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2012

ASIAN AMERICAN/CANADIAN MOTHERING

Demeter Press is seeking an editor(s) for a new collection on the above topic: if you are interested in this opportunity, please email Andrea O'Reilly directly (aoreilly@yorku.ca) AND please include your CV and bio/background/interest in this area.
*Please note: Demeter Press is publishing an edited collection entitled "South Asian Mothering" in 2012 so we are interested specifically in East Asian perspectives for the above named project.

FEBRUARY 

‘Re-evaluating the Postcolonial City: Production, Reconstruction, Representation’

An Interdisciplinary Conference, 2nd-3rd February 2012, University of Leeds
Keynote Speakers: Caryl Phillips, Javier Stanziola
We invite proposals for papers, readings and performances. Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words for 20 minute papers along with a short biography (200 words max.) to thepostcolonialcity2012@gmail.com by 15th September 2011. Updates relating to the conference may be found at http://thepostcolonialcity2012.wordpress.com.
Read More

“Polytropic(al) Joyce: North, South, and Beyond”: The Fifth Annual Joyce Postgraduate Conference

2-4 February 2012 Queen’s University, Belfast
Confirmed plenary speakers include:
Prof. Vincent J. Cheng (University of Utah), Prof. John McCourt (University of Rome), Dr. Katherine Mullin (University of Leeds), Dr. Fritz Senn (Zurich James Joyce Foundation)
Abstract submission deadline: 30 November, 2011
CFP:
The 5th annual Joyce postgraduate conference will take place on the 2nd to 4th of February, 2012, at Queen’s University, Belfast. The first birthday conference was held in Dublin in 2008, and since then has been alternately held between universities in Italy and Ireland. This year, for the first time, the conference will take place in Northern Ireland. Joyce visited Belfast in November 1909 while searching for locations for new premises for cinema to expand on the Volta Theatre in Dublin. The strong presence of the Ulsterman, Mr. Deasy, in the “Nestor” episode, the second chapter of Ulysses informs Joyce’s engagement with the particular issues around the politics of Ireland and Great Britain as well as the special position of Northern Ireland.

Cultural Diplomacy as a Vehicle of Global Governance: The Role of Cultural Diplomacy and Soft Power in the Future of the African Union

The International Conference on the African Union & Cultural Diplomacy (London, February 7th-10th, 2012)
The  African Union and Cultural Diplomacy Conference is the second of a series of our international conference dedicated to enhancing awareness and understanding of governing institutions. The conference is organized by the ICD and other leading organizations.
See more at: http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/experienceafrica/index.php?en_aucdc201.
To apply please visit:
http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/experienceafrica/index.php?en_aucdc-2011_application-form

Critical Perspectives on Abdulrazak Gurnah

Special issue of English Studies in Africa (2013)
Guest editors: Maria Olaussen (Linnaeus University, Sweden) and Tina Steiner (Stellenbosch
University, South Africa)
Abstract submission deadline: 15 December 2011
CFP: We are seeking scholarly articles for a special issue of the ISI listed journal English Studies in Africa dedicated to the literary work and thought of Abdulrazak Gurnah, a major novelist in the English-speaking world today. Gurnah’s work explores issues of migration and cosmopolitanism in complex situations of changing power relations from the old Indian Ocean trading arena to colonial and postcolonial contexts. While some of his eight novels have received a fair amount of critical attention, his earlier novels in particular have not received the extensive scholarly engagements that they deserve. We hope that this collection will manage to fill this gap, to which end articles or essays on the novels that appeared before Paradise are particularly welcome.

IN ANALYSIS: THE WORK OF HANIF KUREISHI

The University of Roehampton presents Friday, 24 and Saturday, 25 February 2012

Conference events include: Hanif Kureishi in conversation and reading from work-in-progress

Invited speakers include: Geoffrey Boucher (Deakin, Victoria, Australia), Peter Childs (Gloucestershire, UK), Susie Thomas (Independent, UK)

Send abstracts for papers of 250 words, together with a brief biographical note, to Susan Alice Fischer, at safischer@mac.com before 15 January 2012. A limited number of postgraduate student bursaries are available.

