CFP: Two-Day International Conference TRANSFORMATIONS AND TRANSITIONS: EMERGING TRENDS IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE STUDIES -KL University-11-12th March, 2024

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

The Department of English is holding a vibrant and joyful two-day event to share the pleasure and power of language and literature on 11th, &12th of March 2024 in a glorious scenic and invigorating atmosphere at KL University campus. We are delighted to place on record that this International Conference shall be an exciting mix of research discourse and debates. This is a programme of educational and inspiring events in our esteemed university involving students, scholars, expertise professors and critics. In short, this International conference is deliberately planned to mark stimulating dialogue and discourse to provide a rare opportunity to the academics to meet and interact with eminent personalities.

ABOUT THE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

The Department of English is headed by Dr. K. V. Divya, Associate Professor. The Department has 42 faculty members out of which 39 are Doctorates and 3 are pursuing P.hD. The sister Department, Communication and Soft skills has 6 Soft skills trainers who are vital to the University in achieving 100% campus placements in Campus drives. Two-year Post graduate course in English has been in progress since 2018. In 2023 it is restructured as M.A. in Digital Humanities and Language Studies. Research guidance to Ph.D scholars is actively in progress with 85 scholars and 35 scholars are awarded till date. The Department has published more than 500 publications in various reputed Scopus, WoS, International & National journals with high impact factor. The Department has also organized many workshops, seminars, National & International conferences including Literary Festival.

ABOUT THE UNIVERSITY

KL(Deemed to be)University is situated in a sprawling 100-acre campus on the banks of Buckingham canal of the river Krishna, 8 kms from Vijayawada city. Built within a rural setting of lush green fields, the University is a virtual paradise of pristine nature and idyllic beauty. The campus has been aptly named ‘Green Fields’ and the splendid avenue of trees and gardens bear testimony to the importance of ecology and environment. The campus ambience is most befitting for scholastic pursuits. The mission and vision of the University is to be in line with international universities in imparting quality-based

education with moral excellence. The University takes pride in achieving a rich bounty of Awards for Educational

CALL FOR PAPERS

Well-researched and unpublished articles are invited on the theme of the conference. The following are some of the sub-themes

Anthropocene and Literature

Petro fiction

Blue humanities and Nautical fiction

Energy humanities

Pandemic Literature

Digital age: Cyber Literature and Digital Media

Digital Pedagogy & Digital technologies

Research creation in Digital Humanities

Graphic and Twitter Fiction

Revisiting Indian poetics

Gender studies in the Era of technology

Gender and Queer Studies

Biopolitics

Pain Studies and Trauma Studies

Intersectionality: gender, class, race and LGBT+ representation

Marginality in Cultural Texts Feminist /Postfeminist voices

Feminist histories: memory and trauma

Women empowerment: Breaking stereotypes

Masculinity Studies

Urban and Suburban Studies

Comparative literature

Translation and Diasporic literature

Kitchen literature

Multiculturalism and Diasporic perspectives

Revisiting the Mythologies

Dalit Narratives

Ecofeminism & Ecocriticism and Green Cinema

Climate Fiction

Animal Studies, Zoo criticism and Phyto criticism

Posthuman Studies

Crip Theory and Disability Studies

Green ELT

Renewable English

Latest trends in English Language Teaching

Digital Language Teaching

Flipped/blended class rooms

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

Task-based Learning

Trends in Teaching ESL

IMPORTANT DATES AND DEADLINES

Abstract Submission: 25th February, 2024

Abstract Acceptance: 29th February, 2024

Registration:5th March, 2024

Conference Dates:  11th - 12th March, 2024

PUBLICATION

Selected Papers presented at the Conference will be published as book chapters with ISBN. Full-length articles received by 29th February 2024 will only be considered for publication.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION

An abstract of 100-150 words should be submitted along with the information in this order: a) author b) affiliation c) email address d) title of the abstract, and e) the abstract. Send the

abstract to: kluenglishconference@gmail.com

ACCEPTANCE

Acceptance will be sent by the Convener & Registrations Committee, within a week from the receipt of the abstract.

