CFP: Re-Membering #Education: Temporally Inflected Approaches Pushing Boundaries of Inquiry

 EERA Network 17. Histories of Education is developing a book publication to mark the thirty-fifth anniversary of EERA (which coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the network). The publication is envisaged as a transdisciplinary one, suited to the EERA-supported Springer book series on Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research. If you are interested in contributing to the proposed new volume, edited by the Link Convenor and the Convenors of Network 17, please send a 100-200 (max. 500) word abstract to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Geert Thyssen by October 31, 2023 for consideration: Geert.Thyssen@hvl.no.

Authors do not need to have presented their chapter at an EERA conference (ECER). However, candidate contributors should pay especial attention to the temporal lens central to ECER 2024 (“Education in an Age of Uncertainty: Memory and Hope for the Future”) and all Network 17’s interests, whether it concern new forms of scholarship, new media, or underexplored areas. 

For your contribution you should indicate which book section (outlined below) would be best suited and how it may push boundaries in educational research from a transdisciplinary perspective.

Section 1: Data/sources – e.g., revisiting the very concepts of sources and/or data; exploring the workings of data and/or data generation in education as a scholarly/policy/practice field; reconsidering education disciplines’ disciplining around data in terms of what is enabled to qualify and/or excluded from qualifying as such and to what effects; analysing overlooked types and/or sites of source/data gathering (generation) and the potential of these;

Section 2: Methodology/methods – e.g., rethinking methods’ place in educational research; contrasting/combining/realigning methods; proposing new methods/types of methodology; exploring implications of using particular, promising methods/methodology; reimagining discipline-specific method-related constructs (e.g., ethnography, historiography);

Section 3: Theory/epistemology – e.g., reappraising windows upon phenomena of education studied or theories of knowledge regarding “education”; deconstructing discipline-specific notions of knowledge making; reconfiguring theory-practice, meaning-matter, reflection-experience, knowing-sensing or similar onto-ethico-epistemological dichotomies;

Section 4: Edges/niches/gaps – e.g., charting emerging discipline-transcending areas/topics of educational inquiry, investigating cross-disciplinary blind spots, covering less dominant issues, approaches or regions (scholarship from the Global South, queer/trans perspectives, indigenous approaches etc.) and highlighting related potential and/or implications.

While the book sections focus on data, methodology, theory and edges, these aspects are to be elucidated through analysis of specific education themes, cases, topics, events etc. of relevance across disciplines – avoiding presentism and ahistoricism.

Provisional timeline for publication:

- 31 October 2023: Deadline submission chapter proposals

- 31 March 2024: Deadline submission draft chapters

- 31 August 2024: Deadline submission revised chapters

- 31 December 2024: Envisaged publication date

Contact Email

Geert.Thyssen@hvl.no

URLhttps://eera-ecer.de/networks/17-histories-of-education/network-activities

CFP: International Conference on "(Art)ificial Intelligence and the Problems of Language, Thinking, and Writing: Interrogations to #Jacques Derrida"

The first English translation of Jacques Derrida’s La Voix et le Phénomène (1967) translated as  Speech and Phenomena: And Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs is completing its 50^th anniversary in 2023. This is “an event, perhaps” (Salmon, 2020). This book was translated again in 2011, this time with the title Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Derrida’s views on translation “as transaction and as transfer” (2001) is too well known not to think of this series of translation events as, at least, “dubious”. We are using “dubious” of course to underline the fact that this International Conference which is being organized to commemorate Speech and Phenomena may not be celebrating the “original” book let alone celebrating Voice and Phenomena. Therefore, the question of authenticity and originality is, not putting too fine a point on it, an aporia. We use this aporia of original, translation, and multiple productivity of texts to investigate and contribute to the contemporary debates on artificial intelligence, machine learning, writing, ChatGPT, and several other concerns emerging from the current time of the “algorithmic self” (Pasquale, 2015). This investigation is through interrogations of Jacques Derrida and the series of “events” that his three books of 1967 helped initiate: De la grammatologie translated into English as Of Grammatology (1976); L'écriture et la difference translated into English as Writing and Difference (1978) apart from Speech and Phenomena this conference is celebrating.

We are using “interrogation”, fittingly to the aims of the conference, in the way Oxford’s A Dictionary of Computing (2008) defines the term. Interrogation in this sense is “the sending of a signal that will initiate a response. A system may interrogate a peripheral to see if it requires a data transfer. The response is normally a status byte. When a number of devices are interrogated in a sequence the process is called polling.” This International Conference, therefore, is in a way sending “signals” to Derrida and the texts associated to that proper name, especially Speech and Phenomena. We want to investigate if these texts signal back and to what extent on the questions of language, thinking, and writing that first animated Derrida and which now need a serious revisit, reformulation, and reconsiderations.

