of truth? 

Possible topics may include but are not limited to:

• Disability as the mark of criminality  

• Disability as a crime—or as damage—that must be redeemed

• Disability as metaphor for social decay

• Supercrip crime solvers and criminals

• Analytical prowess as compensation for physical or emotional loss

• Neurodivergence and the lonely sleuth

• Intersectional plots pairing disability with gender, race, class, and sexuality

• Disability as affective vector: upping the emotional ante

• Specific impairments as modes of knowing: detection and “cripistemology”   

Submissions should include a proposal of 250–300 words and a brief bio. Proposals due: March 15, 2024. Submit proposals to: Prof. Susannah B. Mintz, Dept. of English, Skidmore College, email: smintz@skidmore.edu, and Prof. Mark Osteen, Dept. of English, Loyola University Maryland, email: MOsteen@loyola.edu. Full manuscripts of 5,000 to 6,500 words based on an accepted proposal will be due in September 2024.

About Clues: Published biannually by McFarland & Co., the peer-reviewed Clues: A Journal of Detection features academic articles on all aspects of mystery and detective material in print, television, and film without limit to period or country covered. It also reviews nonfiction mystery works (biographies, reference works, and the like) and materials applicable to classroom use (such as films). Executive Editor: Caroline Reitz, John Jay College/The CUNY Graduate Center; Managing Editor: Elizabeth Foxwell, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers

Contact Information

Elizabeth Foxwell

Managing Editor, Clues: A Journal of Detection

Editor, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers

PO Box 611

Jefferson, NC  28640

Contact Email

journalclues@gmail.com

URL

https://sites.google.com/site/cluesjournal

#CFP: Short Fiction in Theory & Practice : Special Issue: ‘#Materiality in the Short Fiction of #Alice #Munro’

 Guest edited by Corinne Bigot, University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, and Christine Lorre, Sorbonne Nouvelle University

‘People’s lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing and unfathomable—deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.’

(Munro, Lives of Girls and Women, 1971)

Throughout her fourteen collections of short stories, Alice Munro has shown a clear interest in how her characters’ inner life and perception of the world are defined by the material things most immediate to them, as exemplified in the epigraph, a well-known quotation from Lives of Girls and Women. Materiality is an integral dimension of culture (Tilley et al., 2006), and in Munro’s work, it is central to an understanding of social, gendered and individual existence, as the two are interconnected. Material things nurture the imagination, where they stick and develop as significant, unfathomable images. They embody the mystery of life, being paradoxically, like landscape, both “touchable and mysterious” (Munro, 1974). They physically anchor characters in the here and now, but they also speak to mind and spirit. They can embody connections as well as disconnections. Whether they are kept or discarded, over time, they haunt the protagonist and lead on to chains of memories, repeatedly re-membered, and with variations. They may become symbols of something larger than themselves, but more often than not they remain images stored up in memory, as so many active links to the past that transform the perception of the present. Objects act as signs that relate to the signified – and often as an index of atmosphere – but also, beyond that, to coded concepts, in a dual dynamic that binds surface and depth, that fuses realism and myth.

The international, peer-reviewed journal, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice (Intellect Books) is inviting original submissions for a special issue to be published in Spring 2025, that will explore material culture in Alice Munro’s work. We welcome critical articles, short fiction, and reflections on practice that investigate any aspect of the question of materiality in Munro’s short fiction.

Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Material domains: architecture, home furnishing, technology, food, clothing, style.

• Everyday materiality: houses and their contents, the materiality of domesticity.

• Materiality and social class: class markers, social distinction, social belonging

• The lifecycle of things: things made, exchanged, consumed.

• Things and their meanings: performance, transformation, obsolescence.

• Things and social identity: politics and poetics of displaying, representing, conserving material forms.

• Material forms and the (gendered) body: embodied subjects, body care, role of the senses, phenomenology.

• Material forms and sociality: subjectivities, intimacies, social and familial relations, worldviews.

• Materiality and remembrance: signs of time passing, change, transformation, evolving interpretation.

• Materiality and circulation: exchange and consumption, technology.

• Materiality and discards: remains, junk, waste.

• Archeological or ethnographic situations: materiality in alien settings.

• Material memory: cultural memory, monuments and memorials.