ACCOMMODATION

Accommodation will be provided in the Guest House and Students' hostels of the University. Vijayawada /Guntur is moderately warm during the month of March. The temperature is expected to range from 30 to 32 degrees Centigrade during the conference days

Registration link

https://forms.gle/Dcb2DydfW5dcjftdA

For More Information Contact

Dr. K. V. Divya, 9866839934 | Dr. K. K. Sunalini, 9849942819

Dr. M. Suresh, 8500219841 | Dr. K. B. Glory, 9849592241

KONERU LAKSHMAIAH EDUCATION FOUNDATION

(Deemed to be University, Estd. u/s 3 of the UGC Act, 1956)

Green Fields, Vaddeswaram, Guntur Dist., A.P., India, 522 302

Phone: +91 - 8645 - 350200

Call for Chapters: Unsettled childhoods in southern spaces (edited collection) Felicity Jensz (University of Münster, Germany) and Rebecca Swartz (University of the Free State, South Africa)

 

We are looking for a number of chapters of 7,000 words to expand our basis of an edited collection which examines the meaning of ‘settled’ and ‘unsettled’ childhoods in the southern hemisphere locations of the British Empire that became South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand from European ‘settlement’ to the present day. We are interested in the meaning of childhood in (settler) colonial contexts and these chapters show that a focus on children’s experiences can unsettle common understandings of settler colonialism. Children are unsettled and unsettling as they are not as ‘fixed’ as adults in their identities, and, are deemed still ‘malleable’. Their position in colonial society is also contingent on projected trajectories of settlement, with mixed race as well as children outside of the categories of white or indigenous also complicating as well as testing and straining the concepts of child, childhood and settler colonial societies. The bodies of children were projections of normative expectations of a ‘healthy’ settler colonial site, with bodies that deviated from the norm, either through illness or genetics, having the potential to unsettle both projected as well as lived realities within settler colonies.

Through a focus on children and childhood(s) in settler colonial contexts we are contributing to the academic discussion as to the meaning of what it meant to be a child in the past and how childhood was used in the construction of new political entities. Similar to contemporary contexts, childhood is inherently unsettled, as it is a phase of dynamic physical, emotional and mental change, prior to a more settled, adult phase. The collection, therefore, seeks to unsettle the idea of childhood itself, showing that understandings of what it meant to be a young person in the past varied significantly across the southern spaces under study. The edited collection stems from our work on childhood and institutions in settler colonial spaces across empires, see: Settler Colonial Studies vol 13 2023. 

The papers presented in this edited collection will present original research that engages with the following themes:

1. Migrant childhoods: What were the experiences of migrant children entering settler colonial spaces? How does including migrant children in our analysis shift understandings of children and childhood? How do these literally ‘unsettled’ children enter into colonial spaces and change the dynamics between coloniser and colonised and challenge the categories associated with childhood itself?
2. Indigenous childhoods: How did colonial regimes in these southern spaces impact on understandings of childhood and in particular on indigenous children themselves? How were these children brought into relationship with institutions in those contexts?
3. Settler childhoods: What did it mean to grow up as a settler child? How does studying white settler children in colonial contexts help us to understand the settler colonial context more broadly?
4. Institutions: How were and are childhoods - migrant, settler, indigenous - shaped by institutions in (settler) colonial contexts? What is the role of these institutions in shaping children’s lives, experiences and futures?
5. Sources of childhood: What kinds of sources can we use to understand the experiences and agency of children in the past, particularly in these southern locations? Papers in this collection illustrate the utility of a vast range of sources, including personal documents and writings, autobiography, anthropological field notes, oral history interviews, archival research, amongst others. How do we access children’s voices?

We are particularly looking for papers that examine the experiences of Maori children, mixed-race children, children of various socio-economic backgrounds, Indian children in South Africa, and migrant children in general.

