CFP: International #Conference: #Comparative #Literature as #Alternative #Humanities #Ethics, #Affect and the Everyday Social-#Delhi #University- September, 2024

In the last few decades, scholars in the Humanities have found it necessary to examine the fundamental underpinnings upon which their disciplines are built. One of the primary questions that animated this re-examination has been regarding the very terms of our engagement with countries and communities that inhabit radically different social and moral life-worlds, living as they do outside the orbit of European Enlightenment values that still regulate both organisation and practice within and outside the academy, across the world. Instead of accepting difference as a defining feature of the human condition, the grand narratives of the Enlightenment were used as colonial and imperial tools to homogenize the diversity of experience, emotion and expression as the high tide of colonial modernity swept the world. The consequent otherness and alienation that characterised human society have deeply impacted literary and cultural production. We witness a disjunction between the objective, scientific discourse with its claim to truth and the everyday social experience of the human subject which Humanities seek to understand. These asymmetries compel us to rethink the Humanities from alternative positions and perspectives to embody and address the plural orders of reality and the differences between them. How can the collection of disciplines we call the Humanities recover the capacity of self-reflection and self-criticism? Much has been written about how stereotypes invade our imagination to contaminate our experience and knowledge.

Comparative Literature’s commitment to alterity and plurality gives it a foundational interest in

the non-stereotypical, non-canonized, un-heard narratives of “others” that constitute a radical sense of the literary. Such articulations can only emerge from the confluence of different locations, experiences and identities, demonstrating how our vision of “others” projects our own versions of ourselves onto the outside world.

An alternative view of the Humanities will have to come to terms with the ideas of relationality, plurality and cultural mobility as the defining features of all epochs including that of the pre-modern. Texts, ideas, images, metaphors, themes, modes, genres, tales are all human endeavours and like humans themselves these have the capacity to travel across constructed, eternally given or pre-fixed borders, thereby defying the exclusivist, essentialist ideas of culture and literature. The prevailing inclination towards connected sociologies and connected histories, while a step in the right direction, often reflects the dominant discourses which impose homogeneity and hierarchy, evincing a lack of empathy for the precarious endeavour of encountering alterity and a lack of understanding of the transient and the contingent.

Thus, we propose plurality as a conceptual framework to address this eco-system of interconnectedness and relationality in terms of their manifestations in the languages and literatures of all nations, regions and communities, regardless of their location in the hierarchy of political and economic regimes, or of their internal stratifications. We would like to recover the mutuality of interconnections and interdependence between literatures and cultures across the world. The assertion that we live in a post-human world prompts us, as humans to consider our experience in terms of relationality and plurality. These emerge as conceptual tools for recasting our relations with the other - be it humans, animals or the non- living.

Texts are actualised through their immersion in the shared ideological and affective worlds that constitute the everyday world. From orality to print to the visual media, modes of intersubjective engagement are implicated in structures of power relations within society and our response to them. The very practice of Comparative Literature is an acknowledgement of plurality and a willingness to engage with difference. The discipline emphasises upon relationality, heterogeneity, multivocal perspectives, and direct engagement with alterity that translation offers as a process and a product. Built into the discipline is the interaction between literatures in multiple languages both within the nation and in other countries of the world. Furthermore, it takes orality and performance in its ambit. It reaches out to all other disciplines by asking the existential question : can we open ourselves to the location of the other and view the world from the vantage point of difference that we encounter outside ourselves? Can we frame a dialogic mode of interaction that reading teaches us to our relations with the world, to expand our view of the world outside our own limited subjectivity ? Hence, we propose Comparative Literature as an alternate paradigm - and invite reflections upon the possibilities inherent in the conceptual frame structured by the reciprocal, the relational and the plural. It is our hope that it will help to grasp and address the nature of the crisis that afflicts the Humanities today both in intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary framework.

Sub-themes

Some of the sub-themes in the context of the main theme that can be taken up for discussion are as follows:

Interrogating categorial binaries (tradition/modernity, nature/culture, regional/national, east/west etc.)/ Literature after theory/ Shifting paradigms between Literary Studies and Social Sciences/ The Post-human as a paradigm in literary studies.

Worlding literature / Historicising canons/ Global and local as contexts of reading. The idea of the classic in modernity: circulation or creativity ?