Articles should be 4,000–8,000 words long and must not exceed 8,000 words including notes, references, contributor biography, keywords and abstract. All submissions are peer-reviewed. Contributions should be submitted electronically through the journal webpage by clicking the submissions tab.

For style guide and submission details please see: https://www.intellectbooks.com/short-fiction-in-theory-practice

For further enquiries please contact the editor, Professor Ailsa Cox, coxa@edgehill.ac.uk.

The deadline for submissions is 1 September 2024.

Contact Information

Ailsa Cox

Contact Email

coxa@edgehill.ac.uk

URL

https://www.intellectbooks.com/short-fiction-in-theory-practice#call-for-papers

CFP: International Conference on #Bengal and its Neighbors: From Early Modern to Contemporary South Asia -Oct 2024.

 The aim of this panel is to initiate a broader dialogue with regards to the Bengal region, as it evolved from the early modern era — then, a region being ruled a motley of Sultanates with periodic eruption of Mughal expeditions against the independent Sultans — to an important resource extraction zone during the colonial era. Eventually, the region evolved into a contested terrain during the anti-colonial movement in the Twentieth Century that pitted two distinct nationalist projects against one another, as the post-colonial future of the region’s heterogeneous ethnic, linguistic and religious communities were being decided. Fast forward to the Partition, Bengal’s religious fault-lines became exposed, as the Muslim majority regions became part of Pakistan, while the Hindu dominated Western regions became part of India. 

However, this flared up communal fragmentation does not fully encapsulate the efforts undertaken by political forces, including the left-leaning ones, to oppose communalism’s impact on the widening gap between Hindus and Muslims. Interestingly, an echo of this anti-communal nation-building imperative can be traced in the movement leading up to the creation of Bangladesh, and, subsequently, the inscribing of the principles of nationalism, socialism, democracy, and secularism in its founding constitution draw up in 1972 following its break-up from Pakistan in 1971. The country experiences coups and countercoups in the late 1970s and early 1980s that had shacked its attempt to build a new society out of the ruins of Partition. 

Moreover, the wider Bengal region has experienced further tensions due to the acceleration of the climate crisis, onset of neoliberal globalization, and new forms of social divides along caste, class, ethnicity, and religious lines in the recent years. Therefore, it would be more than useful to interrogate the region from a broad historical perspective so that dialogues can be initiated to understand the wider implications of today’s crises as well as the traces of the past in the Bengal region’s turbulent present. 

With an aim to investigating the various traditions of resistance, in literary writing, oral and public culture, plastic and visual arts, to dominant ideologies of nation, class, religion, and gender, the esteemed panelists seek to engage with the following questions in order to understand the complex changes in the region from a broader perspective: 

• How can we address the influences of various cultural forces — Arab, Persian, Indic, and European — in a primarily agrarian region?
• How can we reconceptualize the major changes that occurred in the region as it transitioned from the colonial era to the postcolonial present? What are some of the major outcomes of this transition including the Permanent Settlement, the Bengal famine of 1943 and the creation of the successor three nation-states of British India impacted the region? 
• How is the region shaped by political changes such as the solidification of Hindu nationalism in India, the India-China rivalry to extend regional influence, as well as the ethnic tensions in the bordering countries such as Myanmar? 
• How can the region’s longue durée shifts be addressed from an interdisciplinary angle? What are the stakes of bringing scholars together who explore the Bengal and its neighboring region from a range of disciplinary angles including anthropology, history, literature and religion among others?      

Contact Information

Please submit abstracts of 250-300 words and a brief bio to the organizers, Auritro Majumder, Assistant Professor of English, University of Houston, amajumder@uh.edu &  Asif Iqbal, Visiting Assistant Professor of English, Oberlin College, aiqbal@oberlin.edu by 30 March, 2024. 

Contact Email: aiqbal@oberlin.edu

CFP: International Conference on Understanding Authoritarianism/Fascism in South Asia -Nov 2024

 We are proposing a panel on “Understanding Authoritarianism/Fascism in South Asia” at the 52nd Annual Conference on South Asia, organized by the South Asia Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

While South Asia, a diverse and dynamic region, has witnessed various forms of governance throughout its history, in recent times, concerns have been raised about the rise of populism and/or authoritarianism. This panel seeks to explore the nature of fascism/authoritarianism in this region. Is the nature of fascism/authoritarianism the same in this region compared to Western/European counterparts? In response to Ramin Jahanbegloo's question "Is there an Indian fascism?" Ashis Nandy argues, “Indian civilization, which has no direct experience of that particular version [European] of authoritarianism and has always worked with ill-defined, open ended concept of evil, finds it more difficult to deal with various modern versions of authoritarianism” (Nandy 2006). 