Timeline:

By 1 March 2024: 300 word abstracts and one-page bios to be submitted to both Felicity Jensz (felicity.jensz@uni-muenster.de) and Rebecca Swartz (swartzr@ufs.ac.za)

15 March 2024: Invitations to submit a full manuscript will be sent

30 June 2024: Full papers due

Please note the tight turn around time as we are already advanced with the project.

Contact Information

Felicity Jensz (felicity.jensz@uni-muenster.de) and Rebecca Swartz (swartzr@ufs.ac.za)

Call For Chapters: EditedThe #Palgrave Handbook of #Monsters and #Monstrous #Bodies

 

Call for Chapters

The Palgrave Handbook of Monsters and Monstrous Bodies, under contract with Palgrave Publishers, is an interdisciplinary collection of chapters, that provides a snapshot of the evolving field of Monster Studies. This Handbook offers a comprehensive review of globalizing and expanding interdisciplinary explorations of monsters and monstrous bodies. It will become the only Handbook of its kind that focuses on both monsters and the monstrous by world-leading experts, established academics, emerging scholars, and new academics bringing together scholarship across disciplines about the monstrous in

multiple contexts and time periods.

We are seeking scholars of diverse identities, races, and genders, especially those from non-Western institutions or whose work examines monsters and monstrous bodies from global perspectives and nonnormative experiences and narratives to complete the text. Scholars will reflect on the tremendous growth and wide-ranging appeal of these engagements throughout the disciplines. The chapters will emphasize how cultures create ideas of monstrous bodies and utilize monsters as allegories for all manner of identities, issues, and socio-cultural experiences. The Handbook will serve as an interdisciplinary holistic reference to those interested in the links between monsters and socio-cultural attitudes.

CURRENT CONTRACTED CHAPTERS

1. “How To Create a Monster: From Anatomy To Trauma And All Points In Between” Sherry Ginn

2. “Abjection,” Dr. Katherine H. Lee, Indiana State University

3. “Imposing Order on the Monstrous: A Cultural Taxonomy of the Modern Zombie,” Rob Smid, Curry College Massachusetts

4. “Demonstrification: How Monsters Can Be Agents of Social Change,” Colleen Karn, Methodist College

5. “Holy Monsters: Bodies, Impairment and the Sacred in the Middle Ages,” Lisa R. Verner,

University of New Orleans

6. “In Sickness and in Hell: Monstrous Revenants and Infectious Disease,” Leah Richards, Ph.D., LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York

7. “Hell is a Teenage Girl”: Revenge and the Monstrous-Feminine in Jennifer’s Body” Hannah Hansen, Massey University New Zealand

8. “Monstrous Monster Makers: Examining Mad Scientists and their Creations,” Heather M. Porter,  M.S. & Michael Starr, University of Northampton, UK.

9. “Black Vampires and Antiblackness: New and Old Histories”, Deanna Koretsky, Spelman College

10. “Jordan Peele’s Horror Noire Oeuvre: Black Studies, White Students, and the Politics of DEI Curricula in this Era of Woke Culture,” Jayson Baker, Curry College,

11. “Let’s Do the Monster Mash” Dance Horror in Vampire Films,” Elizabeth Miller Lewis, The University of New Orleans

The Palgrave Handbook of Monsters and Monstrous Bodies

12. “A Monstrous Hunger: Female Vampires and Appetite,” Robin A. Werner, The University of New Orleans

13. “Monstrous Bodies: The Quadroons Balls of New Orleans,” U. Melissa Anyiwo, The University of Scranton

14. “Dumb show: Mute children in New Zealand literature and cinema,” Jenny Lawn Massey University New Zealand

15. “Obsessed with Fangs, Fur, and Tentacles: Monster Pornography and a Desire for Monstrous Sex,” Amanda Jo Hobson, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

16. “The Danger of the White Progressive,” Liza A. Talusan, PhD

17. “The Demamification of Black Women in Educational Leadership: Sirol’s Song,” Loris Adams, National Cathedral School.