With the advances being made in AI and computing, we need a better understanding of how these technologies are changing (or not changing) how we understand language, thinking, and writing. This seems to be one of the urgent tasks of philosophy and theory. The optimism of Hilary Putnam (1995) that “AI has so far spun off a good deal that is of real interest to computer science in general, but nothing that sheds any real light on the mind” (392) to the Chinese Room Argument by John Searle (1980) where he claims that “no program is sufficient for intentionality” (424) have tried to wrest some ground of thinking from computation and algorithm but the field remains highly contested and contentious. Works such as Alien Phenomenology (2012) among many others have shown interesting ways in which interactions and thinking may happen within and between objects. Similarly, with natural language processing (NLP) which enables a predictive model of writing generating signifiers based on big data and algorithm the very notion of “writing” is perhaps undergoing a radical change. If we take Derrida’s claim that “writing thus comprehends language” (1976, 7) it is now an urgent task to see if probabilistic writing is or is not transforming the concept of writing all over again. Derrida’s task of revealing the ethnocentrism that controlled the concept of writing which was seen as “phoneticization of writing” (3) needs to be taken up in the light of the promises and ambitions of “predictive writing.” If Derrida indeed deconstructed the logocentric nature of ethnocentric writing, does predictive writing “liberate” us finally from the stranglehold of the logos? Is algorithmic also logocentric or is it not? There are suggestions that it may just be the case and that what Derrida and others were theorizing about language and writing may have ultimately been triumphant (Underwood, 2023). This conference will think about these questions deeply and hopefully will result in certain insights which give us newer ways of conceptualizing thinking, language, and writing.

This International Conference invites paper submissions from scientists, media scholars, philosophers, literary scholars, Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars, historians, anthropologists, practitioners, professionals, and others. The papers can have varied perspectives and aims. They can be exploratory and speculative and could also be based on empirical studies or lab results. The only requirement is that the papers should be in conversation (or as we mentioned above, in the nature of “interrogation”) with the range of concepts used by Jacques Derrida that pertains to language, thinking, and writing. The topics include but are not limited to:

• Deconstruction and AI
• Derrida and Ethics of Language and AI
• Derrida and Digital Humanities
• Derrida, Politics, and Social Media
• Derrida and AI generated Digital Selfs and Cultures
• Conversational AI and the Presence of Speech
• Trace in the Digital

Please send an abstract (500-750 words) with 3-5 keywords to mithilesh.kumar@christuniversity.in 

Conveners:

Avirup Ghosh, Panihati Mahavidyalaya, Kolkata, India.

Mithilesh Kumar, CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru, India.

Namitha Shivani Iyer, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.

Abstracts will be selected through a double-blind review process. Papers presented at the conference will be published as a special issue in Tattva Journal of Philosophy (UGC-CARE Listed Journal. Group I, Arts and Humanities)

Important Dates and Fees:

1. Deadline for submission of abstracts: September 30, 2023.
2. Notification of selected abstracts: October 10, 2023
3. Registration link: October 15, 2023.
4. Deadline for registration: December 01, 2023.

Registration fee: Paper presenters (India)- INR 5,000

Paper Presenters (International)- US $75

Participation- INR 1,000 (India)/US $15 (International)

 

References:

Bogost, Ian. Alien Phenomenology, or, What It’s like to Be a Thing. University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Daintith, John, et al., editors. A Dictionary of Computing. 6th ed, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Derrida, Jacques.  Of Grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976.

---. Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs. Northwestern University Press, 1973.

---. Writing and Difference. University of Chicago Press, 1978.

---. Voice and Phenomenon: Introduction to the Problem of the Sign in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Northwestern University Press, 2011.

---. “What Is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?” Critical Inquiry, vol. 27, no. 2, Jan. 2001, pp. 174–200. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1086/449005.

Pasquale, Frank. “The Algorithmic Self.” The Hedgehog Review, https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/too-much-information/articles/the-algorithmic-self. Accessed 7 Aug. 2023.

Putnam, Hilary, and James Conant. Words and Life. Harvard University Press, 1994.

Salmon, Peter. An Event, Perhaps: A Biography of Jacques Derrida. Verso, 2020.

Searle, John R. “Minds, Brains, and Programs.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 3, no. 3, Sept. 1980, pp. 417–24. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00005756.