Translation and the encounter with difference. Translating “dialects”/ The oral texts/ Archaic texts.

The plural nation: stratification and resistance/ Literary historiography and geopolitics/ Intertextuality and chronotopes.

Polyphony/ Polysemy in literature/ Poetry and cosmopolitanism.

Interrogating “Minor” literature as category/ Identity theories as critiques of the Humanities / Life-writing from the margins.

The performativity of literature/ Screenplay as literature/ Intermediality in literature. South Asian literatures and cultures: relations, reciprocity and ruptures/ Population movements and literature.

Papers are invited from scholars of Comparative Literature,

Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Theatre Studies, Gender Studies, Black Studies, Dalit Studies etc. or on any aspect of literature and culture that will help us understand and practice the Humanities in accordance with the ethical perspectives outlined above.

Abstracts of about 250 words along with a short bio-note of about 100 words may be submitted to clai2024@admin.du.ac.in

Upon acceptance, participants will be provided with registration details through email. The Registration Fee will include workshop kit, certificate, lunch, and refreshments during the three days of the conference. Participants would need to become members of CLAI on receiving their acceptance letters in order to present papers, if they are not already members of CLAI.

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Important Dates:

Last date of abstract submission: 30th April, 2024

Selected participants will be notified by: 30th May, 2024

Last date of registration: 15th July, 2024

Registration Fee:

Faculty members: Rs.3500/-

Research scholars/students: Rs.2000/-

International participants: US$ 200

For further information please visit: https://www.clai.in/upcoming-event/

clai2024@admin.du.ac.in

Organising Committee, XVII Biennial International Conference

Call for papers: Disability in World Cinema: Translating Subjectivity (NOV-2024)

This panel aims to address the question of the representation of disability in world cinema (fiction and documentary), while moving away from a purely historical approach that would primarily focus on the evolution of representation of disability to consider how Disability Studies have enabled us to reconsider the cinematic representations of disability. This panel hinges on the assumption that Disability Studies have given rise to a series of critical and theoretical tools, as well as to a renewed perception of disability that no longer sees it as a hindrance, but rather as a driving force for creation.

One of the objectives of this panel will thus be to observe how a certain number of artists working today are seizing on the question of disability to provide subjective and non-hegemonic representations that are often overlooked in more mainstream productions. Our approach for this panel is rooted in what constitutes the heart of Disability Studies, namely the possibility that the latter have offered to bring forth new modes of representation that value the lived experience of disabled people.

We welcome presentations that choose to explore the ways in which the theoretical tools developed by Disability Studies have fostered the creative process of artists who no longer perceive disability as the sole defining feature of an individual, but instead seek to translate the subjectivity of the disabled person through the affective power of the audiovisual medium. We are particularly interested in presentations that focus on works whose primary goal is to avoid the essentialization of disability.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

-The possibilities offered by the audiovisual medium to convey a more subjective and affective representation of disability (i.e. haptic images);

-How these modes of representation have redefined spectatorship and the way we approach images;

-How disabled artists are using the audiovisual medium to translate their own experience of disability.

Submission Deadline : April 30-2024

For More details: Visit https://www.pamla.org/

roc104@usask.ca

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/

Call for Papers on #Edward #Said’s legacy in the context of current events-Edited Volume; MLA 2025 conference special session

Twenty years after his death and fifty years after the publication of Orientalism, Edward Said, the best-known Palestinian American public intellectual, seems more relevant and more controversial than ever before. As the middle-east is torn apart by the most horrific violence since the creation of Israel, Said has already been blamed for providing academic cover to Hamas’s murderous actions. Said, these critics say, was a rabid anti-Western, anti-Semitic, Arab extremist who legitimized the use of violence by terrorists calling themselves freedom fighters. But others have recalled the intellectual clarity and moral urgency Said brought to the Palestine question. Those who respect Said see him as a cosmopolitan, liberal, secular humanist who consistently critiqued colonialism, whether Western or Israeli. Both sides, however, acknowledge that something remarkable is happening in the West, particularly the United States: for the first time, a generational divide has opened up between the elders who stand steadfastly by Israel and the youth who are speaking up for Palestinians. This generational battle is being fought on elite college campuses where student protests against unconditional US aid for Israel’s war on Gaza have put college presidents in the crosshairs and upended careers. Articulated in a Saidian language of anti-colonialism and Orientalism, this youth protest is more aligned with the political position of the non-West/global South than the older West/global North which views the conflict largely in terms of its own troubled history of anti-Semitism and the holocaust. What should we make of Edward Said and his legacy at this global conjuncture? How have Said’s intellectual preoccupations and political commitments shaped today’s divided discourse about the middle-east? What is the long-term impact of Said’s literary preoccupations and cultural interventions within and beyond academia?