This panel invites theoretical and/or empirical research that critically examines the features (distinct or otherwise) of authoritarianism/fascism in the South Asian context and beyond. We aim to identify and analyze historical antecedents contributing to the emergence of authoritarianism and to explore the socio-cultural factors influencing the development and sustenance of authoritarian regimes. Simultaneously we plan to investigate the role of technology, media, civil society, developmentalist narratives, nationalist discourse, discourse of national security and so on in shaping and reinforcing authoritarian tendencies. 

We invite 200–300 word abstracts with a short bio (100 words) on topics including but not limited to: 

• Authoritarianism/Fascism in South Asia (Any historical moment to now) 
• Biopolitics
• Manufacturing the consent 
• Nation-building and Authoritarianism 
• Extra-judicial killings 
• Resisting Authoritarianism (past or present) 
• Silencing the narratives
• Radical Alternatives 
• Democracy and Populism
• Anti-Authoritarian Political Thoughts in South Asia
• Secular/religious authoritarianism
• Vote Rigging to "Dummy" election (in the context of Bangladesh)
• Politics of Propaganda

Please send your abstract and short bio along with any questions, to zehsan@wisc.edu 

Submissions are due by March 28, 2024.

Accepted papers will be notified by April 05, 2024.

Contact Information

Zunayed Ehsan, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.  

Contact Email

zehsan@wisc.edu

CALL FOR A CHAPTER FOR THE BOOK SPACE, IDENTITY AND LITERATURE: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

Authentic, scholarly and unpublished research papers are invited from academicians and writers for publication in an edited volume. The volume will be published with an ISBN (International Standard Book Number) by a reputed National publisher. Authors are requested to strictly follow the submission guidelines mentioned herewith in their papers. Only electronic submission via email will be accepted for publication. The proposed title of the volume is SPACE, IDENTITY AND LITERATURE: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES

Concept note-

In the realm of literature Space is a very vast area as it covers various spaces like cultural space, mental space, ideological space, political space, gender space, psychological space etc. Space is obviously a multidimensional concept. Space here is meant not in literal way but it encompasses various dimensions. When we will try to define space in literal way it is found that Homi K Bhabha in his The Location of Culture used the term third space while describing the hybridity in postcolonial literature. According to Bhabha the third space is a mode articulation, a way of describing a productive and not merely reflective space that engenders new possibility. It is an interruptive, interrogative and enunciative (Bhabha). After that Henri Lefebvre talks about space taking it to another level. He categorizes space in three ways- perceived space, conceived space and lived space (Lefebvre). After that comes Edward Soja who draws on Lefebvre to develop his theories on space but he extends the understanding of spatiality in several ways that have proved valuable in this study, especially to our understanding of lived space. He spells out the importance of positions that are simultaneously centred and marginalised. Under the heading of third space, he incorporates some of the feminist and post-colonial criticisms of postmodern geographies (Soja) by embracing issues articulated in the works of bell hooks and Gillian Rose, among others.

At the same time through the politics of Identity will encompass the way in which characters are presented, depicted in these selected novels as well as how one has to lose his or her identity, what are the reasons behind this loss of identity and what types of crises they have to face after losing the identity. After losing identity one has again to rebuild the identity in new land, new background and in new way. This remaking of identity with the change of space is something very difficult to cope with, to manage and to adjust with. Naturally in this process what happens is that one’s settled, established life turn to be unsettled.

Sub Topics:

Colonial Legacy and Postcolonial Identity

Urbanization and Globalization

Partition and Displacement

Gender and Identity

Diasporic Identities

Language and Identity

Intersectionality of space and identity

Any other related to space, identity and literature

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

Files must be in Microsoft Word format following MLA 8th or 9th Edition, carrying a self-declaration that it is an original work and has not been published/ sent for publication anywhere else.

Font and Size: Times New Roman 12, Title must be in 14 point size, bold.

Word Limit: Minimum 2500 and maximum 4500 words including abstract and keywords.

