Edward Said’s Orientalism
(1978) has profoundly affected teaching and research in Asian Studies,
raising fundamental questions about why and how we study Asia. Nearly
fifty years later, we are faced with a need to reflect on what has
changed and remains unchanged since Said’s seminal intervention in Asian
Studies. Specifically, Transnational Asia is calling for
papers that address pedagogical and instructional issues––in particular,
Asian Studies classes in colleges and universities that engage directly
with the themes and critiques raised in Said’s Orientalism and
its reverberating effects. We are particularly interested in papers
illustrating changes in classrooms and on campuses that have happened
and are happening hand in hand with changing socio-economic and
political conditions, not only in Asia but also in the rest of the
world. We especially welcome cross-disciplinary approaches, including
language instruction, art, history, area studies, anthropology,
literature, ethnic studies, and geography. Prospective contributors are
asked to send their abstracts by August 31 to
transnational.asia@rice.edu.
Transnational Asia: an online interdisciplinary journal
is a web-only journal from the Chao Center for Asian Studies, Rice
University. Transnational Asia publishes scholarship that challenges
traditional understandings of Asia, moving beyond the confines of area
studies and a nation-state focus and capturing the emergent forms of
Asia-related, Asia-inspired, and Asia-driven themes and sites of inquiry
in the world today.
The University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce the launch of Afrasia: Contours, Crossings, Connections (ACCC),
a new scholarly book series that will examine how African and Asian
peoples have encountered each other across diverse geographical and
cultural contexts, in the past and present, with a focus on the
frictions and solidarities of these encounters as catalyzed by
contemporary trends in global migration, movement, and interrelation.
ACCC
takes Afrasia as the conceptual and contingent space—historical and
contemporary; sociocultural, political economic, and ideological;
interpersonal, collective, and mass-mediated, among others—through which
African and Asian peoples, as well as peoples of African and Asian
descent, have engaged each other on and between their respective
continents, across and through oceanic regions, and around the world.
The series aims to establish a framework through which to understand the
various interactions and enmeshments that took and take place between
and across African and Asian actors—interactions that are neither stable
nor unchanging but rather defined by their complexity, richness,
mutability, and depth.
Welcoming interdisciplinary scholarship
that explores the myriad dimensions of these exchanges, the series
traces the contours of Afrasia to encompass West, Central, South,
Southeast, and East Asia; Sub-Saharan and North Africa; and diasporic
zones worldwide, including the Indian Ocean, the Caribbean, and the
Americas.
ACCC will be edited by Marvin D. Sterling, associate
professor of cultural anthropology, and Pedro Machado, associate
professor of history, both of Indiana University Bloomington. An
international editorial board of distinguished academics will advise the
editors and the Press on series matters.
“The complex, myriad,
and increasingly deep entanglements of Africans and Asians—and people of
African and Asian descent—have chartered broad and wide-ranging
trajectories whose contours and dynamics have shaped the currents of the
global past and are defining the contemporary world,” states Machado.
“Interest in exploring these enmeshments has been growing in recent
years and this series will provide an urgently needed venue to showcase
scholarship in this field.”
“In addition to the international
political, economic, and similar terms in which the interactions between
African and Asian peoples have been understood, we are invested in what
have been under-explored perspectives that are socioculturally
attentive, ethnographically attuned, and humanistic in their framings of
the global histories, as well as the present and emergent futures, of
these interactions,” offers Sterling. “In this way, the series is both
forward looking, and decades overdue.”
The series invites
proposals for monographs and edited volumes from new and experienced
scholars. Inquiries should be directed to William Masami Hammell, senior acquisitions editor: whammell@upress.pitt.edu. Submission information is available on the Book Submissions page. Once up and running, the series aims to publish 2-3 books each year.
We
are seeking contributions to a volume exploring pilgrimage in a global
context from the mid-fifteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. This
volume is under consideration for publication in the book series Reflections on Early Modernity / Réflexions sur la première modernité published by the journal Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme. Whether
discussing visitations of local shrines or the great trans-regional
events like the Hajj and pilgrimages to faraway lands, the rite of
pilgrimage kept believers on the move, making pilgrims one of the most
visible manifestations of mobility and religious devotion. At the same
time, they served as central agents in reconstituting religious themes
and notions throughout the early modern period. Pilgrimage was an
intensely social and cultural event, as groups of various travelers
encountered each other, as well as other cultures, and experienced new
modes of living and other ways of worshiping. As a popular rite, it was
also an economic driver of local economies, providing services and goods
for travelers, which served the interests of powerful authorities.
