Call For Applications : Summer workshop on The Question of Representation in #Contemporary #Indian #Literature( Funded Accommodation)-University of Tübingen, Germany

Summer Workshop at the University of Tübingen, Germany

10-12.06.2024 (in person)

In Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath refers to the Aesopian fable of the painting of the lion. The lion complains about the painting, which demonstrates a man defeating a lion, and asserts that the painting would look very different if a lion had painted it. And so asks the Wife of Bath: ‘Who painted the lion, tell me, who?’

If the dominant narrative is shaped by the powerful and the victorious, then voice, narration, and representation become powerful tools, especially for marginalized groups.. Re-examining and interrogating these frames of reference help to find new answers to important questions: who gets to tell whose story? Who has what at stake and who is representing whom? Where does the line between fiction and authentic representation get drawn?

Who is allowed to tell whose story? If in fiction one is allowed to only tell their own privately lived experiences, how is that fiction? What does it do to representation of groups that are already endangered?

In this context, the question of authentic voice and its representation looms paramount and the writing of literature its biggest ally.

Gayatri Chakrovarty Spivak asked in her influential work ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ (1988), and scholarly work in literary and critical studies is still attempting to satisfactorily answer the question. Are the powerless ever able to raise their voice in a world where even the medium of language is biased to favor those in power?

Postcolonial and subaltern studies have repeatedly questioned the ways in which established ideologies suppress the needs and demands of the most vulnerable sections of a society. These questions take on even more significance in literature from India where issues of caste, class, religion and gender, and the many inbuilt inequalities and discriminations, constantly determine identity and its representation. The reading of literature presents a richer understanding of this new and complex world, where capitalism disrupts and catapults lives, and a postcolonial framework seeks to define itself without its colonial past, and not simply react to it.

The workshop’s interdisciplinary approach looks at the topic and the literary frameworks that surround it from two points of view: the literature on the page and its many facets, as well as the tools employed in the writing of that literature. The two-pronged outlook will help deepen the understanding of what is perceived as literature and its production.

The workshop encompasses the wider areas of subaltern and postcolonial studies, as well as the craft employed in a work of literature. Researchers are invited to engage with the questions of representation and its nature in contemporary Indian literature, as well as in the wider postcolonial framework.

The following themes within research will be given priority for participation:

· Subaltern and marginalized voices in Indian literature

· Point of view and narrative in fiction

· Representation of the subaltern

· Identity and power in terms of religion, caste, class, gender, and sexuality

· Writing and marginalized voices

· Narrative and language

· Revisionist narratives

· Identity politics in Indian literature

· The writing of contemporary Indian fiction

· Identity in postcolonial literature

· Postcolonial subjects and identities

· Nation, nationalism and literature

· Perspective and voice in creative writing

For an interdisciplinary approach, we encourage participants who work in literary studies, creative writing, history, philosophy, anthropology, cultural studies, linguistics, psychology, political sciences, sociology, and artificial intelligence for arts to apply.

We invite researchers to present 20 minute presentations of papers and articles. Abstracts of up to 300 words, with a brief bio note, and a short academic CV, should be sent to srishti.chaudhary@uni-tuebingen.de or on the form linked here:

https://forms.gle/GBML7SoGMiFJrKmy7

Deadline: 15.03.2024

Notice of acceptance: 22.03.2024

The accommodation for the duration of the workshop for all participants is funded as a part of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federal and State Governments.

Transportation costs will have to be self-funded.

srishti.chaudhary@uni-tuebingen.de

Srishti Chaudhary

CFA: International Conference on "Linking Latitudes: #Postcolonialism and After"- 3-5 Feb, 2024 #Swami #Vivekananda University Organized in collaboration with #Oxford University #Press, #Cambridge University #Press, #Taylor & #Francis (#Routledge) and #SAGE

This international conference intends to bring together emerging insights from across the humanities and social sciences to highlight how postcolonial studies is being transformed by increasingly influential and radical approaches to nature, matter, subjectivity, human agency,  politics, literature and cultural practice. These include decolonial studies, political ontology, political ecology, indigeneity, posthumanism, transnationalism and so on. It therefore demands new ontological discourses that will reflexively situate our new intellective challenges within the long histories of theoretical narratives. It is time now we had devised and developed interdisciplinary episteme to think  through global, critical, transnational and empirical phenomena that include city spaces and urbanisms in the Global North and South, food politics, colonial land use, cultural and cosmic representation in film, theatre, and poetry, nation building, the Anthropocene, materiality,  pluriversality,  cosmopolitan world views etc  Arif  Dilrik therefore ironically quipped in The Postcolonial Aura: Third World Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism: “Postcolonial begins …when Third World intellectuals have arrived in First World academe…then perhaps it ends when every department has hired a postcolonialist”.

