USACLALS - Conferences

CFP: Uncommon Wealths Riches and Realities, EACLALS, Innsbruck, 14-18 April 2014

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:02:42 -0400

Uncommon Wealths Riches and Realities
EACLALS
Innsbruck
14-18 April, 2014

“In the last analysis, we must produce truth as we must produce wealth, indeed we must produce truth in order to produce wealth in the first place.”
Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 1976.

In light of the natural disasters and political and economic upheavals marking the new millennium, it seems more than timely that EACLALS should use its 15th triennial conference to retrace its conceptual roots in the Commonwealth and reconsider the notions of wealth and commonality.

Postcolonial discourse has preferred to utilise poverty, subalternity and disadvantage as theoretical categories and rarely examined what Foucault calls the “abuses and arrogance of wealth” or refined wealth as a measure of advantage and disadvantage. Yet the production of wealth has been both a motivation behind colonial expansion and a justification for it. Although interventionist acts and overseas investments have consistently been masked in a liberal rhetoric of benevolent “common good,” all too often their purpose and effect have been the enrichment of a few, the accumulation of wealths not commonly shared.

While scholarly interest in the resultant social, political and cultural asymmetries has lent greater visibility to the exploited and marginalised, it has also eclipsed the excesses of today’s rich and super-rich. These demand our attention though, especially as the discrepancies between the wealthy and the poor are being reinforced by the global financial crisis and as protest movements against corruption and economic injustice are drawing hitherto unimagined constituencies. The Arab Spring and the Occupation of Wall Street are cases in point, demonstrating the urgent need for both a critical reassessment of such concepts as “general interest” and “public welfare” and a careful appraisal of resources that still give currency to the idea of a commonly shared wealth. Such resources include also more uncommon wealths: riches not necessarily perceived as such, if only because of their inherent resistance to commodification.

Commonwealth literatures and languages, the core of our discipline, embody such riches and at the same time re-present other cultural wealths threatened by monetisation, consumerism and affluenza. How can such a heritage, which counteracts exclusive ownership and values shared experience, sharpen our awareness of different types of wealth and poverty? How can the ‘truth-telling’ of literature undermine strategic efforts to conceal and distort economic and political realities? How does it improve our understanding of the material conditions under which we live and the metaphoric riches at our disposal? What alternative scenarios of well- being, what new visions of prosperity, what innovative approaches to affluence can writing, especially from the Commonwealth, offer to a world believing itself held hostage by market demands and the neoliberal imperative to produce capital growth? What warnings does it spell out against the fragility of certain wealths and the devastating costs of others? What future does Commonwealth literature envisage for concepts like “commonwealth” and the “common weal”?

SUB-THEMES:

1. Agents of Enrichment – Enablers and Gatekeepers:
Bankers, Gamblers, Investors Haves and Have-Nots Creditors and Debtors Winners and Losers Benefactors and Beneficiaries

2. Trajectories: Processes/Narratives of Enrichment:
The Quest for Wealth
Wealth and Dispossession
Change through Growth and Accumulation
Exhaustion of Wealth and Resources

3. The Power of Wealth – Power and Wealth – Politics of Wealth:
Interest and Interests, Debts and Dependencies, Shares and Sharing Corruption and Control Transformations through Prosperity Forms of Sharing: Shareholding and Withholding

4. The Rhetoric of Wealth and the Wealthy:
Signs of Wealth – Symbols of Status
5. The Ethics of Wealth:
The Legitimacy of Gain
Fair Trade – Fair Distribution Philanthropy and Generosity at Large The Price of Wealth: Who Pays?

6. Aesthetics of Wealth:
The Splendour of Riches – the Ugliness of Excess
Profanity of Pomp
The Value of the Original

7. The Other Side of the Coin: Poverty as Cause and Consequence of Wealth:
Realities: How Much Poverty Can the Rich Take?
Forms of Poverty
Hunger Feeding Affluence – The Affluent Feeding the Hungry

8. Geographies and Histories of Wealth:
Old and New Mappings Treasuring and Measuring Wealth: Accounting, Protecting, Storing Redistribution of Wealth
Centres of Wealth
Heydays of Prosperity

9. A Wealth of Wealths:
Material Wealth
Knowledge as Wealth
Natural Wealth and Wellbeing: Resourcing the Planet
Cultural Treasures – Heritage as Wealth and Woe Spiritual/Otherworldly Wealths

10. CommunicatingWealth:
Wealth and Education: Access and Exclusion
The Wealth of Memory
The Wealth of Words: Global Language and Language Death
Resourcing the (Un)Common Wealth: New Technologies and Social Media

11.Literary Wealth and Value – the Canonical and the Popular:
Performing Arts: (Un)Common Wealth?
A Wealth of Books: Colonial and Postcolonial Archives
Literary Criticism: Privilege, Luxury, Responsibility?
(In)Visibility of Wealth: Conspicuous Consumption and Hidden Affluence Justifications of Wealth

We welcome proposals for both papers and panels on any of these or other aspects of UNCOMMON WEALTHS until 31 August, 2013.

ABSTRACTS FOR PAPERS of 20 minutes duration should be no longer than 250 words.

SUBMISSIONS FOR PANELS of 90 minutes duration should not exceed 450 words and contain the names of all speakers.

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSALS HERE - http://uncommonwealthseaclals2014.wordpress.com/call-for-papers/

FOR MORE INFORMATION FEEL FREE TO CONTACT Helga Ramsey-Kurz or any of the organising team at:

uncommonwealths2014@gmail.com

CFP: MLA, Chicago, January 2014

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:57:34 -0500

FOR MLA, Chicago, January 2014, please consider the following CFPs from the Division of Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature:

Literary Sociologies of Race and Ethnicity
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Theorists and sociologists such as Randolph Bourne, Robert E. Park, Alain Locke, Charles S. Johnson in relation to 20th-century American poetry, fiction, and drama. 250-word abstract by 15 March 2013; Richard T. Rodríguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu).

Rustbelt Migrations: Ethnicities and (De)Industrialization
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Literature of immigrants (from Europe, Asia, etc.) and internal migrant populations (Blacks, Chicanos, American Indians) connected to urban spaces, racial formation, and global capitalism. Brief abstract and 1-page CV by 15 March 2013; Richard T. Rodríguez (rtrodrig@illinois.edu) and Lingyan Yang (Lingyan@iup.edu).