We invite original scholarly papers for a proposed edited volume that explores the legacy of Edward Said in the wake of the current Israel-Palestine war.

While we would like to include a wide range of topics and perspectives in the edited, the following areas will be of particular interest:Said, democracy, and decolonization in the context of (de)globalization, the rise of China, great power competition

Said, zionism, and the politics of Palestine today

Said’s influence on public opinion in America/the West/other regions about the Middle East

Said’s cosmopolitanism/secularism/humanism/liberalism: scope, relevance, limits

“Orientalism” today

Said’s influence on literary and cultural studies as practiced today

Please send abstracts of 300 words, a 100-word bio, and five keywords by March 15, 2024 to

revathi.krishnaswamy@sjsu.edu

or noelle.brada-williams@sjsu.edu

Let us also know if you’d like your abstract to be considered for inclusion in a proposed special session at the 2025 annual Modern Language Association conference scheduled for 9-12 Jan in New Orleans.

Full articles of 5000-8000 words should be submitted by November 30th, 2024.

revathi.krishnaswamy@sjsu.edu

CFP: International Conference(Hybrid Mode) on “Posthuman Condition in the Anthropocene” on 02-03 March 2024. -Centre for Research in Posthumanities, Bankura University

CFP & Concept Note:

Humans are no longer biological agents of this planet. They have become geological agents in the Anthropocene era. What does this agentic transmutation imply? Since a ‘geological force has no sense of purpose or sovereignty’(Chakrabarty 2023: 33), how, then, are we supposed to re/configure ‘the human’ who is attributed with autonomy and freedom-seeking agency? Critical posthumanists, who argue for an inclusive way of thinking, might be tempted to rearticulate the normative conception of the human in the first place: who or what is anthropos? Perhaps, the ontic problem rests with the European Enlightenment modernity’s projection of the human, which now stands on an increasingly slippery ground. Bernard Stiegler, Bruno Latour, Michel Serres, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Donna Haraway argue for locating human in entanglements with nonhumans. Many of them even view human autonomy as the mankind’s self-created myth; and also argue that the human is always already entangled with nonhumans. 

Despite the heated debate surrounding the term Anthropocene for promoting the return of white universal man, naturalizing tendency, colonial outlook and exclusivity, the term is nonetheless being used as an operative critical tool for interrogating and re-assessing our understanding of the existing relation between humans and nonhumans. Rather than pondering too much on the term’s limitations, it would be more profitable to think of the future produced by the mingling of human history  and planetary history. It will be worthwhile to think about collaborative survival with other planetary cohabitants. As the humanity’s ecological footprint affect the trajectory of the Earth System, ‘humans now unintentionally straddle three histories (the history of the earth system, the history of life including that of human evolution on the planet, and the more recent history of the industrial civilization) that operate on different scales and at different speeds’ (Chakrabarty 2023: 89).

The collision of human and planetary temporalities calls for a new totalizing framework and requires a new way of thinking in the social sciences and humanities. In the Anthropocene, socio-cultural and political world orders get entangled with material and energy cycles of the Earth, which eventually co-produces a new (post)human condition. The Anthropocene pushes the boundaries of our existing disciplines to their limits and makes the social-only understanding ineffective.

The proposed conference also seeks to cite India’s G-20 presidency (2023) as an articulation, on a diplomatic level, of the theoretical premises of this conference. The pro-planet theme of India’s G20 presidency – “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”(the world is one family) – significantly seeks to recognise the entangled planetary existence, which embraces both the human and non-human. The emphasis on green and sustainable development, climate finance, ‘net-zero’ carbon reduction testifies to the fact that social-only understanding of human politics is no longer tenable. Incorporation of green elements in its conceptual construction was long overdue.

The proposed conference seeks to focus on, though not strictly limited to, the following areas:

• Re-figuring the anthropos in the Anthropocene

• Problems in Nomenclature: Anthropocene or Capitalocene

or Plantationocene or Homogenocene or Chthulucene?