After 1450, the expansion of maritime trading routes, wars, religious
change and a sharp rise and legitimization of curiosity, were among the
many forces that worked the extend the global reach of many faiths.
These forces also reshaped the practice of pilgrimage in the process.
It
is in this context of an increasingly interconnected and changing early
modern world that this volume will offer a forum for an investigation
of early modern pilgrimage in a comparative context. We are seeking
contributors working from the perspective of diverse disciplines (e. art
history, history, literature, anthropology), religious traditions (ie.
Buddhism, Shintoism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity) and regional contexts
who could engage with one or more of the following themes:
Pilgrimage and Identity
Journeys
of pilgrimage created a space where encounters took place among
pilgrims themselves, especially those who traveled in a group; between
pilgrims and people or communities they met on their way, especially the
communities who lived next to the holy places - the destination of the
journey; an encounter with the holy sites; as well as with the pilgrim's
own self. These encounters created many opportunities for the
re-examination of the pilgrims' boundaries of identity - religious and
cultural - as they were used to mark them in their countries of origin.
What was the contribution of these encounters to shaping a pilgrim's
religious identity? Or the identity of a pilgrim's community of origin?
Or alternatively: How the pilgrim's boundaries of identity are
reflected in his description of the "other communities", of the holy
sites, of the journey?
These are only a few possible questions to be discussed.
Pilgrimage and the Construction of Power
Just
as the purposes and motives of pilgrimage vary, so do the relationships
between pilgrims and political rulers. Many institutions connected with
sacred travel have been controlled or sponsored by such authorities,
who could collect contributions from pilgrims visiting the shrines
within their lands while promoting their reputations as devout leaders.
How did these institutions used pilgrimage to build their power? How did
it work when rulers and pilgrims were not of the same religion or
culture? How did it work when the holy site was worshiped by more than
one religion?
Pilgrimages have also prompted behaviors that have
proved deeply threatening to political and religious authorities. How
did the authorities react to the pilgrims' search for divine favor? How
did they react to their temporary release from everyday life, and the
volatile potential of a mass movement of people?
The Practice of Pilgrimage (ie. liturgy, relics, markets, hospices)
Although
pilgrimage is considered to be a journey taken for spiritual reasons
and it usually entails some separation from the everyday world of home,
it creates a physical world of its own, not to mention pilgrimage sites
tend to have a material focus. Pilgrimage involves, first and foremost, a
movement across physical and cultural landscapes, that raises the
questions of: routs, vehicles, inns, money-changers, translators, or
guides. What are the souvenirs, or relics, that were being transported
home? Their importance for the pilgrim's community? What were the
cultural performances, or rituals, whether at the holy sites or in
social encounters, that pilgrims were involved with?
Shrines and their Replicas
The
phenomenon of establishing or creating equivalents to sacred sites –
and occasionally, to an entire city (Jerusalem, Rome), is known in more
than a few contexts. It can be a second burial site of a holy person, a
sacred tradition being celebrated in more than one site, etc.
Documenting the origin and the replicas of a holy site is one goal, yet
another will be to discuss what makes a site an original? And what makes
it a replica? What were the historical contexts, and purpose for their
creation? And how did they affect pilgrimage routes and practices?
Pilgrimage Testimonies: Written and Visual/Pictoral
The
testimonies (written, visual, pictoral, other) created by pilgrims
testifies to the various ways in which the physical movement of pilgrims
between places and cultures shaped the intellectual and material
cultures of communities in both the pilgrims' places of origin and the
places they visited. These testimonies also interacted with, and became
vessels of, myriad intellectual and other traditions (scientific,
theological, literary, other), traditions that during the early modern
period were shifting in the ways that also came to reshape common
perceptions of the world in which pilgrims lived including conceptions
of the sacred.