From CFP: Hanif Kureishi is one of the most exciting and provocative writers of his generation. He has written across many different genres and is a key, and often controversial, critic of our contemporary culture, recently claiming that ‘We’re all mixed-race now.’ This conference presents a unique opportunity to reflect on the significance of Kureishi’s achievements, bringing together the foremost Kureishi scholars, critics working on modern and contemporary fiction and Hanif Kureishi himself.

Adapting Historical Narratives

A one-day conference organised by the Centre for Adaptations, De Montfort University, Leicester, Tuesday 28 February 2012
Papers are invited across a wide range of interpretations of the topic, genres of 'historical narrative' (fictional, fact-based, hybrid), represented periods, and histories (from royal to political to popular-cultural). Focuses might include heritage cinema; historical documentaries and docudramas; biopics; retro nostalgia; contemporary history on screen; new-media developments and convergences in the representation and remediation of history; and constructions of national histories and historical nationalisms. Proposals (of no more than 200 words) should be sent to Deborah Cartmell and Claire Monk (djc@dmu.ac.uk ; cmonk@dmu.ac.uk ) by 2 December 2011.

‘Queer Sisterhoods’ in Contemporary Women’s Writing

A half-day symposium at Queen’s University Belfast. 29th February 2012.
Keynote speaker: Dr. Tina O’Toole
Abstracts should be sent to cmcgurren01@qub.ac.uk by 10th February 2012.
More details at http://www.pgcwwn.org/
CFP: Emma Donoghue’s recent work Inseparable: Desire between Women in Literature seeks to trace the portrayal of female desire from medieval times. Passion has been marked by ‘excess, infraction, deviance. From the very beginnings of literature, women who desire other women tend to rampage across the boundaries of the acceptable’. This half-day symposium seeks to investigate how women interact with other women in contemporary literature.

MARCH

JOB ADVERTISEMENT!

Experienced Researcher in Transdisciplinary Diaspora Studies (Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship), Oxford
The closing date for applications is midday on 12th March 2012
To read more about the position, click here.

JOB ADVERTISEMENT!

Marie Curie Fellowship, Early Stage Researcher in the field of Transdisciplinary Diaspora Studies, Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster, Germany.

Gender and Women’s Studies in the Arab Region

The First Conference of the United Arab Emirates. Gender and Women’s Studies Consortium. Sponsored by The American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, UAE  and the University of Southern Maine, Portland, USA
Wednesday, March 7- Friday, March 9, 2012
American University of Sharjah

The Power of Africa. Africa as a Stronger Actor on the International Stage

(Paris, March 13th - 16th, 2012)
The Power of Africa is the third Africa related conference that is being hosted in the beginning of 2012. It will focus on the possibilities and barriers that the African countries are facing in terms of economic and political bargaining power as well as the prospect of speaking with one voice on the international stage.  
The conference will in particular address the expectations and opinions that the outside world holds of African development and how this often diverges with what might be more realistic and customized solutions on the ground.
Find out more at: www.experience-africa.org

Call for contributions: FUELING CULTURE: ENERGY, HISTORY, POLITICS

March 15th for abstracts December 1, 2012 for essays; length: 6000 words

Send Copies to: Imre Szeman imre@ualberta.ca, Jennifer Wenzel jawenzel@umich.edu, Patsy Yaeger pyaeger@umich.edu

Resource depletion and  anxiety are not new, nor is the paralyzing knowledge that a particular  form of energy is harmful or unsustainable.? How  has our relation to energy changed over time? What differences do  specific energy sources make to human values and politics ? How have  changing energy resources transformed culture?

The New Millennium and African Narratives

Book proposal CFP    
Detailed proposals/abstracts (250 words) should be sent to editor, as email attachment: evba25@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions of proposals/abstracts is March 20, 2012.
From the CFP: This Book Project is a seminal attempt at appraising the validity of the perception that the new generation of African novelists is remarkably different in vision, style, and worldview from the older generation.

