English Language and Literature Association of Korea (ELLAK)
December 12–14, 2024
Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
Kandice Chuh, CUNY Graduate Center, USA
Ato Quayson, Stanford University, USA
Hye-Joon Yoon, Yonsei University, Korea
The recent scholarly attention to the global turn in English studies calls forth new interpretive frameworks to decentralize, decolonize, and pluralize the interconnectivity among language, culture, and texts. Yet the administration of transnational reading often operates under the binaries of the center and the periphery, metropole and colony, global and local when in fact those connections may be understood as asymmetrical and coterminous. The recent spread of the pandemic, the geo-ecological crisis of the Anthropocene, and the surge of generative AI further challenge the ways in which literary studies can be (re)mapped in dialectical and multidirectional modalities.
What does it mean to study English literature from a “global” perspective when, to quote Dipesh Chakrabarty, we live in a “new geological era, one in which humans act as a main determinant of the environment of the planet”? Does planetary consciousness overwrite our attempts to understand the networks of ideas, things, and human agencies, or rather, mark those transcultural conjunctions as legible? How might we circumnavigate the ways in which the local, regional, national, transnational, global, and planetary converge and rupture? For the ELLAK 70th anniversary international conference, we invite scholars and graduate students to participate in a discursive dialogue about what it means to engage in literary, cultural, translation, and film studies in the age of globalism and globalization. We especially welcome papers that discuss the “plasticity” of literary studies, or namely, the capacity to generate new forms and ideas on a global scale.
Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Global turn in literary studies;
- Transnational, cross-cultural, and translational boundaries in (English) literary studies, both spatial and temporal;
- Postcolonial discourse, ethnic studies, critical race theory;
- Planetary crisis, climate change, environmental justice, ecological (de)subjects;
- Sexuality, queer theory, disability studies;
- Plasticity of humans, objects, and planet;
- Biopolitics and neoliberalism
- Translation studies and the movement of language and texts;
- English literature and world literature;
- Teaching and reading English literature and language in the non-Anglophone world, especially in Asia;
- Reading the Korean Wave from global literary/cultural perspectives.
Proposals should be submitted by February 16, 2024, to 2024ellakconference@gmail.com.
An individual paper proposal should include:
- Title of the paper;
- An abstract of the paper (150–200 words);
- Following information on the speaker: full name, title, affiliation, email address, and brief bio (up to 150 words).
A session proposal should include:
- Title of the session;
- A brief description of the session (up to 150 words);
- Titles of the papers (3–4 papers per session);
- Abstracts of the papers (150–200 words each);
- Following information on each participant (the organizer/moderator and the speakers): full name, title, affiliation, email address, and brief bio (up to 150 words).
(Before you submit a session proposal, please ensure that all participants have agreed to attend the conference in person.)