South Asians in North America
Division: Ethnic Studies in Language and Literature
Inter-ethnic readings of history, culture, representation, theory - including and beyond race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality, emphasizing transnational connections and global divides. 300-word abstracts and short CVs by 15 March 2013; Amritjit Singh (singha@ohio.edu).

CFP: 'The current unbroken/the circuits kept open': Connecting Cultures and the Commonwealth, ACLALS, St. Lucia 5-9 August 2013

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 18:44:43 -0500

“‘The current unbroken/ the circuits kept open’: Connecting Cultures and the Commonwealth”
The 16th Triennial ACLALS Conference, St. Lucia, West Indies, August 5 –9, 2013

In “Sometimes in the Middle of the Story,” a poem that revisits the perilous event of the Middle Passage, the eminent Walcott scholar, Edward Baugh, gives primacy to the connecting currents of the “ocean” as a central motif. While the sea is viewed as an archive of history as Nobel Laureate and St. Lucian poet, Derek Walcott has argued, Baugh mobilizes this metaphor to both recognize the traumatic beginning of the colonial encounter in the Caribbean and the rich “refashioning of futures” of cultural connections that the Middle Passage engendered. No doubt the colonial encounter of slavery and indentureship in the Caribbean could have led to cultural enclosures, but in Baugh’s view, “the paths of ocean” represent connecting currents between and beyond the cultures of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Indigenous Caribbean. The sea, in particular, the Atlantic Ocean, was a site of treacherous travel and trade, yet that very sea is a source “connecting us still”.

Not all colonial encounters carry with them the violence of such ruptures; but whether we had traumatic or benign beginnings, we wonder what future consequently has been imagined for these and other Commonwealth lands? What global zones of power and influence haunt the seemingly ecumenical and liberal discourses of cultural exchange? What cultural connections and disconnections have emerged over time? Whose cultural currents are unbroken: whose cultural circuits have been kept open? What is the currency of indigenous language and linguistic legacies? In the commingling of cultures in the postcolonial circuits of exchange, what is the relationship between indigenous and outside cultures? Is the implicit comparative critical lens fostered in early postcolonial theory still viable? What do these connecting comparisons obscure or reveal? What is the relationship between economic currencies and cultural circuits? What are the historical and critical currents that mark postcolonial and commonwealth studies at this time? What connections are there between different genders, sexualities and ecologies? How valuable is the more recent deployment of concepts of desire, intimacy and affect to postcolonial and Commonwealth studies? What useful connections can be made between such disciplinary paradigms as globalization, diaspora and cultural studies to Commonwealth and postcolonial literature and language studies? In general, how might literary and language studies help us to understand the value of cultural connections and disconnections throughout the Commonwealth?
The 16th Triennial ACLALS Conference invites scholars working in a variety of media (literature, linguistics, film, the visual and musical arts and popular culture) to present papers on the theme, “‘The current unbroken/ the circuits kept open’: Connecting Cultures and the Commonwealth,” on the questions raised above, and on a range of topics including those listed below:

Historical and cultural currents in the Commonwealth
The common wealth of nations
Identity, currency and the practices of cultural consumption
Currents in language studies
The currency of cultures and/or Cultural Studies
Linguistic circuits and circuits of identity or cultural exchange
Cultural circuits and economic currency
The Currency of trade and travel
Circuits of violence/brokenness/trauma and cultural discourse
Discursive cultural circuits on gender and sexuality
Middle Passages and stories in the middle
The Black Atlantic and the Commonwealth
Connections/disconnections throughout the Commonwealth
Circling definitions: Commonwealth? Postcolonial? Postnational?
Waves of critical, cultural or linguistic practice
Short-circuiting genre: literary experimentation?
Island currents, global changes: conversations across the Commonwealth
Imagining Commonwealth futures

DEADLINE: Abstracts of maximum 300 words for papers of 20 minutes duration, and maximum 400 words for three-paper panels (with the names of the panelists) which engage with these and other relevant questions along with a short bio not exceeding 100 words should be submitted to ACLALSCONFERENCE2013@gmail.com by 15 December 2012

CFP: De-territorializing Diversities: Cultures, Literatures & Languages of the Indigenous, Delhi, India, 6 & 7 February, 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:58:03 -0500

Call for Papers

Department of English
Maharaja Agrasen College
(University of Delhi)

Vasundhara Enclave, Delhi-110096

In collaboration with:

FORTELL (Forum for Teachers of English Language and Literature)is organizing a two-day international conference

De-territorializing Diversities: Cultures, Literatures & Languages of the Indigenous
(February 6 & 7 2013)

Historically, diverse and multicultural India has partnered many in addressing the paradoxes of identity and ethnicity of its first peoples and the indigenous. Colonial histories, pluralistic economies, multicultural social landscape and displaced indigenous interests, intersect its dominant discourses in dynamic expressions through its literature, language, cinema, folklore and other cultural matrices.

This two-day trans-disciplinary international conference explores the dynamics of the problematic relationship within discourses hitherto marginalized and combating extinction. These ‘other’ voices, their lived experiences and ideological burdens need to be excavated and resurrected through meaningful explorations. We invite scholars/ littérateurs/practitioners/folklorists and cultural scientists from all disciplines and professions to deliberate and share their personal and research experiences in a collective, deliberative and dialogical academic environment. This conference offers the opportunity to consider at the level of both theory and practice, new means for managing diversities, establishing a sense of belonging and new methods for engaging the ‘other’.

The subjects under consideration will be drawn from but are not limited to the written and the oral, cinema, theatre, sound, music, festival performances, geography, art, economics, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, anthropology, systems study, cultural studies perspectives, third-world aesthetics, subaltern studies, new media, political activism, religion, utopian studies, and the like. These are indicators only and contributions in related areas are also welcome.