Humanism, Democracy and Culture: Postcolonial Discourse and India

Two Day Interdisciplinary  International Conference, Dept. of English, R.K.S.D. College Kaithal – 136027, Haryana, India, March 20-21, 2012
From the CFP: This conference invites papers that address:

  • Postcolonialism and Indigenous Representation
  • Postcolonialsim and Indian humanism
  • Postcolonialism and Western Aspirations
  • Postcolonialsm  and Marxism
  • Postcolonialism and Nativism, and Cultural  Fundamentalism in East and West
  • Postcolonialism and Indian languages

Please send an abstract of 300-400 words to rksd.englishdept@gmail.com and rajbirparashar@gmail.com. The deadline for proposal is January 15, 2012. The organiser of the event is  Dept. of English, R.K.S.D. College Kaithal – 136027,Haryana, India.RKSD College, Kaithal , affiliated to Kurukshetra University, Kuruksetra , Haryana, India

Collapse / Catastrophe / Change: American Comparative Literature Association 2012 annual convention  

March 29 to April 1 2012
Keynotes: Chinua Achebe, Neil ten Kortenaar, Eileen Julien, Avital Ronell, and Rei Terada
Submission deadline: 15th of November 2011
For more information, and to submit proposals, please see http://acla.org/acla2012/.
 A seminar proposal for which participants are sought, suggested by Karim Mattar (PSA member) and David Fieni: The Global Checkpoint: ‘Rights’ of Passage, Performances of Sovereignty.
This seminar will consider and develop critical approaches to the administration of space and the ritualized regulation of flows of people and goods in the contemporary world. The checkpoint, a globally ubiquitous technology that administers space within states / colonies (e.g. Apartheid South Africa, Northern Ireland, the occupied West Bank), in warzones (Afghanistan, Iraq), and between states (India-Pakistan during Partition, East-West Berlin, US-Mexico), offers a precise and suggestive focal point for this concern. It acts as a concrete embodiment of relations of power and inequality between two (or more) ethnically, religiously, or nationally distinct populations, where such relations are enacted through the ritual of crossing, and where language and translation become, as Emily Apter might have it, matters of life and death. It functions not only to control the flow of migrants, illicit goods, and insurgents / terrorists, but also to divide contiguous lands and to reproduce politically and legally encoded distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Thus performing sovereignty, the checkpoint appears to be symptomatic of fears of catastrophe, whether economic, political, or social, in various national and global contexts.

APRIL

Rethinking the Self: Transnational and Transdisciplinary Bioethical and Biopolitical Concerns

International symposium at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland, 10–12 April 2012.
Keynote speakers include Prof. Beverley Skeggs, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and Dr. Jenny Slatman, Maastricht University, the Netherlands.
Submission deadline: 1st Dec 2011
The full CFP and more information available at: http://www.helsinki.fi/collegium/events/rethinking-the-self.htm

Narrating the Caribbean Nation:  A Celebration of Literature and Orature

Convened by Peepal Tree Press at Leeds Metropolitan University, 14th – 15th April 2012

Confirmed speakers: Kwame Dawes

Abstract submission deadline: 23rd Dec 2011

From the CFP: “We will examine culture, politics, identities, childhood, performance and many other topics in the context of the Caribbean and its diasporas and discuss how the past 25 years of Caribbean writing connects to, and builds on, classic texts of Caribbean literature. Moreover, the conference will offer opportunities to hear the ideas of new and established writers and to watch them perform.”

The full CFP and more information available at: http://narratingthecaribbeannation.eventbrite.co.uk/

Occidentalism vs Orientalism

Sultan Moulay Slimane University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of English Studies, Beni Mellal, Morocco, The Research Laboratory on Culture and Communication (RLCC), 17-18 April 2012
The deadline for sending proposals is 31st December, 2011. Acceptance of proposals will be sent on 15th January, 2012.  Please send proposals of up to 500 words and a short biographical résumé via e-mail (as Word 1997-2003 attachments) to the following professors on behalf of the organizing committee: Mohamed Rakii m_rakii_nizar@yahoo.fr; Mly Mustapha El Mamaoui m_mamaoui@yahoo.fr
CFP: Much has been said about Orientalism as a discourse implementing a number of stereotypes involving the Orient; but one of the ways of dealing with Orientalism may propose to probe into its opposite: Occidentalism. This conference aims to contribute to the debate about Orientalism by offering to consider Occidentalism.