Works cited should be included in the manuscript and not in separate document.

A brief bio-note of 150 words of the respective authors should be attached towards the end of full paper.

Authors are requested to submit their manuscript to

cfpforspaceandidentity@gmail.com on or before 15th April 2024.Ø

A fee of Rs. 1000 will be chargeable after the selection of paper against which each contributor will get a complimentary copy.

The book will be published from Authors Press Publisher or Orient Longman Publisher

For any other information do mail to cfpforspaceidenity@gmail.com or call 8617405478(WA)/ 9476142868

Editor

Bhaskar Ch Sarkar

Assistant Professor of English

S.R. Fatepuria College

Beldanga

Murshidabad

Call for Papers: Special Issue: ‘Diasporas in Dramatherapy’-2024

 

This Special Issue attempts to highlight the voices of dramatherapists with lived experiences in the diaspora, as well as those of marginalized practitioners who are underrepresented due to their cultural, gender, political, racial, religious or ethnic belonging (or not belonging). This issue’s purpose is to evidence dramatherapy practice in the context of diaspora, to celebrate the voices of those inhabiting the diasporic space, and to document the influence of these unique experiences in drama therapy practice. 

A diaspora usually brings to mind a group of people who have been displaced, dispersed, or exiled from their homeland. From its Greek etymology, the term denotes ‘dispersal’, literally referring to ‘the scattering of the seed’. Thus, being part of a diaspora is generally construed as inheriting a relationship with identity that is intrinsically bound to communal experiences of cultural, political, and racial displacement. A diasporic healing may involve finding belonging, processing grief, and acknowledging the impact of generational and collective traumas. However, the dispersal journey may also be thought of as initiating a movement, for instance, by creating diasporic spaces through cultural practices. In this sense, the Special Issue is an invitation to reflect on diasporic aspects of dramatherapy in general.

Some of the topics that we are inviting contributors to engage with include: Transgenerational lens in relation to mental health and dramatherapy; diaspora and the body; displacement; identity, sexuality, spirituality, religion, human rights, race and racism, culture, diversity, and representation in connection to diaspora; mental wellness and self-determination; the relationality of whiteness and diaspora; othering; the forced migration of dramatherapists from face-to-face practice to online work; belonging and identity; kinship; uncertainty and diaspora. Authors are encouraged to be mindful of what may emerge from the complexity around displacement, identity and intersectionality.

The context of diaspora is valuable to the field of dramatherapy and of psychotherapy at large, as it acknowledges the nuance of collectivist cultures, as well as individual experiences often overlooked or underrepresented by dominant western, European, and colonial frameworks. A dedicated body of work in this field may provide a space for individuals to become acquainted with previously unrecognized common patterns, within a self-identified diaspora. Prospective authors are invited to explore their own lived experience or locate themselves when sharing clinical work in relation to their clients and practice. This call seeks to provide an inclusive platform to honour the sacredness inseparable from the backgrounds inhabited by clients and clinicians under the theme of diaspora. Contributions are welcome in the forms of:

·full-length scholarly articles;

·reflections from practice;

·interviews;

·reviews of performances, art, literature, films etc.;

·book reviews; and

·creative contributions.

Contributors are invited to consult the journal’s Notes for Contributors, and to follow the Ethical Guidelines laid out on Intellect’s website: https://www.intellectbooks.com/ethical-guidelines

Contact Information

Taylor Mitchell

Contact Email

taylorrgmitchelldramatherapy@gmail.com

URL

https://www.intellectbooks.com/dramatherapy#call-for-papers

Call for Papers: Twenty-First-Century #Religion and #Culture in Youth #Literature (A Special Issue of The Lion and the Unicorn)

 From its earliest moments in medieval Britain and colonial America, Anglophone children’s literature was built on a foundation of religion. Even when not positioned as explicitly religious, the dominant British and colonial religion of Christianity infused children’s books with church-based morals, and references to Christmas and Jesus were taken for granted. Since then, religion has continued to be an important aspect of children’s literature, but the relationships between religion, culture, children’s literature, education, and libraries have changed several times. Now, in the twenty-first century, Anglophone children’s literature is often more conscious of religious and international diversity, having been influenced by movements like We Need Diverse Books and grassroots organizations serving religious and cultural minorities. At the same time, increasing social and political polarization affects the production of children’s literature, especially when controversial topics are so often tied to religious ideologies. Recent developments like new manifestations of religious nationalism, the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia, the splintering of the Methodist church, Pope Francis’ decision to allow Catholic clergy to bless same-sex relationships, the growing rate of young adults leaving religious communities, and differentiation within a variety of indigenous and diasporic religions make the time ripe for reconsideration of academic discussions about the role of religion and belief in children’s literature.