• Anthropocentrism and its Discontents

• Thinking Through Harman’s ‘OOO’ in the Anthropocene

• Configuring New Onto-Epistemic System in the Anthropocene

• Planetary Crises and Planetary Solidarity in the Anthropocene

• Future of the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Anthropocene

• Greenhouse Culture in the Anthropocene

• Non-human Turn in the Anthropocene

• New Materialisms and the Anthropocene

• Posthumanities and the Anthropocene

• Animal Studies in the Anthropocene

• Plant Humanities and the Anthropocene

• Greening Democracy and International Relations

in the Anthropocene

• (Re)writing Cli-fi in the Anthropocene

• India’s G-20 Presidency and Green Diplomacy

• Plastic Pollution and E-/Waste Management in

the Anthropocene

• Populism and Climate Change Denial

• Re-thinking Carbon democracy in the Anthropocene

• Blue Humanities and the Anthropocene

• Global Climate Activism and Climate Solidarity in

the Anthropocene

[Suggestive Bibliography:

Chakrabarty, Dipesh. One Planet Many Worlds: The Climate Parallax. Brandeis UP, 2023.

Haraway, Donna. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke UP, 2016.

Latour, Bruno. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by Catherine Porter. Harvard UP, 1993.

Stiegler, Bernard. The Neganthropocene. Translated by Daniel Ross. Open Humanities Press, 2018.

Serres, Michel. The Parasite. Translated by Lawrence Schehr. U of Minnesota Press, 2007.]

Key Facts and Necessary Information:

Abstract might be sent to crpbku2.0@gmail.com in within 25.02.2024

(Participants are advised to send an abstract of about 200 words and a short bio-note in single word file. ‘CRP Conference

Submission 2024’ should be mentioned in the subject line of Gmail.)

Registration Form (Mandatory):

Time & dates of the conference: 02-03 March 2024; 09 am to 4 pm IST

Registration Fees:

Faculty: 2000 INR

Researcher and Students: 1500 INR

International Participants: 50 USD

Participation Fees: 800 INR

Fee Payment Details

G-pay/PhonePay: 9832850405
HDFC BANK
A/C- SUKHENDU DAS
Account Number: 50100174070610
IFSC: HDFC0002505, Branch: BANKURA, Account Type: SAVING

Registration fees cover conference kit, tea, snacks, working lunch on both days.

Publication Prospect: Select papers will be considered for an international publication after double-blind peer review process. However, the

discretion and recommendation of the peer-board will be considered final in this case.

Participants are advised to attend the conference in person. Virtual presentation slots are very limited and not open to all.

All queries relating to conference might be directed to the email id mentioned above.

CFA: XVII Biennial International Conference on Comparative Literature as Alternative Humanities Ethics, Affect and the Everyday Social organized by Comparative Literature Association of India and University of Delhi-10th-12th September, 2024

Comparative Literature as Alternative Humanities Ethics, Affect and the Everyday Social

In the last few decades, scholars in the Humanities have found it necessary to examine the fundamental underpinnings upon which their disciplines are built. One of the primary questions that animated this re-examination has been regarding the very terms of our engagement with countries and communities that inhabit radically different social and moral life-worlds, living as they do outside the orbit of European Enlightenment values that still regulate both organisation and practice within and outside the academy, across the world. Instead of accepting difference as a defining feature of the human condition, the grand narratives of the Enlightenment were used as colonial and imperial tools to homogenize the diversity of experience, emotion and expression as the high tide of colonial modernity swept the world. The consequent otherness and alienation that characterised human society have deeply impacted literary and cultural production. We witness a disjunction between the objective, scientific discourse with its claim to truth and the everyday social experience of the human subject which Humanities seek to understand. These asymmetries compel us to rethink the Humanities from alternative positions and perspectives to embody and address the plural orders of reality and the differences between them. How can the collection of disciplines we call the Humanities recover the capacity of self-reflection and self-criticism? Much has been written about how stereotypes invade our imagination to contaminate our experience and knowledge.

Comparative Literature’s commitment to alterity and plurality gives it a foundational interest in the non-stereotypical, non-canonized, un-heard narratives of “others” that constitute a radical sense of the literary. Such articulations can only emerge from the confluence of different locations, experiences and identities, demonstrating how our vision of “others” projects our own versions of ourselves onto the outside world.