Papers are invited, but not restricted to the following sub-themes:

· Managing Diversities: tradition and innovation
· Common/Uncommon registers: India and other nations
· Stories of healing and reconciliation
· Re-imagined/ing communities
· Endangered Cultures: Erasure & Extinction
· Tangible and intangible discourses & cultures
· Marginalised aesthetics, literatures & pedagogies
· Geographies of non-urban: migration and movement
· Indigenous practices and social division / cohesion
· Colonial impacts and Postcolonial perspectives
· Emerging Voices/Noises: indigenous cosmopolitanism & literary nationalism
· Indigenous rhetoric and theory
· Indigenous art and artists
· Life Writing and native literatures
· Cultural memories: Knowledge Keeping and preservation
· Cinematic representations and stereotypes
· Using Local Literatures in English
· Pedagogy of/about the indigenous
· Taking indigenous cultures to the classroom

Details of abstract submission, travel & hospitality

Please email a 300-word abstract with the requisite information (paper title, name, designation, affiliation, contact information: Address, email ID & phone no.) along with a 75-word bio note to maconf2013@gmail.com latest by 31st October 2012. Early submissions are welcome.

The subject line of your email should read “Abstract MACONF 2013: (YOUR NAME)

All abstracts will be peer reviewed before acceptance.

In your proposal, please outline your presentation plan and any audio - visual and space needs. We also seek proposals for panels, workshops and performances that address the central theme of the conference.

Presentation time for the delegates will be to 15 – 20 minutes.

Accepted abstracts will require a full draft paper, double-spaced, in not less than 3000 words and not exceeding 4000 words to be submitted electronically in MS-Word by 20th December 2012. Select papers presented at the conference will be published as part of a digital or paperback book.

Local Delegates from Delhi and those who do not need accommodation are required to pay registration fees of Rs 800 which will entitle them to the conference kit and meals.

Delegates from India and abroad requiring accommodation are required to pay Rs. 1500/ USD 60 which will entitle them to accommodation, conference kit & meals.

Overseas delegates may contact us at the given email id for payment details.

Mode of payment will be via Demand Draft drawn on any nationalized bank payable to Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi payable at Delhi latest by 20th December 2012.

Delegates will have to fund their own travel to Delhi, India: venue of the conference.

Boarding and Lodging (on shared basis) will be provided to limited delegates at University guesthouses/hostels etc from the afternoon of 5th February till forenoon of 8th February, 2013. Early registration and confirmation on a first - cum- first serve basis will be the criteria for the same.

Important Dates:

Last Date for Abstracts
31st October, 2012

Intimation of acceptance
15th November, 2012

Last Date for Registration Fees
20th December 2012

Last Date for complete paper
20th December 2012

Conference:

6th and 7th February, 2013 (Wednesday & Thursday)

Invited Speakers
1. Dr Jeannette Armstrong, first indigenous woman novelist of Canada & Director, Enowkin Center, Pentictin, Kelowna, Canada
2. Prof. Julie Cruikshank, author and anthropologist, Canada.
3. Prof. Malashri Lal, Dean, Academic Activities & Projects, University of Delhi
4. Prof. Anjali Gera Roy, IIT, Kharagpur
5. Dr Sukrita Paul Kumar, poet and critic, Delhi
6. Prof. Jawahar Handoo, President, Indian Folklore Congress, Mysore
7. Prof. Ronald Strickland, Michigan Technological University USA
8. Dr Deana Reder, Simon Frazer University, Canada
9. Dr Beatrice Smith, Michigan Technological University, USA
10. Prof Saugata Bhaduri, Jawaharlal University, Delhi
11. Dr Nancy Wochowich, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
12. Dr Simi Malhotra, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi

Please visit http://mac.du.ac.in/ for further announcements and details.

Hope to see you at MAC in Delhi!

Prem Kumari Srivastava Gitanjali Chawla
Convenor Organizing Secretary

Maconf2013@gmail.com

CFP: Race and The South Asian Diaspora, SALA (IN CONJUNCTION WITH MLA IN BOSTON, WITH GAYATRI SPIVAK), 2-3 January 2013

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:58:20 -0500

CFP: RACE AND THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORA
13th Annual SALA (South Asian Literary Association) Conference
Holiday Inn Brookline, Boston, USA
2-3 January 2013

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: Friday 31st AUGUST 2012

Labeled “Pakis,” “coolies,” “ragheads,” “heathens,” “Hindoos,” and “wogs,” South Asians have been racialized historically and across multiple geographies. As a result of forced and voluntary migrations over the centuries, they have been inserted in, impacted on and contributed to the racial economies of U.K., North America, Africa, Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, and so on. The increasing racial diversity of populations in different parts of the world demands a continuous engagement with race and its coordinates of racism and racialism. From science-driven taxonomies to contemporary sociocultural explorations, literature, film, theatre, and other cultural productions have become sites that articulate, confront or contend with multiple registers of race and continue to model new meanings. The hierarchies ascribed to colour underpin existing understandings of race as well as forge alternative discourses to study it. For the SALA 2013 conference, we seek to place as central the category of race as constitutive of the South Asian diasporic experience to examine how the “old” and the “new” diasporas of South Asians have been shaped by and/or have responded to race and racism—imperial or neo-imperial—in a variety of geographies. We invite papers on literature, film, culture, criticism, and activism that explore different meanings of race and experiences of South Asians in the diaspora and focus especially on the complex interplay between race and gender, sexuality, religion, socio-economic class, age, language, etc. Contributors may explore, but are not restricted to, the following questions and topics:

 How have different formulations and cultural productions of diaspora conceptualized and/or considered race?

 In what ways—historically and in the present—have geopolitical and global economic forces affected the reception and racialization of South Asians?

 How do the contested discursive practices of difference, such as assimilationism and multiculturalism, unsettle politics of identity that are couched in racialized nation-building projects?

 In what ways have diasporic artists and writers articulated or visualized these differences in literature, cinema, and other productions?

 How have South Asians responded to or positioned themselves with regards to indigenous peoples and other ethno-racial minorities?

 How might the intricacies related to the discriminatory attitudes towards the “other” implicate the racial subjectivities of South Asians?