TOPICS MAY INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

✓ Monster Hunters of Eastern Europe

✓ African monsters and monstrous bodies in fiction and folklore

✓ Manga & Anime Monsters: Globalizing Japanese Storytelling

✓ (Re)Envisioning (Dis)Abilities and Monstrous Bodies in Global Media

✓ Monstrosity in Asian contexts

✓ Exploring Monstrosity in International Children’s Media

✓ The Monsters of Nollywood & Bollywood.

✓ Selling Black Bodies in Pain

✓ Monstrous Tourism in Ghana and the US

✓ Making monsters? Historical Narratives of the Other.

✓ Monstrous mythologies of the Diaspora.

✓ Animating Monstrous Bodies in Indie Comics and Graphic Novels

✓ The Impact of Independent and Self-Published Production on Monstrosity in fiction and film

✓ Queering the Monstrous

✓ Monstrous Children and the Horrors of Caretaking

✓ Monstrous Bodies: Envisioning Queer Feminist Pornography

✓ Nasty Women of Gothic Literature

✓ Monstrosity, Comedy, and the Awkward Blurring of Genres

✓ Exploring the Quotidian and the Profane in Contemporary Monsters-Next-Door Fictions

✓ Romancing the Monstrous, Or Why We Want to Date Monsters

✓ Monsters and/or Monstrous Bodies to Redress Cultural Appropriation

✓ Policing Monstrous Flesh

TIMETABLE:

✓ Thursday, February 29th, 2024 – Proposals & Bio due

✓ January 1st, 2025– 1st drafts due

✓ June 15, 2025 – 2nd drafts due

✓ October 30, 2025 – Final Drafts Due

Please email 300-word proposals with a short biographical statement (50 words) and inquiries to Melissa Anyiwo and Amanda Jo Hobson by Thursday, February 29th, 2024. The final chapters will be approximately 7000-9000 words.

Proposals Due by Thursday, February 29th, 2024

Editors:

Amanda Jo Hobson, Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, amandajohobson@gmail.com

U. Melissa Anyiwo, Associate Professor History, Director Black Studies, The University of Scranton melissa.anyiwo@scranton.edu

Call for Papers #CONRAD IN THE FAR EAST, Editor: Pei-Wen Clio Kao (National Ilan University) Vol. 36 of #CONRAD: #EASTERN AND #WESTERN PERSPECTIVES, Editor: Wiesław Krajka

 The Maria Curie-Skłodowska University – Columbia University Press Conrad Project

Lublin: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press; New York: Columbia University Press, to be published in 2027.                                                                  

 

This Call for Papers invites contributions from Conrad scholars, whether based in the Far East or outside the Far East, to address issues of Conrad’s relation to the Far East. We encourage the Conradians to reread and rethink Conrad’s works from the perspective of the Global South, and reconsider how Conrad’s modernist works have inspired and motivated our critical mentality as well as positionality. We welcome academic articles based on the perspective of the Third World as inspired by the decolonizing waves of the 1960s. We also suggest analysis of Conrad’s Eastern or Malay tales in relation to his maritime life. A comparison of Conrad and his Asian counterparts or followers is also particularly in alignment with our volume profile.

 

In “Decolonizing University” (2024), Paul Giles proposes three agendas regarding teaching and studying literature in the university: decolonizing the iconography in the university; decolonizing the curriculum; and decolonizing the racial representation in the university. The thrust of the decolonizing university project is not to discard the Western cultural as well as literary tradition, but to incorporate Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania into the epistemological frame. As Asian Anglo-American literary scholars based in the Far East, the curriculum and pedagogies of decolonizing university have incited us to rethink our epistemic and political positionality, and reevaluate our given philosophical framework or even biases. Besides, as the literary scholars from the Global South who are situated in the heyday of postcolonialism, how to make relevance of Conrad’s works to our time has become a pressing issue awaiting the Asian Conradians to address.

