Postcolonial Studies Association Convention

University of Manchester
11–13 September 2019

We are pleased to announce that the 2019 PSA Convention will be held at the University of Manchester from 11th to 13th September 2019. Paper and panel proposals are invited from academics, scholars and postgraduates as well as community organisers and activists in any area of postcolonial studies from any disciplinary, cross- or interdisciplinary perspective or practice.

The Special Topic of the 2019 Convention is Justice.

Proposals for panels and papers on this theme are particularly encouraged.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

David Theo Goldberg (University of California, Irvine)

Pablo Mukherjee (University of Warwick)

Nayanika Mookherjee (University of Durham)

For all their differences, it might be said that postcolonialists are united in their commitment to pursuing justice in the face of all the destructive social, political, religious, cultural and environmental consequences of imperialism. Given the thematic, disciplinary, methodological, and idiomatic breadth of the postcolonial field, though, ‘justice’ is marked by many different, often competing conceptions – cognitive, epistemic, restorative, transitional, socialist, cosmopolitan. Moreover, complex discourses around the ‘rights’ on which we might base notions of justice have opened up questions of whose rights should predominate, who should articulate rights and for whom?

In recent years, global debates have opened up about how to properly understand imperialism, past and present, which has had wider implications for how to understand agency and freedom – not just in the context of imperious epistemologies, but also imperialist economic, political, and legal structures. The 2019 convention will extend this debate to the notion of justice and seeks contributions that explore (but are not limited to) some of the following questions:

• Is it possible to articulate the many different forms of justice pursued by postcolonialist interests under one overarching goal, or is there value in a plurality of competing ideas of justice – in speaking of justices?
• What form of justice(s) should postcolonialists pursue?
• Are some kinds of justice preferable to others?
• How do postcolonial considerations of justice intersect with those in other disciplines or areas such as disability studies, queerness, feminism, indigeneity, religion and so on?
• What does justice look like when fully achieved/put into practice?
• What questions of ethics and care arise in considering justice?
• How are notions of postcolonial justice inflected by the posthuman and the non-human?
• What historical and contemporary contexts of justice need to be considered?
• When is justice and repair impossible or undesirable?

To register to attend, please go to: https://estore.manchester.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/faculty-of-humanities/school-of-arts-languages-and-culture/psa/postcolonial-studies-association-psa-convention-2019