Instructions for the Proposals
Each
chapter should address some of the questions raised in at least one of
the emphases outlined above. The maximum word length for each article is
10,000 words, including all notes and images. To
submit a proposal for an article, please send an abstract in either
English or French of no more than 600 words and a brief c.v. to Dr. Orit Ramon oritra@openu.ac.il no later than March 31, 2024.
You will hear by April 1, 2024 if your proposal to contribute a chapter
to the volume has been accepted. We will accept proposals from authors
at any stage from advanced graduate students to senior scholars.
For questions, please feel free to send an email to any of the editors:
Dr. Orit Ramon, Dept of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Open University of Israel (oritra@openu.ac.il )
Dr. Megan Armstrong, Dept McMaster University, Canada (marmstr@mcmaster.ca )
Dr. Yamit Rachman-Schirre, Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East (yamit.rachman@mail.huji.ac.il )
Contact Information
Dr. Orit Ramon, Dept of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies, Open University of Israel (oritra@openu.ac.il )
Dr. Megan Armstrong, Dept McMaster University, Canada (marmstr@mcmaster.ca )
Dr. Yamit Rachman-Schirre, Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East (yamit.rachman@mail.huji.ac.il )
What
is the Asian Century? Are we living in it? Do its recent invocations—by
writers and readers, politicians and pundits, journalists and
academics—mark a return to earlier eras of relative Asian centrality on
the world stage or announce a future we have yet to inhabit? Is it a
paranoid, U.S.-centered discourse of Western decline or a triumphant
announcement of Asian economic-semiotic arrival? Is the Asian Century an
aspiration or a threat—and to whom?
The term “Asian Century” has more than one origin story. Narrators
are multiple, located in both Asia and the West. In a 1988 summit,
China’s Deng Xiaoping, alongside Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, may
have coined the phrase by calling it into question: “In recent years,
people have been saying that the next century will be the century of
Asia and the Pacific, as if that were sure to be the case. I disagree
with this view.” For Deng, skepticism about the inevitability of Asia’s
rise was going to be crucial to the India-China partnership against the
“developed” world; his skepticism hasn’t aged well. In the wake of the
2008 financial crisis, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared a
“pivot to Asia” in “America’s Pacific Century.” Clinton’s emphatic
recapitulation of the “Asian Century” revived Western tropes of Asian
ascendancy that predated Asia’s contemporary economic rise by more than a
hundred years, while betraying American anxieties about the decline of
US hegemony. In fact, both Deng and Clinton were responding to a process
that had been underway since at least the early-1970s: the “long
downturn” or tendential decline in profitability of Western economies
that ran alongside the “economic miracles” of many Asian economies,
including Japan’s Cold War-era boom and India’s and China’s eventual
liberalization. For some, the Asian Century was, or is, a solution. Now,
in an era of mounting deglobalization, its contradictions are just as
sharply felt as its curious staying power.
What distinguishes the current round of Asian Century discourse is
perhaps its mutual construction by “Asians” and “Westerners” alike. When
the Asian Century came into wide currency in the 1990s, replacing a
then-regnant “Pacific Rim” and “Pacific Century” rhetoric, it remediated
a long history of similarly totalizing visions that issued not least
from the “Asians” themselves: from Japan’s monstrous pursuit of the
Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere and Ferdinand Marcos’s
dictatorial imposition of neoliberal programs in the Philippines, to the
advertisement of the “Singapore model” and even China’s “century of
humiliation,” which continues to vouchsafe its nationalist ressentiment.
As Wang Hui’s analysis of the politics of imagining Asia has shown,
visions of the Asian Century betray contradictory regionalist and
nationalist ambitions that are held in focus by the apparatuses of the
state and the culture industries. Thus Asian Century discourse is
typically inflected by a nation or speaker’s position vis-a-vis key
market and state brokers. Given that the meaning of “Asia” looks
different depending on the vantage of Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, or for
that matter Saudi Arabia, what is the role of pan-Asian alliances and
inter-Asian competition in constituting the Asian Century? Is Asia
“one”—or only in the eyes of the West?