This special issue aims to revive and expand long-standing conversations about the roots and continued presence of religion in children’s literature, beyond consideration of early Christian influences. For example, children’s literature has been shaped by many developments including:

• fundamental changes in religious institutions; 
• cross-cultural influences within and between religions; 
• secularization and resistance to secularization; 
• grappling with and/or reconciliation of creationism and evolution; 
• movements intersecting with religion (e.g., ongoing civil rights struggles, feminism, LGBTQ+ advocacy, abortion access, environmental activism, decolonial movements, Black Lives Matter). 

With an eye towards interfaith dialogue and inclusion, we will feature a variety of perspectives on religion and culture in children’s and young adult literature. 

We invite submissions of proposals for this special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn to be published in Spring 2026. Please submit abstracts of 400-500 words for full-length essays (8,000-10,000 words) addressing, challenging, and/or developing ideas about the current state of religion and culture, broadly defined, in texts for children and young adults in a variety of religious and cultural contexts. We especially encourage papers considering non-Western and non-Abrahamic religious traditions, papers engaging with intersectionality, and papers considering old ideas in a new light.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

• Does religion still matter in twenty-first-century youth literature? 
• How does the post-secular and/or post-humanist age affect religious content in youth literature, and vice versa?
• How does the current state of religion in children’s literature and the relationship between religious cultures and children’s literature fit within the longer history of children’s publishing?
• What is the legacy of canonical authors or enduring representations of religious practice in children’s literature? 
• What has happened to the “Christmas chapter,” especially in series fiction? What role have those episodes, so long a staple of Anglophone children’s texts, played in shaping youth literature, national religious consciousness, politics, etc.?
• What does children’s literature still lack in the realm of religion and culture? Why are those elements important, and what prevents them from being represented?
• How are the many voices within individual religious or cultural communities represented? What are some of the internal debates, and how do they affect either niche or mainstream publishing?
• Are there significant differences in religious representations between books published for a mainstream audience and ones published for an internal religious or cultural community? Between books distributed in a single country versus books distributed globally?
• How does the religious or cultural affiliation of the perceived or intended audience affect the narratives of children’s texts? 
• What are the functions of youth libraries in religious cultural centers like mosques, synagogues, churches, or temples? What kinds of book-centered programming happens in these centers, and what role do they play in the representation of religion and culture in children’s literature?
• How do public libraries and/or public schools use materials with overt or subtle religious messaging? What kinds of book-centered religious programming do public libraries and/or public schools plan? How does this vary based on community demographics? 
• How do local or national standards of education in subjects like “world religions” influence which books make their way into the curriculum? How are these books utilized in lesson plans?
• At a time when librarianship, children’s literature scholarship, and publishing have committed to diversifying representation, what role does the age-old question of quality in children’s texts play in various contexts including religious communities, professional educators, scholars, etc.?
• How does religious content in youth literature shape the cultural consciousness of youth in all religious traditions (including none), of the publishing industry, and/or of professional organizations? 
• What role do children’s editions of sacred texts and/or study guides play in the broader market of youth literature?
• Is there a significant difference between religion as represented in fantasy and religion as presented in contemporary or historical realism? What are the effects of those differences on readers?
• Do books about contemporary youth and religion differ in any significant ways from books drawing on religious pasts or legends? 
• Does age matter? How do picture books, early readers, middle grade books, and/or young adult books differ in their engagement with or representation of religious and cultural content?
• How does youth literature with religious content address or engage with often-controversial themes like social justice, the environment, etc.? How does a religious lens influence the messaging around these topics? What are the differences between various religions’ and denominations’ approaches to these topics?
• How does religion function in any or all aspects of youth literature and youth media more broadly?

Deadline for submissions of proposals: July 15, 2024

Submit via Google Form: https://forms.gle/tC8g7MYpLAxF6dcu8

For any questions, contact Sara Schwebel (sls09@illinois.edu), Suzan Alteri (salteri@illinois.edu), or Dainy Bernstein (dainyb@illinois.edu).