Already there are multiple critical voices in this direction. There are dramatic suggestions that postcolonialism is over and it has been replaced by new critical discourses. In 2007, PMLA published an Editor’s Column provocatively entitled “The End of Postcolonial Theory”. We may also  refer to certain critical works, such as Hamid Dabashi’s The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism ( ZED Books, London, 2012), Jane Hiddleston’s Writing After Postcolonialism (Bloomsbury, 2017), or Patrick Chabal’s The End of Conceit: Western Rationality after Postcolonialism (ZED Books, London, 2012).

2%

A Warble of Postcolonial Voices | Short Stories

₹275.00

7%

The Post-Colonial Studies Reader

₹750.00

The Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English

DOABA'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POST-COLONIAL LITERATURE

3%

The Cambridge Companion to the Postcolonial Novel

₹695.00

18%

Postcolonial Life-Writing: Culture, Politics, and Self-Representation: 24 (Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures)

₹3,693.00

14%

Mapping Postcolonial and Subaltern Perspectives : A Reading through Indian Literary Texts

₹320.00

Camb Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies

Colonial and Postcolonial Literature

51%

A Critique of Postcolonial Reason – Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Paper) (OIP)

₹5,747.92

This conference will be attended by Prof. Bill Ashcroft, Prof. Paul Sharrad, Prof. Helen Pringle and other experts from the field.

Under the  rubric of new shifting voices, we intend to focus on, though not strictly limited to,  the following areas:

 

• Postcolonialism: Concurrence and Ruptures
• Subalternity and Indigeneity
• Global South and the postcolonial aftermath
• African postcolonial Negotiations
• Nationalism to Transnationalism
• Power, Justice and Ideology
• Disnarration and postcoloniality
• Memory, amnesia and power
• Translation transcription and mimicry
• Postcolonial Environmentalism
• Gender and Postcolonial Studies
• Postcolonialism to posthumanism

 

Abstracts not exceeding 200 words should be sent to by email: icllpa@svu.ac.in

Deadline for submissions:  January 20, 2024

Registration Fees: Faculty Members and others: Rs 3000 (National)

                              Students and Researchers: Rs 2000 (National)

CALL FOR PAPERS : #Environmental #activism, #Decoloniality and #Literature of the Global #South - #Springer, #Duke #University #Press, #Cambridge #University Press

Goutam Karmakar, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa

Sule Emmanuel Egya,  Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Nigeria

The frequently discussed topics of environmental degradation, increasing issues with climate change, and planetary hazards in modern times can be traced back to the historical contexts of colonialism and capitalism. Within the framework of colonialism, which flourished due to the dominant circumstances surrounding capital's production (O’connor, 1994, p. 8), the environmental domain became structured only within the context of commodification. The civilizational aims of colonialism considered the ecological world as an inorganic and immaterial entity, functioning solely to supply affordable raw materials and serve as territories for colonial ‘markets’ (Krishnaswami, 1992, p. 81). The widespread impact of the epistemology of Western modernity, which promotes Eurocentric interpretations of capitalist advancement, has resulted in the implementation of an objectifying ethical framework. This framework has led to the systematic disintegration of the interconnectedness between humans and nature, as well as the marginalization of indigenous epistemic structures that prioritize the importance of the natural world and its integral role in the interconnectedness of all life forms. The exploitation and destruction of nature and ecosystems have occurred within the framework of colonial capitalism, where the subjugation of the “savage state of nature” (Simpson, 2020, p. 58) has been a notable characteristic of European civilization, with a ‘rationale’ that this process has been seen as essential for the progress of both the economy and culture. Thus, the prevalence of exploitation, extraction, and commercialization was pervasive throughout settler colonies and countries of the Global South (Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania) during the era of European colonization, leading to the exacerbation of severe forms of colonial ecological violence.