 

During 1883 to 1888, Conrad sailed to Singapore, and the impression of this seaport city has become the materials for his later writing career. Conrad’s influences have gone beyond the confines of Europe and America to reach the Third World, including Asia. Numerous Asian scholars and critics are claimed or self-proclaimed protégé of Conrad. We could see the legacy or traces of Conrad in the works of Asian academic moguls like Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, etc. In the 2014 film adaptation of Conrad’s “The Secret Sharer,” Peter Fudakowski transformed both the setting and the characters from the European to the Far Eastern. We can see familiar faces of the Chinese and the Taiwanese stars in the film, which demonstrates the importance of Conrad’s influence in Asian literary as well as cinematic circles. 

 

Terry Collits maintains that there are two methodologies for the contemporary readers to read Conrad’s works. One is “objective reading,” which is to see literature as the vehicle of disseminating moral truth. Another is “subjective reading” that centers on the reader’s subjective historical-spatial position. The 19th-century literary critic Matthew Arnold served as the representative of the former approach. In “The Function of Criticism at the Present Time” (1864) Arnold emphasized the way to treat literary works as an object, and the responsibility of the literary critics “to see the object as in itself it really is.” The latter approach is embodied in the works of the contemporary American leftist critic Fredric Jameson. He highlighted the importance of historical context in The Political Unconscious (1981), and argued that the reader’s subjective positionality has affected the interpretation of literature. We encourage both “close reading” and “political reading” to approach Conrad’s works and tease out the embedded meanings for the Far Eastern readers and beyond.

   

Topics included in this volume are listed as follows, and other related topics are also welcome:

 

˙Conrad and postcolonialism

˙Conrad and the Global South Studies

˙Conrad and decolonization

˙Conrad and the Third World Perspectives

˙Comparative studies of Conrad and Asian writers

˙Conrad and Asian studies

˙Conrad’s biography and the Far East

 

Please send 300–500-word abstracts, along with brief 100–150-word biographies, to Pei-Wen Clio Kao at peiwen.clio.kao@gmail.com before August, 2024. The full manuscripts are due in September of 2025. All manuscripts will undergo double blind peer-review for consideration. As of now, the book volume is set for publication in 2027.

 

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS on Title Social-Emotional Undercurrents in #ELT Advocacy: Insights and Implications-Edited Volume being prepared for Routledge:

 

Advocacy in English Language Teaching (ELT), as comprehensively defined by Staehr Fenner (2014), is the pursuit of equitable and excellent education for English learners—a principle acknowledged as foundational for progressive educational practices and policies. The recognized necessity of advocacy within ELT professionals’ roles, thoroughly documented by scholars such as Athanases and de Oliveira (2008), and Linville and Whiting (2019), has traditionally been discussed with a strong focus on structural and pedagogical aspects. This emphasis on structural and pedagogical dimensions has laid the groundwork for language educators to ardently advocate for equitable access and the adoption of innovative methodologies, highlighted in the contributions of Linville (2020) and Linville and Pentón Herrera (2022). Such research underscores advocacy’s pivotal role in curriculum development, teaching methodologies, and policy implementation across diverse educational settings, showcasing its transformative power in creating inclusive and dynamic ELT environments. Building on this foundation, a select but growing body of literature has ventured beyond traditional classroom

boundaries to explore advocacy's reach within community organizations (Pentón Herrera, 2019) and among language teacher associations (Pentón Herrera, 2022), thus broadening the understanding and impact of advocacy in the ELT Field.

Despite the robust literature on advocacy in ELT and its advancements, there remains a significant gap in understanding the interplay of social and emotional factors with(in) advocacy eΛorts.

Emotional intelligence, empathy, and social awareness—previously labeled as ‘soft skills’ (Staehr Fenner, 2014)—are pivotal components that inΟuence educators’ ability to advocate eΛectively. Yet, these essential aspects have garnered limited attention in academic discourse. This oversight highlights a critical area for exploration: How do social and emotional elements underpin and impact advocacy eΛorts in ELT? Addressing this question is not just about adding another layer to our comprehension of advocacy; it is about unveiling the human elements that drive advocacy efforts.