Contact Information

Sara Schwebel, Suzan Alteri, Dainy Bernstein

Contact Email

sls09@illinois.edu

URL

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_VikD2T6mhwLfCA8ai83I-hg9aeWUHft/view?usp=shar…

Attachments

CFP: Twenty-First Century Religion and Culture in Youth Literature

CFP: Intersecting Ecologies: Navigating Crises, Traumas, and Movements in Asian Comparative Literature and Film _ October 10- 12, 2024,

CFP: Intersecting Ecologies: Navigating Crises, Traumas, and Movements in Asian Comparative Literature and Film

Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 77th Annual Convention

Conference Date: October 10-12, 2024

Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

The “Intersecting Ecologies and Narratives: Navigating Crises, Traumas, and Movements in Asian Comparative Literature and Film” panel welcomes scholars to an interdisciplinary exploration at the intersection of ecological themes, migration and refugee experiences, medical humanities, and the post-COVID era within the context of Asian literature and film.

Our panel aims to engage in comparative analyses across various regions and genres within Asian literature and film, focusing on their navigation of crises and traumas, particularly those related to ecological themes. We invite contributions that dissect not only ecological crises and traumas from diverse perspectives but also complex relationships between humans and nature, cultural identities and environmental narratives, ecofeminism, and ecology's implications in the age of globalization.

We seek to foster a dialogue that connects Asian comparative literature and film with the broader fields of environmental humanities, migration and refugee studies, medical humanities, and reflections on the post-COVID world. We encourage submissions that explore the intersections of ecological crises with human health, displacement, environmental activism, and migration narratives, offering new insights into the challenges and opportunities these intersections present.

Highlighted topics for exploration include but are not limited to:

• Reflections on nature and the human condition within Asian literary traditions.
• Analyses of nature, technology, and modernity, and their implications for health and displacement in Asian contexts.
• Intersections between environmental and medical humanities focus on Asian narratives that address the health implications of degradation.
• Explorations of gender and nature within the framework of feminist ecologies in Asian contexts.
• Investigations into the portrayal of animals and anthropomorphism in Asian literature and cinema.
• Cross-cultural and interregional narratives of ecology, crisis, and movement, including Forrester (forest-based) fiction that envision alternative ecological futures.
• Discussions on the dynamics between ecology, globalization, and their impacts on health, migration, and the environment in Asian comparative literature and film.
• Insights into the post-COVID landscape through world literature and cinema, with a lens on ecological activism.

Contact Information

Submissions should consist of a 250-word abstract and a brief biography (2-3 sentences), formatted as a DOC document, to be sent to Yueming Li at yul282@ucsd.edu by March 15, 2024. The convention’s presentations will be conducted in English.

Contact Email: yul282@ucsd.edu

Call For Applications: Inlaks Shivdasani #Scholarships for Indian Students to Study in USA, UK, and European institutions in a full-time Masters, MPhil, or Doctoral programme.

ABOUT THE SCHOLARSHIP

Since 1976, Inlaks Shivdasani Scholarships have been granted to over 480 Indian students to read at top-rated USA, UK, and European institutions in a full-time Masters, MPhil, or Doctoral programme.

We award up to USD 100,000 to cover programme tuition as well as scholars’ living expenses, healthcare, and one-way airfare for the scholar.

The Foundation has joint-scholarship arrangements with Imperial College, London, the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, the University of Cambridge (Cambridge Trust), Paris, King’s College London (for PhD. Students*) and Hertie School, Berlin.

The Foundation gives scholarships in a variety of subjects but  DOES NOT  fund the following courses:Business and Finance

• Computer Science
• Engineering**
• Fashion Design
• Film and Film Animation***
• Hospitality and Tourism
• Indian Studies without Contemporary Relevance
• Management Studies (i.e. MBA)
• Medicine, Dentistry, and related therapies
• Music****
• Public Health

*Faculties of Social Sciences, Public Policy, Arts & Humanities only.

**We consider applications to pursue study in Engineering and Natural Sciences at Imperial College, London.

***We consider applications to pursue Documentary filmmaking.

****We consider applications to pursue study in Western Classical singing.

TERMS OF THE SCHOLARSHIP

The maximum funding given by the Foundation is USD 100,000.