This special issue invites critical perspectives from scholars
working in and across multiple languages and disciplines. We seek
submissions that explore the Asian Century as idea, method, and media,
and that examine its genealogies and itineraries from a range of
contexts and histories, including of labor, empire, capital, war,
technology, pandemics, dispossession, modernization, culture, and
aesthetics. With “idea, method, and media,” we intend to inspire, but
not circumscribe, the possible range of disciplinary approaches and
primary sources that might be enlisted in responding to this call.
Indeed, the idea of the Asian Century may very well be predicated on
counter-articulations of its impossibility. While the Asian Century may
appear at first as periodizing marker or geopolitical diagnostic, we
propose that it can also be read across media and cultural forms, as an
affective relation to the past, present, and future, as a structure of
feeling, and as a visual and sensorial regime. Finally, in proposing the
Asian Century as method, we seek to revisit and reimagine the
interdisciplinary stakes of the longstanding conversation on “Asia as
method.”
For example, what humanistic and social scientific methods can best
track the concept’s intellectual and institutional emergence,
circulation, and mediation, including well before the 21st century? How
might regional Asian rivalries shape the supply chains and the capital
flows of emerging trade blocs like the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)? How have
cultural production and intellectual exchange furnished the cognitive
and affective frameworks for these blocs, and for Asian visions of
global expansion like China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, South Korea’s
cultural exports, and Taiwan’s advanced semiconductor industry? Given
the increasing salience of the Asian Century as a concept for
periodizing the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism, how might we
trace its effects and iterations in and beyond political economy? What
was the Asian Century, understood as visions and projections of Asia’s
rise promoted by those who stood to benefit from such characterizations?
What of the legacy and future of Third World decolonization and
Indigenous struggles when Asian peripheries become, or have threatened
to become, global powers? Rather than take for granted the rise of Asia
as such, we seek to understand how and why Asia’s ostensible ascendance
has seen not a lessening but rather a retrenchment of the conditions of
planetary inequality.
Essay Submissions
Essays (between 6,000–10,000 words) and abstracts (125 words) should be submitted electronically through this submission form by May 1, 2024 and
prepared according to the author-date + bibliography format of the
Chicago Manual of Style. See section 2.38 of the University of Minnesota
Press style guide or chapter 15 of the Chicago Manual of Style Online
for additional formatting information.
Authors’ names should not appear on manuscripts; instead, please
include a separate document with the author’s name, address,
institutional affiliations, and the title of the article with your
electronic submission. Authors should not refer to themselves in the
first person in the submitted text or notes if such references would
identify them; any necessary references to the author’s previous work,
for example, should be in the third person.
Preserving
contrasting past memories and narratives can be difficult in
unreceptive social and political environments where prohibition of
commemorative events and vandalism are employed hand in hand to sabotage
memorialization efforts. At one level, problems with memorials are not
confined to post-conflict societies: memorialization of those who lost
wars – such as Japan in the Second World War – is often suppressed in
the name of preserving liberal order. On another level, across the Asian
region the emergence of ethno-religious nationalism against the
backdrop of authoritarian regimes has become alarmingly common.
The edited collection will probe how policing, obstruction and
trivialization of memories play out in the contemporary socio-economic
and political landscapes across Asia, using selected case studies. It
would attempt to investigate how certain memories are selectively
negated by some groups while new memories are sometimes constructed of
events that never happened through the distortion and fabrication of
history. How certain memories are weaponized and used as tropes in
rhetoric against the targeted ‘other’ and abused to serve as
justification for calls for genocidal violence, projected as
‘retributive’ in nature will also be explored. More broadly, the
proposed book will investigate how both policing and weaponization of
memorialization play out, not only affecting everyday lived experiences
but also posing a barrier for democracy. We wish to invite scholars to
explore the international politics of genocide denial and recognition,
such as Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide, Pakistan’s denial of
the Bangladesh genocide, Myanmar’s denial of genocide against Rohingyas,
Indonesia’s denial of the genocidal violence in East Timor and against
the communists, Sri Lanka’s and Japan’s denial of their war crimes,
India’s denial of the massacres of its religious minorities, such as the
1984 anti-Sikh pogroms in Delhi and the 2002 anti-Muslim pogroms in
Gujarat, etc.; apology and reparations; the lack of conviction in cases
of mass violence; why and how the guilty escape justice; the challenges
before prosecution, the obstacles and hurdles in achieving
reconciliation; competitive victimhood; the act of justifying mass
violence by describing it as retributive in nature, often accompanied by
a deep seated sense of majority victimhood; the forces of resistance,
both domestic and foreign, to state narratives of conflict;
trivialization of genocide memory; the proliferation of genocide
terminology; the phenomenon of blaming the victim; Holocaust inversion;
disputes over historical legacies in public spaces; and any other aspect
of memory contestation and conflict of narratives.