Legitimate Ireland Conference

14th annual New Voices Conference, The Institute of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast , from the 19th – 21st April 2012.
Keynote speakers: Professor Elizabeth Butler Cullingford, Dr Eamonn Hughes
From the CFP: From plantations to Grattan’s parliament, poitín distillers to the IMF bailout, the Irish have always had a fraught relationship with institutions of political, social and religious power.This raises questions surrounding the legitimacy of performative and systemic aspects of Irishness, which has been and continues to be in flux both north and south of the border.
See The full CFP at: http://newvoicesqub.wordpress.com/
We invite abstracts of 250 words for 20 minute presentations to be submitted by Friday
15th December 2011 to newvoices2012@qub.ac.uk

MAY

Mothers and History: Histories of Motherhood  

Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement (MIRCI)
May 10-12, 2012, Toronto, ON, Canada
Deadline for abstracts: September 15th, 2011
This conference will explore the nature, status and experience of mothers and motherhood in various historical, cultural and literary contexts, and examine the many ways in which mothers in different historical periods have been affected by, viewed, and/or challenged contemporary cultural norms and dominant ideologies regarding their role.
CFP at http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org/motherhistoriesconfcfp.pdf
If you are interested in being considered as a presenter, please send a 250 word abstract and a 50-word bio by September 15th, 2011 to info@motherhoodinitiative.org  http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org

ASSOCIATION OF CARIBBEAN HISTORIANS CALL FOR PAPERS

Vea a continuación una traducción al español!
Voir ci-dessous pour une traduction française!
The 44th Annual Conference of the Association of Caribbean Historians will be held in Willemstad, Curaçao, from Sunday, May 13, to Friday, May 18, 2012.
Information about how to propose either an individual paper or a panel—along with the forms for each—are posted online at the ACH website http://www.associationofcaribbeanhistorians.org (look under "Annual Meeting").

‘Tagore: The Global Impact of a Writer in the Community’ at Edinburgh Napier University on 4, 5 and 6 May 2012.

The conference is held under the aegis of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies (ScoTs) being established as part of the Centre for Literature and Writing (CLAW).
The conference invites papers exploring Tagore’s literary and artistic output and welcomes presentations that evaluate his community and educational projects and assess his global impact in his time and today. Papers are also welcome on Tagore’s literary output, art, poetry, and ideas about community projects and global peace.
Proposals of 250 words should be submitted by 31 October 2011. Please send proposals, plus a one-paragraph biography, as Word document or PDF to scots@napier.ac.uk

ASNEL Conference: Post-Empire Imaginaries? Anglophone Literature, History and the Demise of Empires

University of Bern, Switzerland, May 18-20, 2012      
Abstract submission deadline: end of January 2012
From the CFP:  “‘post-empire' denotes a crossroads between the historiography of empire and literary postcolonial studies, which opens up into three main areas of investigation:

  • the theory of empire and post-empire in the context of economic globalisation
  • the material foundations on which empire is constituted and marketed
  • conceptualisations of the imperial past, in-between nostalgia and transgression.”

For further information and the call for papers please visit: http://www.gnel2012.ens.unibe.ch

Post-Empire Imaginaries? Anglophone Literature, History and the Demise of Empires

23. ASNEL Conference, University of Bern, Switzerland, May 18-20, 2012      
Call for papers closes January 31, 2012
From CFP: Although decades of postcolonial scholarship and theorizing have uncovered imperial mechanisms of marginalisation and exploitation, empire retains a key role in European and North American consumer culture. Whether heritage film, colonial style in interior decoration, fashion and architecture, Indian cuisine, or nostalgic journeys of Western travellers to the famous sites of the British Empire -- imperial nostalgia continues to be an important factor in practices of self-fashioning as well as in marketing strategies across various arts and industries. The 23rd annual conference of the Association for the Study of the New Literatures in English will approach this paradox, exploring the tensions between the established postcolonial paradigm and recent theories of 'post-empire', by promoting a dialogue between literary and cultural studies on the one hand, and history and the social sciences on the other.
Read full CFP at http://www.gnel2012.ens.unibe.ch
Conveners: Barbara Buchenau and Virginia Richter, email: gnel2012@ens.unibe.ch

'Unplanned Wildernesses': Narrating the British Slum 1844-1951

University of Warwick, 19th May 2012
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be submitted by the 9th January 2012.
The full CFP available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/hrc/cfp/up/

Interrogating Cosmopolitan Conviviality: New Dimensions of the European in Literature