An alternative view of the Humanities will have to come to terms with the ideas of relationality, plurality and cultural mobility as the defining features of all epochs including that of the pre-modern. Texts, ideas, images, metaphors, themes, modes, genres, tales are all human endeavours and like humans themselves these have the capacity to travel across constructed, eternally given or pre-fixed borders, thereby defying the exclusivist, essentialist ideas of culture and literature. The prevailing inclination towards connected sociologies and connected histories, while a step in the right direction, often reflects the dominant discourses which impose homogeneity and hierarchy, evincing a lack of empathy for the precarious endeavour of encountering alterity and a lack of understanding of the transient and the contingent.

Thus, we propose plurality as a conceptual framework to address this eco-system of interconnectedness and relationality in terms of their manifestations in the languages and literatures of all nations, regions and communities, regardless of their location in the hierarchy of political and economic regimes, or of their internal stratifications. We would like to recover the mutuality of interconnections and interdependence between literatures and cultures across the world. The assertion that we live in a post-human world prompts us, as humans to consider our experience in terms of relationality and plurality. These emerge as conceptual tools for recasting our relations with the other - be it humans, animals or the non- living.

Texts are actualised through their immersion in the shared ideological and affective worlds that constitute the everyday world. From orality to print to the visual media, modes of intersubjective engagement are implicated in structures of power relations within society and our response to them. The very practice of Comparative Literature is an acknowledgement of plurality and a willingness to engage with difference. The discipline emphasises upon relationality, heterogeneity, multivocal perspectives, and direct engagement with alterity that translation offers as a process and a product. Built into the discipline is the interaction between literatures in multiple languages both within the nation and in other countries of the world. Furthermore, it takes orality and performance in its ambit. It reaches out to all other disciplines by asking the existential question : can we open ourselves to the location of the other and view the world from the vantage point of difference that we encounter outside ourselves? Can we frame a dialogic mode of interaction that reading teaches us to our relations with the world, to expand our view of the world outside our own limited subjectivity ? Hence, we propose Comparative Literature as an alternate paradigm - and invite reflections upon the possibilities inherent in the conceptual frame structured by the reciprocal, the relational and the plural. It is our hope that it will help to grasp and address the nature of the crisis that afflicts the Humanities today both in intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary framework.

13%

Comparative Literature: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

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3%

Glimpses Of Comparative Literature

₹595.00

15%

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₹350.00

24%

Comparative English Literature

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16%

Studies In Comparative Literature

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14%

Comparative literature

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Comparative Perspectives on Indian Literature

Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction

30%

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Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturism (Parallax: Re-visions of Culture and Society)

₹3,800.00

Sub-themes

Some of the sub-themes in the context of the main theme that can be taken up for discussion are as follows:

• Interrogating categorial binaries (tradition/modernity, nature/culture, regional/national,
• east/west etc.)/ Literature after theory/ Shifting paradigms between Literary Studies and Social Sciences/ The Post-human as a paradigm in literary studies.
• Worlding literature / Historicising canons/ Global and local as contexts of reading. The idea of the classic in modernity: circulation or creativity ?
• Translation and the encounter with difference. Translating “dialects”/ The oral texts/ Archaic texts.
• The plural nation: stratification and resistance/ Literary historiography and geopolitics/ Intertextuality and chronotopes.
• Polyphony/ Polysemy in literature/ Poetry and cosmopolitanism.
• Interrogating “Minor” literature as category/ Identity theories as critiques of the Humanities / Life-writing from the margins.
• The performativity of literature/ Screenplay as literature/ Intermediality in literature. South Asian literatures and cultures: relations, reciprocity and ruptures/ Population movements and literature.

Papers are invited from scholars of #Comparative #Literature,

#Translation Studies, #Cultural Studies, #Theatre Studies, #Gender Studies, #Black Studies, #Dalit Studies etc. or on any aspect of literature and culture that will help us understand and practice the Humanities in accordance with the ethical perspectives outlined above.

Abstracts of about 250 words along with a short bio-note of

about 100 words may be submitted to clai2024@admin.du.ac.in

Upon acceptance, participants will be provided with registration details through email. 

