National Conference on “#Human Rights, #Language and #Culture: Advancements in Contemporary Times”(Hybrid) Jan-2024-S.G.T. University, New Delhi

 Call for Papers

for a Two-day National Conference on

“Human Rights, Language and Culture: Advancements in Contemporary Times”

Concept Note

"Freedom of mind is the real freedom. A person whose mind is not free, though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man."

- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar

Humans and their constant strife for emancipation, physical or psychological, has been a major sculptor for social and individual relations throughout history. This struggle extends beyond the absence of immediately apparent restraints and encompasses the freedom to think, express oneself, and exercise one's rights. Today, human rights discourse acknowledges the significance of both physical and psychological well-being as a fundamental aspect of human rights, as is enshrined in various international declarations and conventions. It implies that restrictions on these freedoms, whether through censorship, discrimination, or cultural norms, infringe upon a person's human rights.

Language and culture serve as powerful tools contributing to both communication and cognitive development to further human rights discourse. Discrimination or suppression of languages can lead to the restriction of thought and expression. Recognizing and protecting linguistic diversity ensures individual freedom and access to cultural heritage. Cultural practices, traditions, and norms also have the potential to foster or impede mental freedom. Contemporary advancements in human rights discourse involve challenging cultural norms that infringe upon individual freedoms, such as gender-based discrimination or restrictions on freedom of expression within specific cultural contexts and reconciling communal diversity with human rights principles.

The intersection of human rights, language, and culture bears significant relevance in an increasingly globalized contemporary world. In a world characterized by increasing intercultural connectivity and diversity, the study and promotion of human rights in various cultural and linguistic contexts becomes of paramount importance. This conference aims to provide a platform for scholars, activists, and practitioners to explore and discuss the advancements, challenges, and innovations related to human rights, language, and culture in contemporary times. We invite submissions investigating this shared ground between fields of human language, literature, communication, and cultural studies. Below is a prospective but not exhaustive list of relevant topics. We encourage a broad range of abstracts not limited to the list below.

Language rights and linguistic diversity.	Language barriers and integration challenges in a multicultural society.
Indigenous languages and cultural heritage.	The importance of legal documentation in regional languages for cross-cultural accessibility.
Representation of the human rights discourse through visual culture like movies, cartoon strips, songs, and graphic narratives.	Explorations of nationalism through depictions of Civil services, armed forces, and Swadesi industries in Indian literature.
Constitutional language in a globalised world.	Narratives of public employees.
Gender, identity, and human rights.	Human rights and migrant experience.
Human rights and processes of its linguistic interpretation.	Linguistic and cultural exchange in diaspora communities.
Narratives centred on constitutional accessibility.	Multilingual education and inclusive pedagogies.
Effective policy advocacy for linguistic and cultural rights.	Explorations of citizen rights discourse in Indian Literature.

 

 

Interested scholars should submit a 300-word abstract with the paper’s title and a brief biographical note of 100 words to nationalconference2024_clc@sgtuniversity.org by December 10, 2023. We shall revert to selected abstracts by December 16, 2023. Selected scholars shall have to submit full papers 3000-4000 words in length (formatted according to MLA 9^th edition) by January 10, 2023.

The mode of the conference shall be flexible. All presenters and participants shall be conferred with certificates. The conference proceedings shall be published in book form. Kindly pay the applicable registration fee at the QR code appended with this file.

 

• Dates of conference                               :           January 22-23, 2024
• Deadline for abstract submission            :           December 10, 2023
• Revert to selected scholars                     :           December 16, 2023
• Deadline for full papers                         :           January 10, 2024
• Mode of Conference                              :           Flexible (Offline+ Online)

Conference Registration Fee
Categories	Dates	Fee
SGTU Faculty/ Students	Early-bird Discount By December 31, 2023	300/-
On Spot Registration	800/-
Students	Early-bird Discount By December 31, 2023	500/-
On Spot Registration	800/-
Professionals/Research Scholars	Early-bird Discount By December 31, 2023	700/-
On Spot Registration	1000/-

 

Please feel free to reach out at nationalconference2024_clc@sgtuniversity.org for further queries.