Further, this question invites an examination of how social-emotional skills facilitate connections between educators, students, and communities, and how they can be harnessed to champion more

nuanced and impactful advocacy strategies. Ultimately, delving into the social-emotional dimension can lead to a more holistic understanding of advocacy, one that fully embraces the emotional and social dynamics at play, thus enriching the discourse and practice of advocacy in ELT.

Motivated by the opportunity to expand our knowledge and benefit the Field as a whole, we invite contributions for our upcoming edited volume, Social-Emotional Undercurrents in ELT 

Advocacy: Insights and Implications. In this edited collection, we seek to explore the multifaceted social and emotional dimensions of advocacy in ELT, examining how these factors influence, shape,

and energize advocacy efforts. 

This project aims to fill the existing gap by providing a platform for discussions onempathy, emotional resilience, social connectivity, and their roles in ELT advocacy.  

We welcome a range of chapter contributions, including empirical research (i.e., qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods), theoretical explorations, case studies, and reΟective narratives that shed light on the social-emotional aspects of ELT advocacy in diΛerent contexts around the world. 

We highly encourage non-traditional/decolonial methodologies and critical lenses. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

● The impact of teachers’ emotional intelligence on shaping advocacy strategies and policies in ELT

● Empathy and social-emotional learning in teacher education and its role in curating spaces for equitable ELT practices and fostering advocacy

●Challenges and eΛective practices at the intersection of professional development and advocacy initiatives

● The interplay of social-emotional competencies in successful ELT advocacy efforts

● Innovative insights and practices bridging social-emotional aspects with ELT advocacy, both in pedagogy and community engagement

● The role of social, cultural, and emotional norms in ELT advocacy, including societal influences on advocacy approaches and strategies

● Building and leveraging social-emotional support networks to reinforce collaborative advocacy among ELT practitioners, community organizations, and language teacher associations

● Personal accounts that traverse the social-emotional landscape of ELT advocacy, documenting challenges and achievements in the field

● Contributions of language teacher associations to the development of social-emotional skills, fostering robust networks for advocacy within and beyond educational institutions.

20%

Advocacy in English Language Teaching and Learning

₹15,225.00

20%

Advocacy for Social and Linguistic Justice in TESOL: Nurturing Inclusivity, Equity, and Social Responsibility in English Language Teaching (Routledge Research in Language Education)

₹4,093.00

20%

The Language of Advocacy: What to Say and How to Say It in the English-Speaking Courts

₹4,119.00

22%

TESOL Guide for Critical Praxis in Teaching, Inquiry, and Advocacy (Advances in Educational Technologies and Instructional Design)

₹22,680.00

FROM TRUTH TO TECHNIQUE OXSLL C: A Discursive History of Advocacy Advice Texts (Oxford Studies in Language and Law)

20%

Critical Qualitative Research in Second Languague Studies: Agency and Advocacy (Contemporary Language Education)

₹9,255.00

2%

Connecting Equity, Literacy, and Language: Pathways Toward Advocacy-Focused Teaching (Language and Literacy Series)

₹7,577.00

1%

Feminists Among Us: Resistance and Advocacy in Library Leadership: 9 (Gender and Sexuality in Information Studies)

₹1,760.00

20%

Citizenship and Advocacy in Technical Communication: Scholarly and Pedagogical Perspectives (ATTW Series in Technical and Professional Communication)

₹18,900.00

20%

Communication, Advocacy, and Work/Family Balance (Routledge Research in Communication Studies)

₹15,225.00

Tentative Timeline

● Submission of chapter proposals: July 1st, 2024

● Notification of accepted chapter proposals: August 1st, 2024

● Submission of full manuscripts: February 1st, 2025

● Continuous chapter reviews: February 1st, 2025 through July 1st, 2025

● Book submitted to the publisher: August/September 2025

● Anticipated publication: Spring/Summer 2026

For More details Contact: 

Editors

Huseyin Uysal, Knox College 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1357474157722645/Huseyin Uysal/100010510111623