Possible topics may include:

 Race: historical and contemporary processes
 Comparative Racializations
 Race and Colourism
 Race and Law (legal systems, immigration policies, exclusionary acts, citizenship laws, etc)
 Race and Popular culture (brown-face, Indo-chic, media representations, etc.)
 Race and Space (rural/urban, ghettoes/ethnic enclaves, local/national, etc.)
 Race, gender, and sexuality (queer diaspora, race and masculinities, honor killings, transnational feminisms)
 Race and the Body (labouring bodies, sexed subjects, outsourcing reproduction, tortured bodies, etc.)
 Race and Violence (everyday routine violence, political, hate crimes, race-riots, etc.)
 Race in/and Academia
 Race and Politics and the Electorate
 Race and Health
 Race and Religion (“clash of civilizations,” racializing of religion, etc.)
 Race and Sports
 Race and Nation/Nation-State (long-distance nationalism, cultural nationalism, etc.)
 Racial Melancholia
 Race and Visual Arts
 Race and Technology (performing race in virtual/online communities, racism in digital environments, South Asian digital humanities, etc.)
 Race and Military, Police, and other organizations
 Policing race, profiling, surveillance
 Resistance, activism, coalition-building
 Multiple migrations and racial subjectivities
 Official/unofficial categories and racial formations (visible minorities, people of color, model minority, census designations, etc.)
 “Markers” of race (accent, clothes, skin color, etc.)
 Color consciousness in South Asian societies (premium on fairness, caste-race analogies, intra-minority prejudices, etc.)
 Transnationalism and globalization (outsourcing, adoption, etc.)

Please send a 250-300-word abstract of your paper and a 5-6 line bio-note listing your institutional affiliation and current email address by Friday, 31st August 2012 to the conference co-chairs at the email addresses given below. The subject line of your email should contain the words “SALA 2013.” If you have any questions, please feel free to email the co-chairs

Dr. Anupama Arora, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth aarora@umassd.edu and
Dr. Prabhjot Parmar, University of the Fraser Valley prabhjot.parmar@ufv.ca

2012 MELUS USACLALS Conference Registration

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:54:20 -0500

Conference Registration:

Regular registration (before 3/15): $120 USD

Regular registration (after 3/15): $150 USD

Students (before 3/15): $50 USD

Students (after 3/15): $60 USD

**Pay 2012 Conference Fees via Paypal:

If this button does not work, try the MELUS website's version of it (http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/).

If you would prefer to send a check, you may mail to:

MELUS
PO Box 349
Shippensburg, PA 17257

Make checks payable to MELUS and please put "conference registration" on the memo line. (Do not send with conference registration form, please.) Thanks!

2012 MELUS USACLALS Conference Registration

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:37:07 -0500

Conference Registration:

Regular registration (before 3/15): $120 USD

Regular registration (after 3/15): $150 USD

Students (before 3/15): $50 USD

Students (after 3/15): $60 USD

**Pay 2012 Conference Fees via Paypal:

If you would prefer to send a check, you may mail to

MELUS
PO Box 349
Shippensburg PA 17257

Make checks out to MELUS and please put "conference registration" on the memo line. (Do not send with conference registration form, please.) Thanks!

FINAL 2012 MELUS USACLALS Program

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:59:41 -0500

2012 MELUS/USACLALS Program

The 26th Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) and the 8th Conference of the United States chapter of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (USACLALS)

April 19-22, 2012
Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, California

Hosted by Santa Clara University

THEME: Ethnic Literatures and Transnationalism

As an ongoing and vital process through which societies and cultures have become integrated through a globe-spanning network of communications, economics, and politics, globalization addresses the transnational circulation of ideas and languages. Its impact on literature is manifold, with both positive and negative associations, wherein cultures receiving outside influences ignore some, adopt others as they are, and then immediately start to transform others. Certain aspects of globalization – such as hybridity and multi-rootedness – are increasingly present in literary texts as we witness ways in which they shape new literary forms, interrogate existing canons, and explore the emergence of ethnic canons.

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Bill Ashcroft, Wlad Godzich, Francisco Jimenez, David Marriott

As President of the US chapter of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, and as Chair of the Department of English at Santa Clara University, may I welcome you to Silicon Valley! We are delighted to be hosting this joint conference of MELUS and USACLALS, and sorry that it has grown so large that we have had to move it off campus. If you get a chance, please do take the #22 bus down Santa Clara Avenue, which quickly becomes the Alameda, and then just as quickly becomes the historic El Camino Real: and in five minutes’ time you’re at the entrance to our campus. Beautiful enough, and historic enough (a Jesuit University, the oldest college in California, and the site of one of the original Mission churches), that the quick ten minute bus ride from the Fairmont is well-worth making. Have a great and intellectually stimulating conference, everyone!

I. Thursday April 19 2:30 – 4:00

A) Cupertino: Countering Hegemonic Narratives: South Asian American and Arab American Authors’ Quest to Tell the Untold

Moderator: Alamri, Neama. California State University at Fresno

Deol, Amrit. California State University at Fresno. “Identifying Parallel Narratives: A Closer Look at Nationhood and Sexuality in Cracking India.”

Ayala, Carrie. California State University at Fresno. “‘Blooming Buds’: Growth Through Narrative in Bapsi Sidhwa’s An American Brat.”

Alamri, Neama. California State University at Fresno. “Empathy Through Narration: Moving the Center in South Asian American and Arab American Literature.”

B) Hillsborough: Reading Race: Critical Classroom Pedagogy and Transnational Feminisms

Moderator: Quinn, Roseanne. DeAnza College.

Lodhia, Sharmila. Santa Clara Univ “Disciplinary Disquiet in a Transnational World: The Politics of Curricular Change.”

Trainor, Jennifer Seibel. San Francisco State University. “Racial Memory and Classroom Practice: Emotioned Narratives of Race.”

Ruiz, María Luisa. St. Mary’s College, CA. “Visualizing the Américas in the Foreign-Language Classroom.”

Chow, Karen. DeAnza College. “Dialoguing Southeast Asian American and Pacific Islander Narratives: Converging and Diverging Politics of Identity and Place.”

C) Fairfield: Contemporary Arabic Images

Moderator: Marrouchi, Mustapha. University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

Mahamdi, Cynthia. Santa Clara University. “Revisioning El Andalus in Contemporary Arabic Historical Fiction and Film.”

McGrath, Christina. California State University at Fresno. “Same Story, Different Night: Exoticizng the Other in Craig Thompson's Habibi.”

Pickens, Therí. Bates College. “‘Never Trust the Teller?’: Patient Care in Rabih Alameddine’s Hakawati.”

D) Belvedere: Making and Breaking Codes

Moderator: Turner, Anastasia. Gainseville State College.

Schettler, Meta. Cal. State University at Fresno. “Radical Connections/Radical Breaks: African American Writers and the Haiku Form.”