 

 

 

Contact Information

Mithilesh Kumar- mithilesh.kumar@christuniversity.in

Contact Email

mithilesh.kumar@christuniversity.in

Call for Book Chapters : Marginalities in South Asian Literature: Text, Context and Theory -Routledge Book Series

 CONCEPT NOTE

In the context of literature, the term marginality would encompass not only the issues related to the social, cultural, economic or geopolitical spaces that give rise to it but also the literature emerging from these contexts and the communities suffering and contesting it. Such literatures that address the experience of marginality create discourses and counter discourses. Our proposed book is therefore interested in the trio: text, context and theory. Defining the margin/marginality is complex. The “margin” is a space which is generally understood in relation to the centre which is powerful socially, politically, economically, culturally, geographically and linguistically. But the margin does not belong only to the realm of the fringe, it is a dynamic space. It is a space full of possibilities. While the margin may refer to people who live on the peripheries, whose voices are ignored, who may have no representation in mainstream societies, it can at the same time become a space of impending conflict, confrontation and tension because it can question the logic of the divide of the centre and periphery. The problem with the discourse of marginality, however, is that one may get trapped in it in a bid to simply overturn it. But the margin is much more than that. It may offer a sustained scenario of contestation for its rights and share of power, thereby paving ways for new possibilities. The representation of the marginal subject, therefore, is extremely interesting and complex, especially in literature, because literature has the possibility in it to move beyond this kind of binary dialectics and demonstrate the problematics involved in its interstitial, in-between, hybrid, spaces. Such complex readings will help us understand the structures of dominance, discrimination, hierarchy and marginality in a multifaceted way keeping in mind the politics of difference in a multipolar, multicultural world.

The evolution of capitalism after its beginnings in the Enlightenment period to a post-Enlightenment transformation in neoliberalism and globalization has now created marginalities on an expansive scale in more varied ways. While these enterprises, backed by political systems, have privileged certain regions and groups, they have also incapacitated others. Western standards and concepts of progress and development imposed on other societies and indigenous cultures have suppressed the local and the regional cultures in different neo-colonial ways. Again, there is another side to marginality in a society: one’s acceptance into various cultural communities is also determined by one’s birth and other determinations such as gender, race, caste, disability, religion, region and so on. Many of these categories decide whether one is an insider or an outsider in a particular nationspace. One has to negotiate between the dominance of the mainstream culture and the marginality of one’s own subculture. Marginality also brings about psychological uncertainties, having to move between discord and harmony, exclusion and inclusion. While this rivets our attention to the question of the marginal personality, more recent studies have addressed the problematic in terms of further specificities as to how marginality affects one’s access to resources, opportunities, knowledge, respect, rights, recognition and identity. Consequently, while talking of marginality, one cannot but talk of mobilizations and movements which challenge these oppressive systems and hegemonic structures, and thereby give rise to the question of agency and emancipatory discourses. We have kept in view this diverse socio-political terrain of marginality, and for our projected volume, we are interested in these multifarious aspects of the varied kinds of marginality as represented in the different genres of South Asian Literature. We are also interested in the studies on the Contexts and Theories relevant to the proposed area and problematics concerned.

 South Asian writing is populated by varied experiences of marginality specific to its history and localised realities. For instance, the figure of the muhajir, dalit, hijra or adivasi, some of whom find space in more universal social identity groups representing marginal experiences like race, religion, gender, caste, disability, region or tribe. Particular events in the history of the region like the Partition, Bhopal gas disaster, British rule and recent neoliberalisation-led economic developments have been moments where the tensions between dominant and other sub-groups have crafted the marginalised figure. Consequently, these historical contexts also alert us to the shifting terrain of the experience of marginality where the once dominant group can also become marginalised later, as is seen in the experience of colonisation for upper-caste identity. The ecological consequences of a shared history of multiple settlements and pursuit of economic development are evident in the change of the natural topography owing to deforestation and urbanisation. The negotiations between city dwellers, agrarian and forest-dwelling communities, are also therefore marked by framing of socio-political identity in the South Asian nation-state that creates and recreates the marginalised figure. 

 

The proposed anthology is therefore interested in contributions that would primarily analyse literary representations and cultural discourses in the following areas but not limited to these:

• The experiences of social, political and economic marginalisation on the basis of caste, gender, disability, region, religion, tribe, ethnicity or race
• LGBTQ+, sexuality and fluid identities
• Marginal psychology, culture, hybridity, identity
• Framing of the nation, transnation, border and narratives of exclusion and displacement and the framing of the citizen in the nation state
• Marginalisation as a communal experience and the dynamics between individual, community and society
• Economic development in the postcolonial neoliberal nation state and the accompanying ecological fallout
• Ecology and environmental justice and the gendered perspective of ecology
• Poverty as a marker of the vulnerability and precarity of marginalised identity
• The dialectics of voice and representation in narratives of marginalisation
• The subversion of canonical and aesthetic standards of literary stylistics in texts that represent the experience of marginalised identities.