 

Contact Information

+91-9810929938

+91-9716977418

 

Contact Email

nationalconference2024_clc@sgtunvrsity.org

URL https://bitly.ws/32MPS

CFP: Rethinking the Global in #English #Studies-2024

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.)

CFP: Graduate Conference: Remembering Histories: Memory, Transmission and Identities-Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi

 The discursive nature of history has been exposed through multiple theoretical lenses, subjectivities, and socio-political positions that have expressed its polylogic dimensions. The post-structuralist turn of humanities with the advent of fields such as trauma and memory studies also brought to the fore the role and politics of remembering as a mode of narrating and understanding claims to history. Understood both as an individual and collective-social practice, history is dynamic and open to contestations. Understanding history is therefore an attempt to understand ongoing negotiations with a past that continues to linger beyond its assumed temporal limits. Often, this continues across generations especially when ideas of power and politics, justice and healing get inexplicably intertwined with remembering. This inheritance of a past calls forth a need to analyse the multigenerational character of individual and collective memory.

Drawing on Jan Assmann’s notion of cultural memory, and Marianne Hirsch’s concept of postmemory, this conference seeks to stir discussions on the dynamic space and relationship between history and remembering with a special focus on transmission of history, via memory, through time and generations.

The conference will explore questions such as:

How is history a mode of remembering? 

How are collective identities meshed out of experiencing the unfolding of history?

How is memory mediated at individual and collective levels?

How is remembering a clinical and ethical enterprise? In what ways do testimonies and literary texts navigate the politics of memory?

Themes:

● Transgenerational memory and history

● History and ‘counter’ history

● Modes and politics of remembering

● Literature and History

● Testimonial literature

● Trauma and memory

● Individual and collective trauma

● Remembering and forgetting

● Mass media

● Representation, language, and memory

● Material Memory

● Oral history

● History of emotions

Submission Guidelines:

We invite abstracts of maximum 250 words related to the theme along with a short bio note. 

All papers must be original to the best of their knowledge and adhere to the MLA 9th edition. 

The time limit for each presentation is 10 minutes. Any kind of plagiarism is not allowed.

Note: Due to monetary constraints, the organizers won’t be responsible for any expenses borne by the participants. Participants would have to look after their own transportation and accommodation.

Important Dates:

Submission of Abstracts: 25th November, 2023

Intimation of Accepted Abstracts: 5th December, 2023

Submission of Full Length Papers: 10th January, 2023

Intimation of Accepted Full Length Papers: 20th January, 2023

Paper presentation and Panel Discussion: 29th January, 2024

 

Submission form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOLQpyLrFvHyVYLTHPRpjYQ3PfvR_e...

 

For further queries, contact:

englitassociation.svc@gmail.com

Aswathi Alappat (President)- aswathisalappat@gmail.com

Harsha (President)- harshasin641@gmail.com

Himangi Patnaik (General Secretary)- himangipatnaik04@gmail.com

Narjis Bint Islam (Joint Secretary)- narjis22bintislam@gmail.com

Call for Proposals :Radical Histories of Decolonization

 A Call for Proposals from the Radical History Review

Issue number 153

Abstract Deadline: January 8, 2024

Co-Edited by Manan Ahmed, Marissa Moorman, Jecca Namakkal, Golnar Nikpour

Radical History Review seeks contributions for a special issue entitled “Radical Histories of Decolonization.”

Historians have tended to treat decolonization as an event that began in the 1940s and ended by the late 1970s, primarily confined to large areas of Asia and Africa, though scholars of global Indigenous histories offer a deeper and unfinished timeline. Many activists today use the term to discuss a still-present need to end colonial institutions, from settler colonial occupation in places as widespread as Turtle Island (North America), Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, Palestine, and Aotearoa (New Zealand), to the hegemony of Western thought in university curricula, to the possession of art and artifacts expropriated from the colonies and displayed in museums in major cities such as New York, London, and Paris. The term “decolonization” has come to mean many things, some limited, and others expansive.