If the total funding required to complete the proposed course of study exceeds the above amount, at the time of application candidates must show evidence that they can cover the additional costs on their own with proof of documents.

If successful, applicants are required to report any additional funding sources, to the Foundation when they are received.

Applications made to Imperial College, London, the Royal College of Art (RCA), London, the University of Cambridge (Cambridge Trust), Paris and King’s College London and Hertie School, Berlin will benefit from additional funding through the Foundation’s joint scholarships with these institutions and can exceed the USD 100,000 limit while making an application.

A candidate’s proposed course of study cannot require long duration of fieldtrips to India during the study tenure. Applications made under the King’s College London collaboration covering PHD students in Social Sciences, Public Policy, Arts & Humanities are exempted from this condition.

If the scholarship does not commence within nine months of award, it will be forfeited.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

1. All Indian passport holders who are resident in India at the time of application born on or after 1st January 1994 and hold a degree from a recognised university in India.

2. Candidates who hold a good undergraduate degree from a recognised university abroad must have resided continuously, been employed, or have been studying in India for at least two years after their under-graduation are eligible to apply. If you are in the final year of graduation and awaiting results, you are eligible to apply.

3. Required minimum percentage/grade

1. For Social Sciences, Humanities, Law, Fine Arts, Architecture and related subjects, candidates must have a minimum academic grade of 65%, CGPA 6.8/10, or GPA 2.6/4 from a recognized university/institution.

2. For Mathematics, Sciences, Environment and related subjects, candidates must have a minimum academic grade of 70%, CGPA 7.2/10, or GPA 2.8/4 from a recognized university/institution.

4. It is essential to have prior admission to the institution and course chosen at the time of the application. The Foundation will not consider candidates without evidence of admission.

5. Candidates who have an English language certification as a conditional part of their offer letter need to attain that certification before applying for the scholarship.

6. Candidates who have received a deferred offer of admission must have a valid offer for the academic year 2024-25 to be eligible for the 2024 scholarships

7. Candidates having a postgraduate qualification (e.g. Master’s or PhD) from an institution abroad are not eligible to apply.

8. Candidates who are already studying or have started their postgraduate education at an institution abroad are not eligible to apply.

APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS.

1. Please read all the instructions carefully and have all your documents and information ready.

2. The last day to submit your application is till 12:00pm (afternoon) on 22nd March 2024.

3. Please do not wait till the last day/minute to submit your application.

4. This is a one sitting online application submission. It cannot be saved.

5. Only one submission per candidate will be accepted. Incomplete applications will not be accepted.

6. When you begin to fill your application, make sure you have good internet connectivity and uninterrupted time in hand

7. On starting to fill the form, you will receive a verification code on your email address which needs to be entered in the form so keep your email open.

8. You cannot save your progress while completing the online application and you will not be able to edit the application after submission. Please do not refresh the page at any point.

9. Please take screen shots as you progress through the online application in case you face a technical error while submitting your online application, send an email with a screenshot of the error indication to: techsupport@inlaksfoundation.org

10. For any other query please write to applications@inlaksfoundation.org

11. When you click ‘Submit’ it may take some time for the application to be submitted. Please be patient and do not click any additional buttons or you may lose your work.

12. The Application form comprises 7 sections

1. Personal Information

2. Proposed Programme

3. University Education

4. Work Experience/Projects pursued

5. Statement of Purpose

6. 2 References

7. Declaration

13. Each section has varied number of fields to be filled along with documents to be uploaded

14. Fields marked with ‘*’ and drop downs are mandatory. You will not be allowed to proceed or submit the application without filling these fields

15. Please keep the following documents handy in PDF file format since you will need to upload them at various points in the application under different sections

1. Mandatory

1. Passport – (if expired, continue to upload old passport along with the receipt of application made for a new one as one PDF file document)

2. Updated Resume/Curriculum Vitae

3. Photo (JPEG or PNG)

4. Admission/offer letter. *If you have not received your admission/offer letter by 22nd March, kindly attach the acknowledgement of your application to the said University in a PDF file format. You can separately email the admission/offer letter to applications@inlaksfoundation.org latest by 12pm (afternoon) 31st March 2024 and we will attach it to your application. However, this will only be accepted if you have submitted your full application form by 22nd March and not accepted in isolation.