University of Bamberg, 24 –25 May 2012
The deadline for abstracts is: 17 October 2011.
Call for Papers
Attempts at turning Europe into a highly problematic region of postcolonial analysis have recently - though warily - been made. Significantly, Paul Gilroy (2004) has coined the concept of “convivial culture” to signal a possibility for the development of a new cosmopolitan dimension to European culture, namely one of “radical openness” to its colonial past and postcolonial present.
Rising to the challenge of Gilroy’s intuition, the conference seeks to be a first step towards the mapping of individual literary paths into such “radical openness”. The aim is to bridge European colonial past “abroad” and current issues of migration, race and ethnicity “at home”. Ideally, this should involve seeking out the transformative potential of individual experiences of cohabitation and interaction across European borders – geographical, economic, literary, historical, etc. Such individual practices of “cosmopolitan conviviality”, as they take place in literature written in Europe especially over the last twenty years, represent the main focus of this project.
We welcome proposals for individual papers of 20 minutes. The official language of the conference is English. Selected contributions will be submitted for publication in an essay collection. Postgraduate students are also welcome to present their proposals for a special postgraduate panel to host up to five papers, each to last 15 minutes in length.
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to conviviality@englit.de. Include your name, affiliation, email address and a brief biography (max 100 words).

JUNE

Inter-asian Connections III: Hong Kong

June 6-8, 2012. To be held in Hong Kong.
Host institutions:
Workshop Directors:Ross FORMAN National University of Singapore, Julia Kuehn The University of Hong Kong
Call for workshop papers deadline: Friday, June 24, 2011
For additional details and application guidelines, please visit the Conference website: http://www.ssrc.org/programs/pages/interasia-program/conference-on-inter-asian-connections-iii-hong-kong-june-6-8-2012/

KATHERINE MANSFIELD AND CONTINENTAL EUROPE

An International Conference hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Letters, Catholic University in Ružomberok, Slovakia
in association with the Katherine Mansfield Society 27-29 June 2012
Keynote Speakers:
Angela Smith, C. K. Stead, Maurizio Ascari, Gerri Kimber, Claire Davison-Pégon
Please find the CFP at http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/assets/Events/CFP2012KatherineMansfieldandContinentalEurope.pdf
Please send 200 word abstracts for individual papers of 20 minutes, or 500 word proposals for panels of 3 papers to Dr Janka Kašcáková at janka.kascakova@ff.ku.sk by 30 November 2011. Decisions will be announced by 15 December 2011.
The deadline has now been extended to the END OF NOVEMBER 2011

JULY

CROSSROADS IN CULTURAL STUDIES,PARIS 2-6 JULY 2012

Hosted by Sorbonne Nouvelle University and UNESCO
The city of Paris has a long and complex history as a crossroad between cultures and peoples. Paris has played an important role in the development and circulation of the works of authors and thinkers that have shaped the postcolonial imagination in a significant way. Drawing on their tradition of comprehensive and critical thought, the organizers seek contributions in the form of papers and panels that will continue to examine the intersection between culture, power and knowledge from within the framework of Cultural Studies.
World-class Keynote Speakers from all over the world*will address the conference at keynote and plenary sessions. Among them, *Sarah Ahmed*, *Marie-Hélène Bourcier*, *Jeremy Gilbert*, *Achille Mbembe*, *Walter Mignolo*, *Bobby Noble*, Ph*aedra Pezzullo*, *Françoise Vergès*. With the participation of *Stuart Hall*and *Jacques Rancière*(to be confirmed).
Read more at www.crossroads2012.org
Abstract submission deadline: September 30th, 2011.
Contact: crossroads2012@univ-paris3.fr

Between Subaltern and Sahib:

Equivocal Encounters across the British World
5-6 July 2012, University of Leeds
Speakers already confirmed include: Harald Fischer-Tiné (Zurich), Kirsten McKenzie
(Sydney), Malcolm Campbell (Auckland), Margot Finn (Warwick), Nigel Penn (Cape
Town) and Norman Etherington (Western Australia).
To submit a proposal please email an abstract of up to 300 words and a 1-page CV to
equivocal.encounters@gmail.com by 1 February 2012. Proposals from postgraduates and early career scholars are particularly welcome. To encourage their participation the
registration fee will be waived for post-graduate presenters.
From the CFP:
The British Empire, we are told, was founded on difference – between metropole and
periphery, citizen and subject, self and other. This conference aims to contest and
complicate these Manichean divides.