Luis Javier Pentón Herrera, Akademia Ekonomiczno-Humanistyczna w Warszawie

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)

₹799.00

3%

Glimpses Of Comparative Literature

₹595.00

15%

MEG-15: Comparative Literature: Theory and Practice (IGNOU Study Guide Book)

₹350.00

24%

Comparative English Literature

₹595.00

16%

Studies In Comparative Literature

₹695.00

14%

Comparative literature

₹3,592.00

Comparative Perspectives on Indian Literature

Comparative Literature: A Critical Introduction

30%

NEERAJ MEG-15 Comparative Literature : Theory And Practice- English Medium for MA- IGNOU - Chapter Wise Help Book / Guide including Many Solved Sample Papers and Important Exam Notes– Published by Neeraj Publications

₹320.00

20%

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: Travel and Accommodation Sponsored #International #Conference on #Historiography and #Hagiography in #Buddhism and Beyond -#University of #Cambridge, United Kingdom, on 8-10 July 2024

 

This international conference aims to bring together scholars working on practices of record-keeping, historiography, and hagiography in the Buddhist tradition and in related cultural fields. Recent years saw a steadily-growing interest in the impact of Buddhism on historiography and hagiography, in tandem with an unprecedented increase in the availability of textual and visual primary sources. Ambitious digitization projects (especially of premodern sources) and the changing landscape of the digital realm offer new opportunities to study premodern and contemporary practices of writing and narration. In this three-days conference, we seek to foster an interdisciplinary discussion on practices of textual and visual recording, storytelling, and memory in Chinese Buddhism and beyond – past, present, and future.

This conference is generously sponsored by the Tzu Chi Foundation (慈濟) and hosted by the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge.

The conference will take place at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, United Kingdom, on 8-10 July 2024 (08/07/2024-10/07/2024). Accommodation and meals will be provided for the duration of the conference. Travel expenses to Cambridge will be covered for conference presenters (please contact organizers for further details).  

We welcome proposals for papers on topics relating to historiography, hagiography, and narration, including but not limited to:

• Buddhist historiography and record-keeping
• Historiography and record-keeping in other Chinese religious traditions
• Narrating lives of extraordinary individuals (e.g. biographies, autobiographies, hagiographies) in textual, oral, visual, and material forms
• The intersection of Buddhism and literature
• Book culture and production of texts in the Buddhist tradition (e.g. in print culture, manuscript culture, publishing practices, patronage of textual production, production of temple gazetteers and mountain gazetteers etc.)
• Uses of visual arts and the performance arts in creating or supporting Buddhist historiography and hagiography

Proposals for papers should include the following information:

No-Nonsense Buddhism for Beginners: Clear Answers to Burning Questions About Core Buddhist Teachings

5%

Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

₹1,383.00

19%

Buddhism for Beginners

₹350.00

32%

Tantra & Buddhism, Greatest Spiritual Wisdom

₹199.00

42%

The Essence of Buddhism

₹599.00

32%

Buddha In Daily Life, The: An Introduction to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin

₹599.00

24%

Buddhism Declined in India: How and Why

₹495.00

32%

Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India

₹699.00

The Central Philosophy of Buddhism: A Study of the Madhyamika

32%

The Dalai Lama’s Book of Wisdom

₹399.00

1. Name, affiliation, and title of position at the affiliated institution (independent scholars are also welcome to apply; please note “independent scholar” in your proposal if relevant)
2. Title
3. 250 word abstract
4. Contact information: email, address, and phone number(s)

The deadline for all proposals is Friday, February 23^rd, 2024 (23/02/2024). Proposals should be sent as either Word or PDF to the following email address: hist.hagio@gmail.com

For general information and logistical questions, please email the organizing committee at: hist.hagio@gmail.com

Regarding the conference, please contact the primary organizer, Dr Noga Ganany at ng462@cam.ac.uk.

*Proposals must be submitted in English.

Contact Email

hist.hagio@gmail.com

Attachments

CFP: Historiography and Hagiography in Buddhism and Beyond