This issue of the Radical History Review seeks to explore the genealogy of decolonization as a category of analysis and how people have dreamed and enacted decolonization in past and present. We are interested in work that reconsiders how decolonization has occurred—as both success and  failure—throughout history, including in geographic areas that fall outside of the twentieth-century paradigm including Haiti and many parts of Latin America that press into the twenty-first century. We are interested in questions of how the colonized in overseas colonies, settler colonies, and informal colonies understood decolonization across different times and spaces. While the works of individual thinkers (Fanon, Cabral, Césaire, Nehru, Ho Chi Minh) tend to dominate histories of decolonization, we ask how people on the ground who are often left out of the story—including but not limited to women, soldiers, and ethnic and linguistic minorities—challenged colonial power and the dominant parties fighting for sovereignty. This issue aims to center the work of scholars, activists, and archives that lay outside of Western institutions.

Potential topics include (but are not limited to):

• While the etymology of decolonization begins in the nineteenth century, how is it useful for historians of the ancient or medieval worlds to work with this concept?
• What happens when anti-colonial movements have interacted with and taken up imperial imaginaries of an idealized pre-colonial past?
• How have people across the political spectrum interpreted (and perhaps instrumentalized) decolonization differently?
• Where does the concept of Indigeneity fit into histories of decolonization?
• Is decolonization a concept that can be understood universally? Or does it always need to be rooted in local struggles?
• What does history tell us about the relationship between decolonization and sovereignty?
• How do we understand the rise of religious, social, and political movements in the context of decolonization?
• How does the framework of decolonization work (or not work) in contexts of informal colonial or “semi-colonial” relations?
• Does decolonization mean the end of empire and/or has decolonization meant the end of empire? Historically, how have colonized subjects imagined and attempted to enact an end to empires?
• How does decolonization work as a language outside of the context of Western European imperialism (i.e. Japanese empire, Russian empire)?

The RHR publishes material in a variety of forms. Potential contributors are encouraged to look at recent issues for examples of both conventional and non-conventional forms of scholarship. We are especially interested in submissions that use images as well as texts and encourage materials with strong visual content. In addition to monographic articles based on archival research, we encourage submissions to our various departments, including:

• Historians at Work (reflective essays by practitioners in academic and non-academic settings that engage with questions of professional practice)
• Teaching Radical History (syllabi and commentary on teaching)
• Public History (essays on historical commemoration and the politics of the past)
• Interviews (proposals for interviews with scholars, activists, and others)
• (Re)Views (review essays on history in all media—print, film, and digital)
• Reflections (Short critical commentaries)
• Forums (debates and discussions)

Procedures for submission of articles:

By January 8, 2024, please submit a 1-2 page abstract summarizing the article you wish to submit to our online journal management system, ScholarOne. To begin with ScholarOne, sign in or create an account at https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/dup-rhr. Next, sign in, select “Author” from the menu up top, and click “Begin Submission” or “Start New Submission.” Upload a Word or PDF document, including any images within the document. After uploading your file, select “Proposal” as the submission type and follow the on-screen instructions. Please write to contactrhr@gmail.com if you encounter any technical difficulties.

By February 29, 2024, authors will be notified whether they should submit a full version of their article for peer review. The due date for completed articles will be in June, 2024. Those articles selected for publication after the peer review process will be included in issue 153 of the Radical History Review, scheduled to appear in October, 2025.

Abstract Deadline: January 8, 2024

Contact: contactrhr@gmail.com

Contact Information

contactrhr@gmail.com

Contact Email

contactrhr@gmail.com

URL

https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/radical-histories-of-decolonization-due-ja…

CFP: SINGULARITIES INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FANTASY- UNIVERSITY OF CALICUT, KERALA, INDIA 2024

 Fantasy, a genre that has captivated the hearts and minds of countless individuals throughout history, invites us to embark on extraordinary adventures beyond the realm of the ordinary. A space where magic, mythical creatures and epic quests reign supreme, Fantasy offers a respite from reality and inviting us to explore realms beyond the boundaries of our imagination.

At its core, fantasy taps into the universal human desire for escape and wonder. It transports us to enchanted lands where paradigms are reversed and new orders are brought to being. Through the fantastic, the readers and viewers experience the thrill of danger, the triumph of dreams, and the intricate play between possible and extravagantly undreamable. Fantasy opens doors to delve into the depths of imagination, challenging established perceptions and stretching our understanding of the human experience.

