Anti-Imperialism and Postcolonialism as Transnational

Seminar proposed for American Comparative Literature Association conference
Puebla, Mexico
19-22 April 2007

co-chairs Christi Merrill and Jennifer Wenzel, University of Michigan

Papers sought for a seminar (panel) that will examine the transnational histories of anti-imperialism and their relevance in postcolonial studies today. What difference have travelling theories and itinerant intellectuals made in struggles against imperialism? How can a comparative approach help to elucidate the transnational circulation of modes, methods, and forms of anti-imperialism? How can earlier transnational movements (e.g. Pan-Africanism, Negritude, Pan-Arabism, non-alignment) inform our understanding of contemporary phenomena such as anti-globalization movements,  post-2001 US imperialism, or radical Islam? What continuities and ruptures exist between institutions and modes of organization in different sites and moments? How can attention to south-south connections complicate notions of anticolonialism or postcolonial studies as derivative or Eurocentric?

Possible topics might include (but are not limited to):

--Garveyism, Garveyite, and other expectations of transnational deliverance
--Bandung and non-alignment
--colonial-era conferences of artists and intellectuals
--Progressive Writers' Associations --Afro-Asian organizations and student exchanges
--UNESCO cultural programs
--anti-imperialists abroad: Gandhi in South Africa; DuBois, Wright, and Baldwin in Ghana; Che Guevara in the Congo; Fanon, James, and Ambedkar in the US, etc.
--intersections between decolonization and US civil rights movements
--geneaologies of the subaltern
--possibilities and limitations of theoretical rubrics such as Young's "tri-continentalsim," Lazarus' "nationalitarianism," or Hardt and Negri's "Empire"

ACLA requires that all prospective participants submit an abstract through the ACLA website by 1 November 2006: http://acla2007.complit.ucla.edu.

Please feel free to contact seminar co-organizer Jennifer Wenzel (jawenzel@umich.edu) with questions about and potential submissions to the seminar.

Jennifer Wenzel
Department of English
3187 Angell Hall
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
fax 734 763 3128