 

Key information for prospective authors:

1. Abstract with a title and keywords: 250-300 words
2. Word limit of full papers including citations: 6000- 8000 words
3. Style of citation: MLA 9^th  edition
4. Email your submission to: marginalities2@gmail.com

 

*The proposed anthology will be published by a reputed publisher

Deadline for abstract submissions: October 30, 2023

Abstract selection notification:   November 30, 2023

Deadline for full paper submission: January 30, 2024

 

Contact Email

marginalities2@gmail.com

Dr. Arunima Ray

Associate Professor

Department of English

Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi

New Delhi
 

Dr. Karuna Rajeev

Assistant Professor

Department of English

Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi

New Delhi

Dr. Goutam Karmakar

NRF Postdoctoral Fellow

University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Routledge Book Series Editor on South Asian Literature

&

Visiting Scholar

Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society

LMU München, Germany
 

 

 

Special Issue Call for Papers: Studies in South Asian Film & Media

 Marathi Cinema and Media’

 

It is now a critical common sense that the Marathi film industry’s geographical and cultural co-location with the ‘national’ Hindi film industry located in Mumbai, the capital city of Maharashtra, has meant it has had to face spatial, infrastructural and spectatorial challenges from the mid-1940s onwards. The industry’s struggles regarding the availability of finance and resources and the subsequent dip in the popularity of its products led to a steady decline in the number of releases; at times, only four or five films saw yearly theatrical releases during the last decades of the twentieth century. This seems to have changed in 2004, which not only saw the release of Shwaas, which became India’s official entry to the Oscars that year but several other films as well. Shwaas (2004) was seen as marking a new phase in the production and reception of Marathi cinema. In the wake of the country’s adoption of neo-liberal policies in the 1990s that opened the doors to global capital and a free-market economy, enormous changes have been visible across regions in film and media cultures in terms of industry practices, media forms, audiences, spaces of production and reception, publicity patterns, celebrity formations, proliferation and integration of digital technology, expansion of entertainment and news content on OTT platforms such as YouTube, etc. The power of capital and corporations, often circumventing the national structures of power and governance, have allowed them to directly intervene in and shape the cultural and affective landscape of specific regions.

 

Despite Marathi cinema’s rich and varied history, scholarship has been sparse and only in recent years do we notice a growing academic interest in the field. If this is likely a response to Marathi cinema’s newfound prominence generally and the popular and critical success of films like Sairat (2016) particularly, a growing scholarly interest in the histories and archives of the region’s cinematic forms, genres, production spaces and practices and viewing cultures is also noticeable. With the view to expand and build upon this critical interest and emerging scholarship, SAFM proposes a special issue on Marathi film and media to be published towards the end of 2024. This call invites engagement and enquiry into the specificity of the film and media culture in Marathi, including its differences and themes, as well as in terms of the national/global reach and popularity of other regional media formations. It is hoped that the essays featured in the volume will reflect and comment on Marathi cinema and media in Maharashtra through the lens of film and culture studies, media studies, screen histories, archival studies, feminist and gender studies, etc. We invite contributions from scholars, researchers and practitioners of Marathi film and media.

 

Topics for papers may include but are not limited to the following:

 

• Marathi film and media as social history

• Labour practices in the Marathi film industry

• Marathi advertising culture;

• Song and dance in Marathi cinema

• The rap song; Politics and Circulation

• Folk song/dance and video cultures

• Feminist analysis of Marathi films, music, television series, YouTube content, etc.

• Class, caste and gender: The politics of subalternity and marginalization in Marathi film, music and media

• Archives of Marathi cinema

• Contemporary news media/documentary and the Marathi public sphere

• Marathi cinema/media and consumer culture

• Nationalism and Marathi cinema/media in the context of neoliberalism

• Identity and representation in cinema, television and documentary

• Histories and ideologies of Marathi film forms and genres

• Marathi films in film festivals

• Stardom and celebrity culture in Marathi film and media

• Independent or parallel cinema cultures in Maharashtra

 

Dates and Deadlines

 

Abstracts of 400–500 words, along with author bio should be emailed to aartiwani@gmail.com by 30 October 2023. In addition to critical essays of 6000–8000 words, shorter creative pieces of 2000–4000 words, such as interviews and photo essays, are also welcome. Write to aartiwani@gmail.com to discuss ideas.