Fantasy encompasses a multitude of forms, from literature to art, gaming to cinema, each offering a unique gateway into this fantastical realm. In literature, we are introduced to sprawling sagas and mythical worlds crafted with intricate detail, where words weave spells that ignite our imagination. Art transports us visually, capturing the essence of mythical creatures and ethereal landscapes, bringing them to life in multiple formats. Gaming immerses us in interactive adventures, granting us agency to shape the course of epic narratives and explore vast virtual realms. And in cinema, we witness the grandeur of fantasy unfold on the screen, where larger-than-life spectacles and visual marvels transport us to unimaginable realms.

Fantasy also holds a mirror to our own reality, offering a platform to explore timeless themes such as love, courage, friendship, and the eternal struggle between light and darkness. Through the lens of fantasy, we can gain new perspectives, question established truths, and ignite our creativity to envision a world unbound by the limitations of the present.

Fantasy genre has grown beyond the premodern wildernesses characterised by castles and magic. From core templates of the likes of J. R. Tolkien and C S Lewis, Harry Potter and Game of Thrones have helped turn medievalist fantasy mainstream. Escapism, which forms staple plot of fantasy, with children slipping out of the ordinary to save their extraordinary nether worlds, is being put to varied uses in political discourses and semi-quest narratives today. Fantasy continues to be a tool to express disenchantment with the establishment, to fight fascism and dream of alternatives abhorrent right spremacist ideologies.

At a time when alternative visions of fantasy continue to spread, evolve and re-enchant everyday life around the globe, the Singularities International Conference on Fantasy 2024 invites you to delve into this captivating genre, to celebrate its rich tapestry and unlock its hidden heights!

For more details please visit our website: www.singularitiesjournal.com

Or mail to us on siconfantasy2024@gmail.com

CFP: Interdisciplinary conference on iving in the Era of Neo-Orientalism: Complicating Muslim Identities in a Post-9/11 World-O.P. Jindal Global University, Delhi- NCR, India

 Mode of the conference: Online

Muslims are often portrayed as either victors or vanquished in post-9/11 literature. These narratives address the estrangement of a Muslim either by reiterating the Orientalist representations of Islam or by subscribing to Neo-Orientalist representations of an “acceptable Muslim” who chooses national identity over religious identity in Western liberal societies. Neo-Orientalism is more than ‘sue generis’ to Orientalism—it embodies newer ways of alienating Muslims in modern society. Ali Behdad and Juliet Williams describe it as a “continuity between contemporary and traditional forms of Orientalism”  that complicates everyday living in Muslim life. Popular opinion often rests on the fact that the alienation of ‘post-9/11 Muslim’ is the result of failed American diplomacy in the Middle East or the racialization of Muslims in the United States after the Twin Tower attacks. This conference attempts to bring together scholars who inquire into this Muslim alienation in varied global productions across Muslim and non-Muslim cultures in contemporary times.

 

While there is considerable scholarship on Neo-Orientalism, what remains largely undiscussed are the ways in which Muslims grapple with the effects of Neo-Orientalism in contemporary global literature. Therefore, this conference seeks to achieve two things: First, it aims to delve deep into the origins of contemporary orientalism/post-orientalism debate—the religious, political, and social constructs of liberal democracies that encourage and detest neo-Orientalism at the same time. Second, it aims to explore ways in which contemporary literature has represented Muslims and Muslimness in the neo-Oriental age. The purpose of this conference is to bring together experts (literary, political, social, and cultural) who engage with discourses that complicate the representations of Muslims in the post-9/11 world. This note seeks papers, but not limited to the following areas:

 

• Postcolonialism and Neo-Orientalism
• Liberalism and Orientalism
• Islamophobia in secular democracies
• Muslims responding to the pandemic of islamophobia worldwide
• Muslimness or everyday Islam in modern societies
• The politics of moderate Islam as a neo-colonial and neo-liberal enterprise

Keywords: Literature, Political Science, Anthropology, Terrorism Studies, and Islamic Studies

Please submit an abstract of 300-500 words and a short bio to Priyadarshini Gupta at priyadarshini@jgu.edu.in and/or to Mosarrap Hossain Khan at mhkhan@jgu.edu.in by December 15, 2023.  We also encourage prospective conference presenters to email us with any queries.