Given this context, it is edifying to delve into the discussion surrounding the notion of the "Anthropocene." This term refers to the period starting in the nineteenth century when human activity began to exert significant influence on the ecosystems of the planet, leading to detrimental effects. The concept of the Anthropocene, often known as the "age of the humans," as explained by Crutzen and Stoemer (2000, p. 12), may primarily be attributed to the First Industrial Revolution. The advent of industrialization, the emission of greenhouse gases, and the extensive utilization of coal throughout this period disrupted the equilibrium of the ecosystem, leading to a steady deterioration of the planet across various dimensions. It is the indigenous communities and individuals residing in rural and socioeconomically poor regions of the Global South who are disproportionately affected and suffer the most severe consequences, like facing environmental hazards, living with environmental toxicity, and climate-induced migration. According to a 2018 report published by the World Bank Group, failure to carefully consider and implement appropriate measures to address climate degradation could result in the displacement of millions of individuals in developing regions such as the Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America within the next two decades. In many cases, these communities experience ‘climate colonialism,’ which denotes the utilization of resources and authority by countries in the Global North when addressing climate change, environmental regulations, and ‘climate apartheid’ (Bandera, 2022) which pertains to the inequitable impact of climate change on affluent and non-affluent individuals and nations.

Indigenous and marginalized communities worldwide, along with youth climate leaders and activists from various countries including Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Brazil, India, Peru, Senegal, Togo, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Namibia, the Philippines, and the Marshall Islands, among others, engage in open discussion with those in power, sharing their narratives and advocating for epistemic, economic, racial, and environmental justice. Individuals residing in the Global South, encompassing regions such as Argentina, Asia, and Africa, are urging others worldwide to participate in a collective global endeavour aimed at advocating for equitable climate change policies. Initiatives such as the 'Debt for Climate!' programme, round-table discussions and summits focusing on the intersection of environment and development, as well as various environmental movements within countries of the Global South, serve as evidence that activists from these regions are dedicated to addressing environmental injustice and the climate crisis through the perspective of human rights. This symbolizes how this commitment persists despite the considerable challenges that lie ahead. While these instances of ‘collective action and environmental activism’ (Lubell, 2002) deserve greater attention, public intellectuals and writers from nations in the Global South endeavour to raise awareness about these matters through their literary works, public lectures, and academic involvements. In particular, writers have, through the instrument of literary aesthetics, historicized ideas, practices, and incidents of environmental activism, resulting to a growing archive of decolonial literary discourse in the Global South.

The critical cognitive necessity of our current era includes the exploration of the archive of literary discourse from the Global South that addresses issues such as environmental racism, injustice, extraction, toxicity, the climate crisis, colonial ecological violence, and forced migration resulting from climate catastrophes. This exploration seeks to situate the deterioration of the environment in relation to social and epistemological inequities. Furthermore, it promotes the adoption of decolonial ecological praxis as a means to effectively address and combat these pressing issues. Within this particular framework, literary narratives serve as a means of actively engaging with the environment, while decolonial ecological practices seek to restore neglected indigenous knowledge systems, foster diverse initiatives aimed at mitigating global ecological challenges (Ferdinand, 2022, p. 175), and cultivate a sense of "collective ethics" (Serres, 1995, p. 78) in response to the vulnerability of our world.

This volume aims to examine the interconnectedness of environmental activism and decoloniality within the context of literature from the Global South. It seeks to challenge the dominant knowledge systems imposed by Western powers and capitalist interests while also recognizing the diverse and multiple forms of ecological knowledge. By doing so, this volume would promote a collective and sustainable approach to planetary survival, and we invite chapter proposals that address the following (but not limited to) issues in respect to the literature of the Global South:

• Environmental activism and decoloniality
• Activism and sustainability
• Environmental ethics and planetarity
• Subaltern environmentalism and decoloniality
• Extractive ecologies and decoloniality
• Decolonizing eco-imaginations of the Global South
• Decolonial ecologies and indigenous knowledge systems
• Colonial ecological violence and activism
• Environmental activism and (in)justice
• Eco-precarity and decoloniality
• Environmental activism and human values
• Climate change and decoloniality
• The coloniality of Anthropocene
• Decolonial marine ecology

We solicit abstract/chapter proposal of 400 words along with a bio-note of 50 words in a single MS Word file, which should be submitted by February 15, 2024 to goutamkrmkr@gmail.com and  seegya@ibbu.edu.ng 

We are in contact with Springer, Duke University Press, and Cambridge University Press regarding the publication of this volume.