5. Fee Statement

6. Proof of additional funding

7. Degree certificates and marksheets

8. Course related portfolio/links/writing samples

9. Optional and/or if relevant

i. TOEFL/IELTS/GRE score sheets (if relevant to your programme)

ii. Academic distinctions, grant, scholarships, prizes etc if any

iii. Extracurricular attainments if any

16. On format of documents

1. Your photograph must be uploaded in JPG or PNG format and documents must be in PDF format.

2. Once you select your choice of subject, a relevant prompt will appear in the application for you to attach your portfolio/links/writing sample.

Please scroll down to the prompt, select and attach them

1. Applicants for Documentary film, Dance, Theatre, and Music (Western classical-vocal) must paste links to their performances

2. Applicants for Media and Journalism, English Literature must upload their writing samples in PDF file format and / or links.

3. Applicants for Architecture, Fine and Applied art, Urban planning and related subjects must upload their portfolios in PDF file format.

17. All the academic qualifications beginning from your first degree that have been completed/are in progress have to be mentioned at the time of making an application for the scholarship.

18. Eligible Percentage

1. For Social Sciences, Humanities, Law, Fine Arts, Architecture and related subjects, candidates must have a minimum academic grade of 65%, CGPA 6.8/10, or GPA 2.6/4 from a recognized university/institution.

2. For Mathematics, Sciences, Environment and related subjects, candidates must have a minimum academic grade of 70%, CGPA 7.2/10, or GPA 2.8/4 from a recognized university/institution.

19. On fees and funding (In case this information is incorrectly filled, the application will be disqualified.)

1. Applicants must indicate the tuition fees and health insurance for the entire duration of their course. For information on the health insurance amounts check with the university for the exact amounts.

2. If you are making an application to read for a PhD programme, please ensure that you mention the fees for all the years of your study.

3. With respect to the fee statement to be uploaded

1. If the tuition fees are mentioned in the offer letter, then highlight the fee and upload the letter in the fee statement section as a PDF File format document.

2. If the tuition fee is not mentioned in the offer letter, then from university website, download the tuition document and highlight the fees of the course you have admission of and upload it as a PDF file format.

4. For proof of additional funding, you may attach one or more of any of the following (as ONE PDF file format only):

1. Personal bank statements

2. Parents/Relative bank statements and/or investment with letter of authority

3. Personal investment documents (no property documents allowed)

4. Approval letter of educational loan

5. If you have already received and/or additional scholarship, please upload a proof of document from the University or scholarship organisation. If you are waiting for results then kindly let us know through email with proof by 10th April 2024 at applications@inlaksfoundation.org .

6. Living allowance is ‘auto-calculated’ as per Foundation guidelines. Travel amounts for a one-way ticket will be provided in addition to the tuition, maintenance and health insurance

7. The total support from the Foundation cannot exceed USD 100,000. The Foundation does not give any scholarships for visas, travel and health insurance in isolation.

20. On your references

1. Please inform your referees, that they will receive an email from the Foundation with a link to upload their reference letters; these links are valid for 7 days from the day of application and cannot be extended.

2. For applications made on 22nd March 2024, the referee link will be valid for seven days post submission till 29th March 2024.

3. The reference letter must be on a letterhead.

4. For students, 2 academic referees are required, for those working, one of the referees can be a professional one

5. In case the referee cannot find the email, ask them to check their spam folder

21. On submitting the application

1. Confirmation of your submitted application will be emailed to your verified email address.

2. If you encounter an error while submitting your online application, send an email with a screenshot of the error indication to:techsupport@inlaksfoundation.org

22. For any other query please write to applications@inlaksfoundation.org

SELECTION PROCEDURE

An independent, Inlaks Selection Committee is appointed to select successful applications for scholarships.

Applicants are assessed on not only their past and present achievements but also on their future potential. Candidates applying for scholarships in art and design (fine/performing arts) will be primarily assessed on their portfolios.

The selection process consists of three stages:

(1) Review of eligible applications

(2) Online preliminary interviews with candidates chosen from the review and

(3) A final in-person interview with those who succeed in the preliminary interview.

Candidates who do not receive any communication from the Foundation by 19th April 2024 must assume that their applications have not been successful.

For More Details, Please Visit: https://www.inlaksfoundation.org/scholarships/how-to-apply/