Keynote Addresses:  

Dr. Hamid Dabashi (Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, USA)

Dr. Ali Behdad (John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature, University of California, Los Angeles, USA)

Dr. Tahir Abbas (Professor of Radicalization Studies, Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University, The Hague, Netherlands)

Dr. Nadira Khatun (Assistant Professor of Mass Communications, School of Communications, XIM University, Odisha, India)

Selected papers accepted from the conference will be published as a collection of essays in an edited book by a major publisher. 

Call for Abstracts: “WHO’S IN, WHO’S OUT”: #COMMUNITY AND #DIVERSITY IN #SHAKESPEARE- Annual #Conference #German #Shakespeare Society 2024

 Time and again, Shakespeare demonstrates the frailty and contingency of the many historical and “imagined” communities (Anderson) that feature in his works. Many of his plays revolve around the conflict between individuals and society, depicting the bonds between friends, lovers, family members or even whole nations being put to the test by desire, jealousy, and ambition. If Shakespeare’s communities are unstable to begin with, then discussions of diversity bring to light that very instability even further. His works have been both hailed for showcasing the universality of human nature and critiqued for implicitly reinforcing a Western, Eurocentric world view. Shakespearean drama walks a fine line between incorporating diverse facets of early modern life – including gender and sexuality, race, and religion – and perpetuating insidious mechanisms of marginalisation and othering, as the fates of some of the figureheads of Shakespearean diversity, such as Shylock, Othello and Caliban, show. On Shakespeare’s stage, community and diversity are intimately but uneasily paired and expose the various ways in which “difference”, as Goran Stanivukovic writes in Queer Shakespeare: Desire and Sexuality (2017), is “based on suppression, occlusion and semantic difference of allied vocabulary” (24). Shakespeare thus makes us ponder the question “who’s in, who’s out” (King Lear 5.3.16) both in early modern times and in ours. While the dramatic representations of these conflicts are inevitably bound to the historical contexts that helped produce them, the theatre itself always had and still has the potential to renegotiate them and to newly create communities, just as it is capable of diversifying Shakespeare, and making his works more inclusive for 21st century audiences.

In light of this complex nexus, we invite short papers on how Shakespeare’s works, their performance, and reception engage with community, diversity, and the difficult dynamics between them. Topics may include, but are in no way limited to:

- Representations of inclusion and exclusion in Shakespeare’s works

- Community and diversity in the early modern period

- Shakespeare’s treatment of marriage, friendship, family, and kinship

- Intersectional Shakespeare

- Shakespeare and (trans)national communities

- Diversifying the Shakespearean canon through ‘non-canonical’ readings

- Adapting and appropriating Shakespeare’s works to build more inclusive communities

- Institutional (lack of) diversity and community in Shakespeare studies

- Teaching Shakespeare more ‘diversely’

- Accessible Shakespeare

Our seminar will address these issues with a panel of six papers during the annual conference of the German Shakespeare Association, Shakespeare-Tage, which will take place from 19–21 April 2024 in Bochum, Germany. As critical input for the discussion, we invite papers of no more than 15 minutes that present concrete case studies, concise examples and strong views on the topic. Please send your proposals (abstracts of 300 words) by 01 December 2023 to the seminar convenors:

Dr. Marlene Dirschauer, University of Hamburg: marlene.dirschauer@uni-hamburg.de

Dr. Jonas Kellermann, University of Konstanz: jonas.kellermann@uni-konstanz.de

The Seminar provides a forum for established as well as young scholars to discuss texts and contexts. Participants of the seminar will subsequently be invited to submit extended versions of their papers for publication in Shakespeare Seminar Online (SSO). While we cannot offer travel bursaries, the association will arrange for the accommodation of all participants in a hotel close to the main venues. For more information, please contact Marlene Dirschauer and Jonas Kellermann. For more information about the events and publications also see: https://shakespeare-gesellschaft.de/.