Scope of the Edited Volume
In such context, the main objective of the proposed edited volume is
to offer insights into contested memories in the Asian region. The
prospective contributors will include scholars, academics, research
students, activists, and peacebuilders, but will not be limited only to
them. Through this book, we would like to initiate a wider thematic
debate on memory discourse, local conditions and responses, inspired by
the pluralist values, the rule of law and peace and reconciliation
efforts.
Chapter proposals of around 300 words with a
biographical profile of the author (around 200 words) as a single Word
file are invited for the above mentioned envisioned edited volume latest
by 1 April 2024. The successful contributors will be
invited to submit their full paper between 5,000 - 8,000 words
(excluding references) at a later date. The edited volume will be
published by an international academic publisher.
Timeline
Year 1
Month 1: Preparatory work
Month 2: Call for Papers
Month 3-4: Review of EOIs
Month 5-7: Submission of full papers (first draft)
Month 7-10: Editorial feedback
Month 10-12: Submission of the second draft
Year 2
Month 1-3: Line-editing of manuscripts
Month 4-6: Copy-editing of manuscripts
Month 7-9: Compiling the final draft
Month 10-12: Identifying a potential publisher
Year 3
Month 1-4: Line-editing by the publisher
Month 5-8: Publication
Month 9-12: Book launch and dissemination of findings
Bios of Editors
Dr. Navras J. Aafreedi is an Assistant Professor of
History at Presidency University, Kolkata, a Research Fellow at the
Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, New York, and
a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar under its Holocaust Education
& Genocide Prevention Program and its Asia Peace Innovators Forum.
Besides several papers in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in edited
collections published by prestigious international scholarly publishing
houses, such as De Gruyter, Routledge, Springer, Indiana University
Press, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Lexington, etc., and op-eds in
popular media, his numerous publications include a monograph Jews, Judaizing Movements and the Traditions of Israelite Descent in South Asia (New Delhi: Pragati Publications, 2016) and a co-edited collection Conceptualizing Mass Violence: Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations
(London and New York: Routledge, 2021). He has held visiting
fellowships at the universities of Tel Aviv (2006-2007) and Sydney
(2015), and at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK (2010). Dr. Aafreedi
was a scholar-in-residence at the ISGAP-Oxford Summer Institute on
Curriculum Development in Critical Antisemitism Studies at St. John's
College, Oxford in 2017. He received the degrees of BA, MA and PhD from
the University of Lucknow. He commenced his teaching career at Gautam
Buddha University, Greater Noida in 2010 and has been teaching at
Presidency University, Kolkata since 2016. His latest publication is a
chapter titled "Hitler's Popularity and the Trivialization of the
Holocaust in India" in Holocaust vs. Popular Culture: Interrogating Incompatibility and Universalization,
edited by Mahitosh Mandal & Priyanka Das (London and New York:
Routledge, 2023). His forthcoming publications will be brought out by
Brill, Oxford University Press, Routledge, University of Nebraska Press,
Wiley-Blackwell, Academic Studies Press, etc.
Dishani Senaratne is a doctoral researcher at the
University of Queensland, focusing on the emergence of ethnolinguistic
nationalism and its alignment with Sinhala Buddhist nationalism. She's
also the Founder/Project Director of Writing Doves, a non-profit
initiative that employs a literature-based approach to enhance young
learners' intercultural understanding. Earlier, she taught English at
the University of Sabaragamuwa of Sri Lanka. In addition, she’s a Fellow
at the Salzburg Global Seminar.