Lin, Yuqing. China Normal University / University of California at Berkeley. “Warrior and Writer: Ishmael Reed and Frank Chin—Constructing Ethnic Manhood through Pre-Christian Folk Cultures.”

Nanda, Aparajita. University of California Berkeley. "Sexuality, Race, and Imperial Anxiety in Octavia Butler's Lilith’s Brood ."

E) Piedmont: Exclusion

Moderator: Brada-Williams, Noelle. San Jose State University.

Sibara, Jennifer Barager. University of Southern California. “Disability and the Alien Body: The Literature of Sui Sin Far in the Era of Chinese Exclusion.”

Baxter, Christa. Brigham Young University. “Transnational Feminism and the Reversal of the Male Gaze in Adrian Tomine’s Shortcomings.”

McNeil, Elizabeth. Arizona State University. “‘Your body in mine’: Reclaiming Female Agency through the Shamanic Limn of Water in Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Woman.”

F) Glen Ellen: Beyond Hatred

Moderator: Grace, Daphne. University College of the Bahamas.

Tanemura, Janice. University of California at Berkeley. “The Defense of Ethnic Literary Humanism in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Sapphire’s Push.”

White, Katrina. University of California at San Diego. “Presenting Absence: The CritiCalifornia Function of Lacunae in José Luis González’s ‘El arbusto en llamas’ and Ken Gonzales-Day’s ‘Erased Lynchings.’”

Mehan, Uppinder. University of Houston – Victoria. “Neoliberalism in South Asian Fiction.”

II. Thursday April 19 4:15 – 5:45

A) Piedmont: “But Don’t They Deserve It?”: Teaching Multi-Ethnic Literatures at Comprehensive State Universities

Moderator: Nuñez, Gabriela. California State Fullerton.

Lee-Keller, Hellen. California State Sacramento. “Disrupting the Model Minority Myth: Teaching Milton Murayama’s All I Asking For is My Body.”

Hester-Williams, Kim. Sonoma State University, Teaching Precious African American Urban Representation: Dyson’s Tupac and the Transfiguration of PUSH.”

Mattox, Jake. Indiana University, South Bend. “Situating Racial Knowledges in the Midwest: Teaching Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.”

B) Cupertino: Auto/Biographies

Moderator: Mahamdi, Cynthia. Santa Clara University.

Velasco, Juan. Santa Clara University. “The Topography of the Total Self: The Bilingual Trilogy of Francisco Jimenez.”

Hernandez-Jason, Beth. University of California at Merced. “Reading John Rechy Across Borders: The Transnational Reception of City of Night, Rushes and Numbers.”

Fielder, Elizabeth. University of Mississippi. “Filling in your gaps”: This Bridge Called My Back’s Legacy in Queer and Ethnic Studies.”

Rosenthall, Karen. Rice University. “The Woman in Battle: Tracing the Disguises of a Wartime Profiteer.”

C) Glen Ellen: Indigenous Performance

Moderator: Billings, Simone. Santa Clara University.

Andrews, Tria. University of California Berkeley. “Socialization through Basketball: Reinforcing Racial Stratification on the Reservation.”

Rohrleitner, Marion. University of Texas, El Paso. “Performing Indigeneity: The Uses of Indigenous Identities in Contemporary Literature of the Americas.”

Godfrey, Kathleen. California State University at Fresno. “‘Family Karma Kickback’: Genealogy and White Identity in Wendy Rose’s Itch Like Crazy.”

D) Belvedere: Transoceanic Influences

Moderator: Nanda, Aparajita. University of California at Berkeley.

Mance, Ajuan. Mills College. "‘The Haytian Scheme’: U.S. Black Writers on Haitian Independence and African American Emigration, 1852-1895.”

Metherd, Molly. St. Mary’s College, Moraga. “Diplomat or Critic?: James Weldon Johnson in Latin America.”

Isenberg, Sarina. Queen’s University. “‘Coercion by a Sweeter Name’: A Reevaluation of Henry David Thoreau's Orientalist Cosmopolitan Stance towards Hinduism in Walden and 'EthniCalifornia Scriptures.”

E) Hillsborough: available

F) Fairfield: Rooted in Two Worlds: Iran and the Literature of Its Diaspora

Moderator: Motlagh, Amy. American University (Cairo)

Arghavan, Mahmoud. Free University (Berlin). “Configuration of a Nation’s Collective Past in the Individual Narratives.”

Nasrabadi, Manijeh. New York University. “In Search of Iran: Resistant Melancholia in Iranian American Memoirs of Return.”

Rahimieh, Nasrin. University of California Irvine. “Diversity and Fictional Genres in Iranian-American Literature.”

Karim, Persis. San Jose State University. “Poetry Still Matters: Iranian American Writers and the Poetics of Diaspora.”

Thursday April 19 6 – 7:30

Atherton Reception No-Host Bar

Friday April 20 8 – 8:45

Glen Ellen MELUS membership meeting

Friday April 20 8 – 9:30 Breakfast Buffet (near registration)

III. Friday April 20 9 – 10:30

A) Piedmont: Roundtable: The Politics and Aesthetics of Shailja Patel’s Migritude

Moderator: Macharia, Keguro. University of Maryland.

Bady, Aaron. University of California at Berkeley. “The ‘Missing Performance’ in Migritude.”

Mesbah, Targol. California Institute of Integral Studies. “Transnational Approaches to Teaching Global Studies.”

Davis, Lawrence-Minh Bùi. University of Maryland. “Asian American Studies and Migritude.”

Patel, Shailja. Author. Respondent.

B) Glen Ellen: Globalizing Los Angeles: Urban Literary Imagination in the Global Post-Race Era

Moderator: Kim, Jinah. Northwestern University.

Kim, Jinah. Northwestern University. “Global Utopias: Women of Color Reimagine Los Angeles.”

Itagaki, Lynn Mie. Ohio State University. “Bystander Citizenship, Multiracial Belonging: The Trauma of the Post-Civil Rights Nation.”

Nishikawa, Kinohi. Northwestern University. “The South Side of Edinburgh.”

C) Belvedere: Love, History, and Power in the Novels of Toni Morrison

Moderator: Henke, Suzette. University of Louisville.

Wyatt, Jean. Occidental College. “Love, History, and Narrative Form in Morrison’s Jazz”

Morgenstern, Naomi. University of Toronto. “Maternal Love/Maternal Violence in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.”

