December 12, 2024

1st International e-Conference

Re-thinking the Postcolonial: Texts and Contexts

Date: 25th, 26th and 27th of September, 2020

To be Organized by

New Literaria Journal
in collaboration with

Department of English, Assam University(A Central University), India

CONCEPT NOTE

The significance of Postcolonial Studies as a field of enquiry in an increasingly globalized world has been a contentious issue. The term postcolonial, as an expression of colonial experience or resistance to colonialist perspectives, representations, and narratives, chiefly undercuts and “overhauls” colonialist ideology. Post colonial writings and literary studies form a major part of this refashioning or overhauling signified by the term postcolonial. It is important to mention here that the postcolonial writings are not circumscribed to Anglophone literature. The crises from the event of 9/11 to the Syrian refugee crisis or the migrant labour crisis during lockdown in India have given new directions to the post colonialist thought. In a globalized world which is marked by the overwhelming presence of the Global capital, a rapid formation of a New World Order and the rise of new imperialist forces, a rethinking of postcoloniality has become necessary.  Developmental policies of the nation state and aggrandizement of transnational corporates have often resulted in displacement of the indigenous. On the one hand, the nation state has owned its land, while on the other, it has disowned the lives, thereby, working hand in gloves with the transnational corporates. Ken Saro-Wiwa’s life and writings stand as one of the numerous examples of this phenomenon. Edward Said’s concept of ‘Orientalism’, GayatriSpivak’s theory of ‘subaltern’, Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘discourses’, Gramsci’s definition of ‘hegemony’ Bhabha’s concept of ‘agonistic uncertainty’ form the notion of postcolonialism. The field of literature explicates the concept of colonialism and postcolonialism through its exploration of culture socially, politically, economically, historically and psychologically. Terms like neo imperialism and neocolonialism have been in vogue to make sense of these geopolitical issues. Moreover, The COVID19 Crisis has brought new challenges by reshaping the way human civilization functions. With this sudden infiltration of the digital and the data in every nook and corner of life come the issues of data imperialism and digital divide. In this webinar we intend to explore the new avenues of postcolonial thought. We encourage participants to consider submitting papers on the following topics.

Topics welcomed include, but are not restricted to:

  • Mother, motherhood and motherland
  • Native and vernacular language
  • Glocalization of the Digital, data imperialism,technocapitalism and Cyber Cultures
  • Imagination and Empiricism
  • Secular and religious
  • Transnational terror
  • Women, the Body
  • Disease, Public Health and Medicine
  • (Re)-writing history
  • Postcolonial, postnational and refuge and  migrant crisis
  • Family, patriarchy, and performance
  • Diaspora, displacement and space
  • Minority discourse and identity politics
  • Ethnicity, Nativism and Indigenous Culture
  • Neo imperialism, neo colonialism
  • Development narratives and ecological crisis
  • Posthumanism, Posthuman Ecology and Transhumanism
  • Speciesism
  • Antropocene and planetary crisis
  • Law, legal discourse and governance
  • Popular culture

Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words, and 5 keywords with a supporting bio note of 100 words to newliteraria@gmail.com