Contemporary Women’s Writing: (Wo)Man and the Body

The Fourth Biennial International Conference of the Contemporary Women’s Writing Association, 11-13 July 2012
Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures,  National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan
Please see the CFP at  http://www.the-cwwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/CWWA-2012-Conf.pdf
DEADLINES Applications and abstracts: 15 November 2011, Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2011

AUGUST

n/a

SEPTEMBER

Post-9/11 Cultures of Terror in South-East Asian Literature and Film

ESSE Conference, Istanbul 4-8 September 2012
Please submit  a 250-300-word abstract and a brief bio to the three convenors before 11th February 2012: Dr Stephen Morton, University of Southampton:  S.C.Morton@soton.ac.uk; Dr Veronica Thompson, University of Athabasca: thompson@athabascau.ca;Dr Pascal Zinck, University of Lille: cap.zinck@wanadoo.fr
From the CFP:
We invite 15-minute long contributions focusing on film and fiction that responds to the conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan's tribal areas, Kashmir, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
We are also convening a round table on the same issues and invite/welcome guest speakers to participate in a wide-ranging debate.
Read the full CFP at: the Conference website http://www.esse2012.org

GRIEVINGS 2012 International Conference Organised by Institute of English Cultures and Literatures

University of Silesia
Ustron, Poland, 20 - 23 September, 2012

Keynote speakers: Mohsin Hamid (writer), Prof. Tabish Khair (Aarhus University, Denmark), and Prof. Horst Tonn (University of Tuebingen, Germany)
Please visit the conference website at: http://www.grievings.us.edu.pl/
Abstract submission deadline: 31 March 2012
CFP: Although generally resented and deemed unfavourable for individuals, societies and nations, grief, grievance, and grieving, along with a complex list of epithets that could in various situations, under varying circumstances, accompany them – racial grief, political grievance, protracted grieving, chronic grief, traumatic, unresolved grievance – nevertheless occupy a notorious place in culture and its manifestations in literature, art, history, science, or politics.

CRAFTS OF WORLD LITERATURE

Faculty of English, University of Oxford, 28th-30th September 2012
Confirmed speakers and participants include: Timothy Brennan, Derek Attridge, Amit Chaudhuri, Priyamvada Gopal, Nicholas Harrison, Elleke Boehmer, Peter McDonald
Abstracts should be sent to craftsofworldliterature@googlegroups.com by **February 29, 2012**. Convenors: Jarad Zimbler and Ben Etherington

CFP:  It is a staple of the literary criticism produced in the wake of decolonization that the formalism and aestheticism of metropolitan art can have no place in literatures of struggle. Yet, in one literary manifesto after another, amongst the aims set down by writers of decolonization, one finds asserted the desire for new, or at least different ways of writing and seeing; the desire, that is, for different modes, styles, techniques, voices and rhythms. In a word, what is aimed at is a new literary *material*, to be forged through labour on those received local practices of speaking and writing, and those literary materials introduced and constituted during the colonial process.

OCTOBER

Negative Cosmopolitanisms: Abjection, Power, and Biopolitics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, 11-13 October 2012

Keynote Speakers: Timothy Brennan (University of Minnesota); Pheng Cheah (University of California, Berkeley); Sneja Gunew (University of British Columbia); Peter Nyers (McMaster University)
This interdisciplinary conference seeks to explore the array of negative cosmopolitanisms operating today—all those ways in which cosmopolitan subjects are still stigmatized, disempowered, excluded, and denied. Against the superficial liberal celebration of cosmopolitan diversity in the world today, negative cosmopolitanism instead reveals experiences of rupture, exile, oppression, and imperialism. The conference will bring researchers together to explore the histories and constitution of cosmopolitanism past and present, with the aim of better understanding the complex experience of power today.
Themes you may wish to consider include:

  • The history / representations of cosmopolitanism
  • Slum- or ghetto-based cosmopolitanisms
  • Imperial cosmopolitanism (e.g. the military complex, the War on Terror)
  • Labor and Internationalism
  • Community or the Commons
  • Piracy
  • Trafficking, dislocation, border-crossing
  • State sovereignty/state vulnerability
  • Communication & information technologies, new media
  • Biopolitics
  • Religious movements
  • Feminism

Proposals shall consist of an abstract of 350-500 words and a one-page CV. Please send applications to Dr. Terri Tomsky by 21 October 2011. Email: tomsky@ualberta.ca

NOVEMBER

n/a

DECEMBER

n/a