George, Sheldon. Simmons College, Boston. “The House that Patriarchy Built: Fantasy and Female Sexuality in Toni Morrison’s Sula and Paradise.”

D) Cupertino: Eastern Religions in Ethnic American Literatures

Moderator: Pearson, J. Stephen. University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Gardam, Sarah. Temple University. “Asian American Tragedy”

Zhang, Benzi. Chinese University of Hong Kong. “Buddhism, Cultural Memory, and Asian American Literature.”

Turner, Anastasia Wright. Gainesville State College. “Images of Buddhism in the Works of Marilyn Chin.”

Garton, Kyle. University of Maryland. “Alice Walker’s Ethnic Dharma: Indian Religion in The Color Purple (1982) and Now is the Time to Open Your Heart (2004).”

E) Fairfield: Native Emergences and Interventions: History, Genre, Nation

Moderators: Muller, Lauren (City College of San Francisco) and Anderson, Eric (George Mason University)

Lowe, John. Louisiana State University. “Two Trains Running: The Dual Tracks of Ethnic Humor in Alexander Posey’s Fus Fixico Letters.”

Muller, Lauren Stuart. City College of San Francisco. “Wynema, Iola, and Elaine: (Inter)national Dialogues about Educational Uplift.”

Wong, Hertha Sweet. University of California Berkeley. “Countering Visual Regimes: History, Place, and Subjectivity in the Work of Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds.”

Anderson, Eric G. George Mason University. “Demon Theory for Beginners, or, The Intertextual Badlands of Stephen Graham Jones.”

F) Atherton: Moving Affectively: Narratives of Community Crossing

Moderator: Biswas, Mitali. Santa Clara University

Ford, Sachelle. Brown University. “‘ Vivid Expression of Feeling’: Love as HistoriCalifornia Singularity in Jamaica Kincaid’s Narrative of Family.”

Lee, Seulghee. University of California at Berkeley. “‘Exotic Fagdom’: Queer Love as Abject Political Modality in Delaney and Baraka.”

G) Club Regent: Toward Cross-Cultural Understanding: Reading Trauma in a Global Context

Moderator: Rod McRae, University of West Georgia.

McMahand, Donnie. Tulane University. “Now is the Time to Open Your Heart: Alice Walker’s Model for a Global Black South.”

Propst, Lisa. University of West Georgia. “Indefinable Connections in South Africa and Northern Ireland: A Transnational Reconciliation Discourse.”

McRae, Rod. University of West Georgia. “Disposal and Diaspora: Post-Colonial Displacement in Australian Drama.”

Feikema, Denise. University of North Carolina at Pembroke. “‘Writing Could Be the Boat Carry You to the Other Side’: Self-Expression Resolves Family-School Conflict in Sapphire’s Push.”

Coffee Break 10:15 – 11:00

IV. Friday April 20 10:45 – 12:15

A) Piedmont: Ethnic Lite

Moderator: Rohatgi, Avantika. Santa Clara University

Skinazi, Karen. Princeton University. “Picturing the Passing Body in Marion: The Story of an Artist’s Model and films of 1927.”

Boo, Kyung-Sook. Sogang University (Korea). “Becoming American: Culturally Performed American Identity Construction and Shifting Racial Paradigms in Contemporary American Fiction and Film.”

Mukherjee, Sharmila. Bronx Community College, CUNY. “Bollylite.”

B) Glen Ellen: Poetry, Performance, and Gender in Poetry of the Americas

Moderator: Robbins, Wendy. University of New Brunswick.

Neigh, Janet. Pennsylvania State University, Erie. “Restaging Recitation in Contemporary Caribbean and First Nations Women’s Poetry.”

Bloch, Julia. Bard College. “U.S. Women Poets Perform the Archive.”

Dowling, Sarah. University of Pennsylvania. “Performance Reimagines the Page: M. NourbeSe Philip’s Unpoetic Translations.”

C) Belvedere: Translations and Translocations

Moderator: Moukhlis, Salah M. California State University at San Marcos.

Menon, Nirmala. St. Anselm College. “Re-Imagining Postcolonial Translation: Imaginary Maps and the Need for New Approaches to Translation Theory.”

Rojas, Theresa. Ohio State University. “Melodrama in Translation: The Global Rise of the Telenovela.”

Yoo, JaeEun. Hanyang University, Korea. “Looking After Translation: Politics of Difference in Please Look After Mom.”

D) Club Regent: Alternative Modernities, I

Moderator: Lynn, Thomas J. Pennsylvania State University.

Huh, Jang Wook. Columbia University. “Translation for Canonization: Melvin B. Tolson, Modernism, and the Poetics of Grafting.”

Dao, Anh Thang. University of Southern California. “A Different Modernism: Race, Language and colonialism in Monique Truong’s Book of Salt.”

Zerby, Deighton. Louisiana State University. “Modernism, Affect, and the Expression of Alterity in American Ethnic Literatures.”

Glazer, Lindsay. Florida International University. “Anti-Semitism as Metonymy in The Great Gatsby and Modernism.”

E) Fairfield: Borderlands, I

Moderator: Zaghmouri, Lena M. California State University at Fresno.

Dennihy, Melissa. CUNY, The Graduate Center and Baruch College. “Linguistic Borderlands: Reconceptualizing Multilingualism in the Field of ‘American’ Literature.

Fernandez, Miriam. California State University at Fresno. “Borderland Narratives: Tensions in Representation, Identification, and Race.”

Armstrong, Jasmine Marshall. Independent Scholar. “Hybrid Heritages, Transnational Concerns and Living in La Frontera: The Mexican American Poets of California’s Central Valley.”
F) Atherton: Women of Color Caucus: Teaching Across Difference

Join a facilitated Civic Reflection discussion about pedagogy in the diverse classroom.

Moderator: Georgina Dodge, University of Iowa.

G) Cupertino: A Transnational ‘Genius’: Yiyun Li

Moderator: Chua, C. Lok. California State University at Fresno.

Yang, Lingyan. Indiana University of Pennsylvania. “Between the Brutal Winter and the Free Spring in Post-Cultural Revolution China: Yiyun Li’s Literary Naturalism in the Novel of The Vagrants (2009).”

Li, Wenxin. Suffolk Community College, State Univerisity of New York. “Yiyun Li’s ‘Immortality’ as PolitiCalifornia Allegory.”