 

The deadline for the first draft is 15 April 2024. All contributions will be peer-reviewed, and the final submission will be due by 31 July 2024.

All copyrights are to be cleared by the authors. Guidelines for the Intellect house style are available at https://www.intellectbooks.com/asset/1414/house-style-guide-5th-ed-2021-n.pdf.

Contact Information

Lead Editor: Aarti Wani

Contact Email

aartiwani@gmail.com

URL

https://www.intellectbooks.com/studies-in-south-asian-film-media#call-for-papers

CFP: Reading Primary Sources in Asian Philosophies -Bloomsbury Academic Publishing

 

Do you have a favorite Asian philosophical text to teach, one that you’re excited about and want to see taught in other classrooms? Bloomsbury Academic is soliciting contributions to a collection of entries for an electronic resource, Reading Primary Sources in Asian Philosophies. Each entry will be a succinct, lively introduction and guide to an important Asian philosophical text. The collection will include Asian texts from any time period or geographical region: for instance, China, India, Japan, Korea, or Southeast Asia, texts which may be ancient, classical, or modern (colonial, post-colonial, etc.). Entries may be relevant to any philosophical subdiscipline, so long as they are grounded in a specific text.

The purpose of this collection is to confront one of the challenges in expanding coverage of the philosophical canon: engaging with primary texts. Instructors may not have as much experience in teaching broadly “non-Western” texts as they do others, and introductory material is sometimes scholarly, presenting a challenge for those new to a field of study. In contrast, these entries are intended to be engaging, accessible introductions that assist readers with understanding the context of a text as well as how to read it philosophically.

Submission details:

• Length: Submitted entries should be between 2,000 and 3,000 words.
• Topic: Each guide should focus on a single primary text, introducing the reader to the text’s author (where relevant), situating it in its historical context, and then discussing a particular section, theme, or argument in detail.
• Style: These entries are aimed at the undergraduate classroom, and so should be accessible, not scholarly, in tone, so that instructors could assign them as supplements to reading the primary text. These entries might also act as background material for instructors unfamiliar with the text and philosophical tradition.
• Translations: Where primary texts are untranslated or translated in languages or styles the audience may be unfamiliar with, authors may include a short translation, in which case the length of the entry in total (including the translation) may surpass 3,000 words.
• Sample entry structure:
  • Title should include a general description of the content, followed by reference to the author and text’s title in translation and the original language. Example: “Speaking Literally and Metaphorically: Mukula Bhaṭṭa’s Fundamentals of the Communicative Function (Abhidhāvṛttamātṛkā)”
  • Historical context (250 words). Introduce the author, their corpus, biographical details, the text’s genre and position within the relevant tradition(s).
  • Conceptual background (500 words). Explain what is at stake in the text’s thesis and main lines of argumentation, introducing relevant interlocutors.
  • Discussion of central theme, argument, or textual excerpt (1,500 to 2,000 words). Unpack specific portions of the text, quote some key passages, and illustrate how to read the work, so that instructors and students can engage with the rest of the work independently.
  • For further reading (100 words). Conclude with a brief summary (one to two sentences) of where the reader can learn more about the text. This should not be an annotated bibliography but a mention of the most important secondary material that would help with the reading.
  • Keywords: 5 to 10 keywords that categorize the entry

Questions to consider when writing an entry:

1. What makes this text an important and interesting primary source philosophically?
2. What are the background assumptions and existing debates that readers should know in order to engage with the text?
3. What considerations of genre, style, source language, etc., are important for readers to understand the text? Are there interpretive challenges to be aware of?
4. Are there connections to other philosophical traditions that readers might wish to pursue? This could include within Asia but also more broadly (any time period or geographical region). Entries are not primarily cross-cultural in nature, but authors should feel free to make connections to other traditions.

Deadline: December 31, 2023

Send questions and submissions to the General Editor, Malcolm Keating, at cmalcolmkeating@gmail.com. (Please send a Word document and a PDF to ensure that diacritical marks are preserved.)

Contact Information

Malcolm Keating
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Yale-NUS College

Contact Email

cmalcolmkeating@gmail.com

URL

https://philevents.org/event/show/114010

Call for Papers: NEW TRENDS IN #GENDER AND #DALIT #STUDIES November 30- December 2, 2023

 Call for Papers

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.

 

CFP: Young Researchers’ Conference on Trauma and Memory Studies: Responses from the Global South 19-21st January 2024 Department of English Jamia Millia Islamia

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