The Registration Fee will include workshop kit, certificate, lunch, and refreshments during the three days of the conference. Participants would need to become members of CLAI on receiving their acceptance letters in order to present papers, if they are not already members of CLAI.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Last date of abstract submission: 30th April, 2024 

Selected participants will be notified by: 30th May, 2024 

Last date of registration: 15th July, 2024

REGISTRATION FEE:

Faculty members: Rs.3500/-

Research scholars/students: Rs.2000/- 

International participants: US$ 200

For further information please visit:

  https://www.clai.in/upcoming-event/

Organising Committee, XVII Biennial International Conference.

clai2024@admin.du.ac.in

CFP: Special Issue Call for Papers 'The Human and the Machine: AI and the Changing World'-2024

If we are to believe the entertainment media, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is destined to go rogue and take over the world, destroying humanity as we know it. In reality, the growing accessibility of AI is seeing its use normalised and it is becoming a useful tool to improve and alter society. Artificial Intelligence has been an area of research since the 1950s and hinges on machine functions that learn from humans or independently. Despite its long history, contemporary advancements in AI systems, like Midjourney and Chat GPT, are fuelling fresh discussions about its pervasive impact on diverse industries, from healthcare and communication to engineering and art.

Existing research has documented AI's capabilities in various sectors. It can synthesise big data, enhance creativity, streamline production, and personalise content. For instance, platforms like Chat GPT have proven effective in educational settings, while DALL-E 2 has expedited the creation and deployment of advertising materials. In the business domain, data analysts leverage AI for consumer behaviour analysis, including product reviews and purchase intentions. For public relations professionals, AI automates routine tasks like media list creation and meeting scheduling, thereby enhancing efficiency. Overall, AI has wide applicability across industries with obvious advantages.

However, AI is not without its challenges. It has been critiqued for potentially causing job losses, breaching privacy, infringing copyrights, and perpetuating false information. There's a growing concern that as machines take on roles in cultural production, even when working alongside their human counterparts, issues around human agency and rights come into focus, particularly when AI systems are perceived as biased or lacking a nuanced understanding of global contexts. For instance, in journalism, concerns have been raised that using AI will compromise norms and values, while in advertising and public relations, the move to using virtual influencers has posed issues of inauthenticity. Such ethical concerns continue to be raised around professional practice and the use of AI, and therefore, pose challenges to the willingness of people to embrace AI.

While the public's response to AI has often been tepid due to its complexities and uncertainties, its undeniable influence on language and social relationships underscores its relevance in communication research. It is against this backdrop we extend an invitation for contributions to this special issue that considers the relationship between artificial intelligence and communication. The focus is on how AI is influencing the communication and media industries, ranging from public relations and journalism to marketing and entertainment media (e.g. screen production, artistic practice, podcasting). We aim to address questions such as, how is AI impacting the production and consumption of media content, how might AI shape communication and culture, is AI displacing human resources, and what impact will AI have on authentic human interaction.

Topics in the special issue may include (but are not limited to):

• AI and authentic human interaction

• AI and journalism/public relations/advertising/marketing (or other communication industry)

• AI and personalization of media content

• Chatbots and virtual humans

• AI and cultural development

• AI, diversity, and inclusion

• AI media production and/or consumption practices

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Publication Timeline

29 January 2024, abstracts due (200-300 words)

22 April 2024, full manuscripts due (6-7000 words)

Publication: October 2024

Please send submissions and correspondence to: co-editors Matthew Guinibert (matt.guinibert@aut.ac.nz) and Angelique Nairn (angelique.nairn@aut.ac.nz) with the subject ‘ICC-X’. 

Please visit Intellect’s website www.intellectbooks.com/journal-editors-and-contributors to follow its house referencing guidelines.

About the co-editors:

Dr Matthew Guinibert is a senior lecturer and Head of Department (Brand, Digital Communication, and Public Relations) in in the School of Communication Studies (SCS). His expertise in digital media spans visual communication, UI/UX design, technology-enhanced learning, and the strategies that underpin the use of digital media.

Dr Angelique Nairn is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication Studies (SCS). She is also the Associate Head of School for Research. Angelique has been involved in a myriad of research projects that have hinged on organisational communication, identity construction, rhetoric, and/or the creative industries. She teaches courses in the public relations department, specialising in digital public relations and persuasion.

https://www.intellectbooks.com/interactions-studies-in-communication-culture

angelique.nairn@aut.ac.nz