Brada-Williams, Noelle. San Jose State University. “Feminine Identities and Relationships in Yiyun Li’s ‘The Proprietress.’”

Chow, Balance. San Jose State University. “From Ethnography to Ethnology: Global Contextuality and Transnational Identity.”

Friday April 20 12:15 – 1:15 lunch break, on your own

1:00 Piedmont Book Launch (dessert served)

Literature for Our Times: Postcolonial Studies in the Twenty-First Century.

Ashcroft, Bill, Ranjini Mendis, Julie McGonegal, and Arun Mukherjee (Eds.) Amsterdam/New York, NY: Rodopi, 2012.

V. Friday April 20 1:30 – 3:00

A) Piedmont: Redefining Canons of Ethnicity

Moderator: Mullis, Angela. Rutgers University.

Smyth, Heather. University of Waterloo (Canada). “Coalition as an Alternative to Ethnic Canons in Transnational/Multicultural Literatures.”

Srivastava, Prem Kumari. Delhi University. “Leslie A Fiedler: Re-bordering the American Canon (A Post-colonial Perspective).”

Taylor, Richard A. East Carolina University. “Something there is that doesn't love a wall.”

Tuszynska, Agnieszka. University of Illinois. “You Cannot Change Your Grandfathers: Louis Adamic's Counternarrative in Grandsons Vis-à-vis The Repressed Past in The Great Gatsby.”

B) Glen Ellen: Britain’s Hybrids

Moderator: McCallum, Pamela. University of Calgary.

Valkeakari, Tuire. Providence College. “George Lamming’s Dialogue with French Existentialism in The Emigrants.”

Husain, Kasim. McMaster University. “Neoliberalizing Hybridity: ‘Bling-Bling Economics’ and the Politics of Asian British Identity in Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani.”

Kattekola, Lara. Temple U/New Jersey City University. “Transnationalizing the Nation in Gurinder Chadha’s Bend it Like Beckham.”

Santesso, Esra. University of Georgia. “Transnationalism and the Muslim Diaspora in Camilla Gibb’s Sweetness in the Belly.”

C) Fairfield: Children’s Literature

Moderator: Godfrey, Kathleen. California State University at Fresno.

Snell, Heather. University of Winnipeg. “Outward Bound: Exploring the Emergence of a Multi-Ethnic Canon of Young Adult Literature in Canada and the United States.”

Lesuma, Caryn. Brigham Young University. “Transcultural Dialogism: Decolonizing Fairy Tales in Josephine Evetts-Secker’s Tale Collections for Children.”

D) Cupertino: Religion and Ethnicity

Moderator: Edelstein, Marilyn. Santa Clara University.

Lesa, Alexis. Brigham Young University. “That’s Not Kosher: Sammy Clay’s Jewishness and Homosexuality in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.”

Gravely, Jessica. Prairie State College. “Seeking ‘Sacred Respect’: Figuring the Holocaust in the Contemporary Ethnic American Imagination.”

Luca, Ioana. National Taiwan Normal University. “Toward an Eastern European Canon in Contemporary American Literature?”

E) Belvedere: Borderlands, II

Moderator: Mahamdi, Cynthia. Santa Clara University.

Perez, Richard. John Jay College, City University of New York. “Aesthetic States; Identified Borders: The Art of Bare Life in Across A Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande.”

Perez, Tabitha. Texas A&M, Corpus Christi. “Along the Border: The Study of the South Texas Borderlands as an International Space and the Interaction of Different Cultures in Literature.”

Villalba, Carolina. University of Miami. “Playing Border Games: The Transnational Figure of the Child in the Works of Henry Roth and Ernesto Galarza.”

F) Atherton: Women and Arabic

Moderator: Marrouchi, Mustapha. University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

El Gendy, Nancy. University of Oklahoma. “Exploring Muslim Women: The Representation of the Female Body in Diana Abu-Jaber’s Crescent.”

Terzian, Sylvia. Wilfred Laurier University. “Feminist Voices in the Arab Diaspora: Representing Muslim Female Identity in Arab-American Women’s Writing.”

Harris, Will. United Emirates University. “Phillis Wheatley, Inti Bi Tikhi Arabi (Do You Speak Arabic?).”

G) Club Regent: Identities

Moderator: Xu, Wenying. Florida Atlantic University.

Ashtiani, Maryam. California State University at Fresno. “The Physical and Bodily Intersections of Racialized Identities in Nella Larsen’s Passing.”

Calihman, Matthew. Missouri State University. “Race, Ethnicity, and the Intellectual Type in John A. Williams’s The Man Who Cried I Am.”

Kraus, Joseph. Scranton University. “Between Amputation and Gangrene, or Learning to Live with Ambivalence: A Cool Reading of Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son.”

VI. Friday April 20 3:15 – 4:45

A) Piedmont: Taking It to the Streets: Ideas for Community Engagement Through the Multi-Ethnic Literature Classroom

Moderator: Stanciu, Cristina. Virginia Commonwealth University.

Fazio, Michele. University of North Carolina, Pembroke. “Class Reflections.”

Askeland, Lori. Wittenberg University. “Down on the Farm: 19^th Century ‘Orphans’ Meet 21^st Century ‘At Risk’ Urban Youth.”

Turner, Anastasia Wright. Gainesville State College. “Educating Otherwise: Combining Education, Literature, and Multiethnic Studies in the Deep South.”

Floreani, Tracy. Oklahoma City University. “Creativity and Civic Engagement with Human Rights Issues.”

B) Glen Ellen: Jhumpa Lahiri

Moderator: Guttman, Anna. Lakehead University

Chatterjee, Antara. University of Leeds, UK. “Articulating a Transnational Subjectivity: Jhumpa Lahiri and the Bengali-American Diasporic Experience.”

Ding, Yuan. University of Kansas. “Transnational Imagination and Locality in Jhumpa Lahiri's Novel The Namesake.”

Marwah, Anuradha. Delhi University. “Marketing Authentic India in the Time of Globalization: From Arundhati Roy to Jhumpa Lahiri.”

C) Belvedere: Native American Questions

Moderator: Muller, Lauren Stuart. City College of San Francisco.

Udel, Lisa. Illinois College. “Literary History in the Works of LeAnne Howe and Diane Glancy.”