Chapter Proposal Submission Deadline: 1 April, 2024
Email Addresses for Communication (Please email your proposal to both addresses given below):
Dr. Navras J. Aafreedi, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Presidency University, Kolkata, India: navras.his@presiuniv.ac.in
Dishani Senaratne, PhD Scholar, School of Political Science & International Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia: dish3000e@gmail.com
We are organising a panel at the conference 'Modernity Redefined' at Gitam
University Bangalore in February 22-23, 2024. This panel looks at ideas
of genealogy, memory and family as they refracted through colonial
modernity in South Asia. These ideas have been used by various
communities for diverse purposes, from imagining a unified political
identity, a glorious cultural past and for signifying status
differences. A key aspect that lies at the heart of these imaginations
is the views of sexual ordering and the reconfiguration of family
relationships inaugurated by colonial modernity. Scholars like Kaviraj
(2012), Udayakumar (2016) and Arunima (2003) have looked at novels,
autobiographies and poetry which acted as discursive accompaniments and
great archives of these transformations. Keeping these themes at the
background, this panel probes into the ways in which various social
groups in colonial South Asia imagined and sought to reformulate their
own sense of selves and identities. The panel aims to move into the
historical details as well as ethnographic impressions on changes to
family histories, memories and genealogies retold from the colonial to
post- colonial times in the Vernaculars of South Asia, including both
established as well as spoken languages.
Contact Information
Please send a 150 words
abstract to P.C. Saidalavi (saidalavi.pc@snu.edu.in) and Shaheen K.
(shaheenkt@protonmail.com) by 19 December 2023.
Gender and caste have historically wielded immense influence as
prevailing forms of social and cultural hierarchies in the Indian
subcontinent. Consequently, they have taken center stage in discussions
within the realms of social science, policy-making, and the pursuit of
inclusive growth. A productive academic discourse has emerged, delving
into various facets of Gender and Dalit studies in the broader context
of Indian social science. Substantial transformations have transpired in
the examination of marginalized groups and issues associated with
social exclusion.
Over the past few decades, the primary thematic discourse has
revolved around feminism, women's empowerment, and the predicaments of
marginalized communities. Academia has also posed significant inquiries
into how gender discrimination and power dynamics contribute to the
perpetuation of social and cultural hierarchies and the subjugation of
women and Dalits. Recently, novel perspectives and methodological
practices have surfaced within the interdisciplinary social sciences.
Therefore, it is imperative to thoroughly explore the diverse
methodological and perspectival aspects of gender discrimination and
social exclusion concerning women and marginalized groups such as
Dalits.
Themes and Sub Themes
Theme 1: Gender Studies in Kerala
Sub-themes:
Historical Perspective:
Women's Status in Ancient-Medieval& Modern Kerala
Women's Movements in Modern Kerala
Gender and Politics:
Political Participation of Women in Kerala
Women in Leadership Roles: Case Studies
Cultural and Social Dynamics:
Impact of Literature and Arts on Gender Perceptions
Traditional Roles vs. Modern Aspirations
Contemporary Challenges:
Gender Disparities in Education and Employment
Economic Dimensions
Women's Health and Healthcare Access
Theme 2: Dalit Studies in Kerala
Sub-themes:
Historical Evolution:
Origin and Growth of Dalit Movements in Kerala
Dalit Icons and Leaders in Kerala
Dalit Writings and Politics
Economic Empowerment:
Dalit Entrepreneurship and Business Initiatives
Land Reforms and Dalit Communities
Educational Challenges:
Access to Quality Education for Dalit Communities
Role of Education in Dalit Empowerment
Social Issues and Discrimination:
Slavery & Humiliation in Kerala
Caste-based Discrimination: Realities and Challenges
Intersections of Gender and Caste Questions
Theme 3: Intersectionality and Marginalized Identities
Sub-themes:
Marginality- Every Day Experiences and Knowledge Production
Gender and Dalit Intersections:
Double Discrimination: Dalit Women’s Experiences
Dalit LGBTQ+ Experiences in Kerala
Legal Framework and Social Justice:
Legal Safeguards for Dalits and Women in Kerala
Challenges in Implementation: A Critical Analysis
Culture & Aesthetics
Gender and Dalit Issues in Literature -Art-Cinema- Performance and Theatre
Media Representation:
Portrayal of Dalits and Women in Kerala Media
Alternative Narratives and Media Activism
Theme 4: Empowerment Strategies and Interventions
Sub-themes:
Government Policies:
Effectiveness of Government Schemes for Women and Dalits
Policy Recommendations for Improvement
NGO Initiatives:
Role of NGOs in Empowering Dalits and Women
Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Education and Awareness Programs:
Impact of Awareness Campaigns on Gender and Dalit Issues
Integrating Gender and Dalit Studies in Education Curriculum
Social Justice and Affirmative Action
Education and Reservation Policies
NEP and Inclusive Education
Theme 5: Future Prospects and Challenges
Sub-themes:
Emerging Trends:
Digital Empowerment: Opportunities and Challenges
Changing Dynamics in Urban and Rural Spaces
Global Perspectives:
Comparative Analysis: Gender and Dalit Studies in International Context
Global Movements and their Influence on Kerala
Sustainable Development:
Sustainable Livelihoods for Dalit Communities
Gender-sensitive Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
We are pleased to invite research papers from teachers and research
scholars related to the aforementioned themes and sub-themes. Kindly submit your abstracts by 31 October 2023 and your full papers by 10 November 2023. Please limit your typed paper to 10 pages with adequate referencing in the form of endnotes, using MS Word format (Times New Roman, 12 pt, double-spaced), and send it to hakeem@gasckkd.ac.in.
Memory and Trauma Studies have emerged as a key paradigm in the field of humanities, socialand cultural studies, especially towards the end of the 20th century. The intersections and interactions between these two fields have been employed by contemporary scholars to study human histories of war, atrocities, genocides, partition, displacement and discrimination. Building upon this enriched understanding of the intricate relationship between memory and trauma, scholars have extended their inquiries to explore the mechanisms through which societies and individuals navigate the aftermath of traumatic experiences. The exploration of coping strategies, memorialization practices, and the transmission of memory across generations has deepened our comprehension of how trauma reverberates through time and space. Central to this discourse is the recognition that memory and trauma are not static entities, but rather dynamic and evolving constructs. The ways in which societies remember, commemorate, and come to terms with their traumatic pasts are subject to a complex interplay of political, cultural, and social factors. The interdisciplinary nature of Memory and Trauma Studies allows for the examination of this process from multiple angles, such as artistic expressions, oral histories, or digital media.
In the Global South, where the legacies of colonialism, dictatorship, armed conflicts, and systemic injustices persist, Memory and Trauma Studies have provided a crucial framework for understanding the complexities of post-colonial and post-conflict societies. However, situated amidst such a diverse array of historical and political contexts, the theoretical frameworks emanating from Western scholarship often fall short in adequately encapsulating the intricate historical narratives pertaining to the realms of trauma and memory within the Global South. Western trauma theory often positions the Western, white subject as the universal subject of traumatic experience. This is exemplified by Steve Creps' critique of Cathy Caruth's analysis of the film ‘Hiroshima, mon Amour’. Creps argues that Western critics employ neo-colonially exported Western psychiatric concepts to postcolonial regions without considering their suitability. This entanglement between the post-colonial scholarship and trauma theory calls for a ‘decolonization’ of the theory itself. Michael Rothberg in his essay ‘Decolonizing Trauma Studies: A Response’, questions the pertinence of the Euro-centric conceptualization of trauma theory to study the ‘legacies of violence in the colonial/postcolonial world’. He calls for a reformation or an expansion of the contemporary conceptualizations within the literary trauma theory which remains stuck within EuroAmerican historical frameworks. Theorists like Jay Rajiva are also working on decolonising the field by tackling the eurocentric, monocultural bias of Trauma theory. In his work “Postcolonial Parabola”, Jay Rajiva focuses on the need to represent decolonization as a traumatic event, along with identifying the challenges of situating the heterogeneity of postcolonial experience while developing new ways of representing it. As compared to the traditional trauma theory which is focused on isolated, individual and exceptional events, postcolonial trauma is not exceptional (or unusual) as it is woven into the political structure of a nation and expressed as a daily reality. It is characterized as the trauma of the everyday. Jay Rajiva thus focuses on the cross-cultural ethical engagement with postcolonial trauma. The thrust of works on Memory and Trauma Studies have been largely on national/international cataclysmic events such as Partition (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and Holocaust to name a few. Some examples of creative works that have emerged from these cataclysmic events which have this inherent focus on the individual traumas and memories of central characters involved are Attia Hossain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961) or Nayanika Mookherjee’s The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971. The partition also laid bare gendered vulnerabilities. When one looks at autobiographies, memoirs and other forms of nonfiction that emerge from areas such as Kashmir, the North East, Punjab and Bengal, they narrativize individual instances of memory and trauma. The latest example of this is a book by Farah Bashir titled Rumours of Spring (2021). To contest the Eurocentric exclusivity which stands culpable for shadowing the universal application of trauma studies, it is incumbent that we cater to more accounts from the Global South- be it the complex history of violence, slavery, racism or marginalization in the Caribbean, the issues of internal displacement, Civil War and natural disaster in Sri Lanka, or the historical and transgenerational repercussions faced by the Africans.
The works of Sri Lankan Tamil Poet Cheran are marked by the shrieks of resistance, anger,
and grief that lend a unique perspective on the suffering faced by Sri Lankan Tamils during the extensive civil war. The Anthologies- Two Times Removed Volumes I and II (2021-22) by Tiara Jade Chutkhan is another important recent work which highlights the nuances of Indo-Caribbean identity, intergenerational memory and trauma. Works like Traumatic Storytelling and Memory in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Performing Signs of Injury (2019) by Christopher J. Colvin and Trauma, Memory, and Narrative in the Contemporary South African Novel (2012) edited by Ewald Mengel and Michela Borzaga also focus on the complex relation between trauma, memory and narrative. These works see trauma as a consequence of an historical condition – in the case of South Africa, that of colonialism, and, more specifically, of apartheid.
This Call for Papers invites scholars and researchers to probe into the ongoing negotiations
between dominant historical narratives and marginalized voices, with a focus on the Global
South. This conference strives to look into how memory and trauma actualizes in the
psychological, social, cultural, historical, philosophical, religious, economic, political and
other aspects. A regional focus will help us unveil the disparities and imbalances in terms of
the representation of suffering in the Global South- South Asian, Caribbean, African and the
Arab world. In a world shaped by diverse historical narratives, the Global South stands as a
repository of unique experiences, memories and struggles. Therefore, there exists a pressing
need to unearth a novel analytical framework that can comprehensively emphasize on the years of violence and identity politics unique to the Global South.
Topics could include but may not be limited to:
• Regional Representation: Conflict and Protest Literature in the Global South
• War and Post-war Atrocities in the Global South • Decolonizing Trauma theory • Re/Presentations of Trauma and Memory in Popular Culture in the Global South • Digitizing Trauma and Memory in the Global South • Reading the Global North from the Global South • Theorizing the Other: Experiences of the marginalized communities in the Global South • Contextualizing the disenfranchised in the Global South: Women and Children • Trauma, Memory and Multilingualism in the Global South • Bearing Witness: Perpetrators, Survivors and Bystanders in the Global South • Institutionalizing Memory and Trauma in the Global South • Memory Activism in the Global South • Narratives and Representations in the Global South: Retellings, Censorships and Contestations • Resilience, Neuro-plasticity and Coping Mechanism in the Global South • Indigenous ways of Healing: the Global South perspective • Memory traces and Memory entanglements in the Global South • Trans-cultural/ Trans-national/ Trans-generational perspectives and Migrant trauma • Post-Pandemic Trauma and Trauma of the everyday in the context of the Global South
Important Dates: Submission of Abstracts: 30th November, 2023 Intimation of Accepted Abstracts: 5th December, 2023 Submission of Full-Length papers: 5th January, 2024
Guidelines for Abstract and Paper Submission: We invite abstracts of about 300 words along with a short bio-note of 100 words to be sent via email to yrcjmi2023jmi@gmail.com on or before 30th November, 2023. Full-length papers of accepted abstracts, of 4500-6000 words, in citation style MLA 9th Edition, should reach the same on or before 5th January, 2024. Selected papers will be published in a collection of conference proceedings with a leading international publisher.
For further queries and submissions, kindly write to us at yrcjmi2023@gmail.com