Busse, Cassel. McMaster University. “Animal Ghosts, Colonial Haunting: The Shadows of History Beyond Benjamin and Derrida.”

Anderson, Eric G. George Mason University. “Black and White and Red All Over: Reading ‘Southern’ through ‘Native.’”

D) Cupertino: Border Crossings

Moderator: Jayathurai, Nimmi. University of Houston.

Edelstein, Marilyn. Santa Clara University. “Imagining Cross-Racial and Cross-Cultural Empathy in Short Fiction by Jhumpa Lahiri and Sandra Cisneros”

Mermann-Jozwiak, Elisabeth. Texas A&M, Corpus Christi. “Immigrant Enclave or Transnational Switching Point? Demotic Cosmopolitanism in Francisco Goldman’s Brooklyn.”

Torres, Jonathan. Georgia College. “Refusing the Return: Identity over Nationalism in Caribbean Women’s Fiction.”

Das, Amrita. University of North Carolina at Wilmington. “Daniel Alarcón: A Case Study of a Transnational Author.”

E) Fairfield: Public Performance

Moderator: Fielder, Elizabeth. University of Mississippi.

Hoagland, George. University of Minnesota, Duluth. “Paul Beatty, Myth, and Resistance.”

Wanjala, Alex. University of Nairobi. “The Poetics of ‘Genge’: Jua Cali’s Niimbie.”

Van Dahm, Stacey. Philadelphia University . “Narrating Belonging: Latino/a Mural Art in Philadelphia.”

F) Atherton: Historical Retrieval, I

Moderator: Robbins, Wendy. University of New Brunswick.

Ferguson, Sally Ann. University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “Angelina Grimke's Rachel: Black Infanticide and Literary Darwinism.”

Johnson, Sherry. Grand Valley State University. “(Re)Viewing the Promiseland in Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes.”

Meyers, Helene. Southwestern University (Texas). “Here and/or Elsewhere?: Locating Contemporary Jewish American Literature.”

G) Club Regent: Asian American Presentation

Moderator: Yang, Lingyan. Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Zeng, Minhao. University of Alberta. “Contemporary Asian American Drama: Staging Ethnic Cosmopolitanism.”

Gardam, Sarah. Temple University. “Theories of Tragedy in Asian American Literature.”

Santos, Jorge. University of Connecticut. “Donald Duk and Double-Dissonance: Rescuing History from the History Books.”

Friday April 20 5:30 – 6:45

Club Regent Plenary David Marriott and Francisco Jimenez

Official Welcome: William Rewak, S.J., Chancellor, Santa Clara University

Saturday April 21 8:00 – 8:30

Piedmont USACLALS Business Meeting

Breakfast Buffet 8:00 – 9:30 (near registration)

VII. Saturday April 21 8:30 – 10:00

A) Piedmont: Graduate Student discussion,

Chris Gonzalez, coordinator.

B) Glen Ellen: Writing Across Cultures: Collisions and Continuities

Moderator: Ruvoli, JoAnne. University of California at Los Angeles.

Bona, Mary Jo. State University of New York at Stony Brook,. “‘She’s Got a Ticket to Ride’: Hester’s Needle, Migratory Women, and Mending Fragmentation in the New World.”

Hendin, Josephine. New York University. “Universal Cities: Transnationalism, Urban Ethnicity, and Postmodern Form.”

Quinn, Roseanne. DeAnza College. “‘The Women lay down in front of the bulldozers’: Embodied Feminist Poetics and Transnational Feminist Trends in the Work of Diane de Prima.”

Ruvoli, JoAnne. Respondent.

C) Belvedere: Transnational Reconfigurations of Race in Multiethnic Literature

Moderator: Hemstrom, Cassie. University of Nevada at Reno.

Yamshon, Lyndee. University of Illinois, Chicago. “Representations of Jewish Marriages Across a Transnational Covenant.”

Das, Smita. University of Illinois, Chicago. “New England Writers and Transnational Body Politics.”

Malik, Surbhi. University of Illinois, Chicago. “Transnationalism and Politcal Consciousness in Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”

D) Cupertino: Roundtable: Transnational Asian American Studies, or Teaching Asian American Studies Outside of the U.S.

Moderator: Zeng, Minhao. University of Alberta.

Beauregard, Guy. National Taiwan University “Voices in the Clouds? Asian American Subjects in Taiwan.”

Chung, Hyeyurn. Sungshin Women’s University (South Korea). “Teaching to Transgress?: Teaching Asian American Literature in Korean Classrooms”

Tong, Donna. Fu Jen University (Taiwan). “Teaching Asian American Women Writers in Taiwan.”

E) Fairfield: Canada

Moderator: Mendis, Ranjini. Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Canada).

Austen, Veronica. St. Jerome’s/Waterloo University (Canada). “The Photograph as Prosthesis in Dionne Brand’s What We All Long For.”

Chen, Leilei. University of Alberta. “Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation and Zhangzi’s Taoism.”

Robbins, Wendy. University of New Brunswick. “Academic Women’s Memoirs:

Transnational Feminisms and the Transformation of Literary Studies in Canada.”

F) Atherton: Caribbean Questions

Moderator: Elizabeth McNeil, Arizona State University.

Collins, Corrine. Brigham Young University. “The Voodoo Gods and Haitian-American Female Identity in Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak!”

Stratford, Candice. Brigham Young University. “Trauma Recovery through Ritual in Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker.”

Kilinski, April. North Georgia College & State University. “Erna Brodber’s Myal: The Female Body as Metaphor for Social Disease.”

Birkhofer, Melissa. University of North Carolina. “Rewriting a Family Herstory in Achy Obejas’s Memory Mambo.”

G) Club Regent: Transnational Exchange

Moderator: Nenevé, Miguel. University of Rondonia (Brazil).

Little, Jonathan. Alverno College. “Theories of Transnational Exchange: From Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? to Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell.”

Anderson, David. University of Louisville. “Global Pilgrimage in Marilyn Nelson’s The Cachoeira Tales.”

Chen, Wilson. Benedictine University. AutobiographiCalifornia Performance and the Global South: James Weldon Johnson’s Inter/National Subject in Along This Way.”

VIII. Saturday April 21 10:15 – 11:45

A) Piedmont: Nigeria

Moderator: Egbunike, Louisa. School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

Arseneault, Jesse. McMaster University. “Negotiating Humanity Alongside Animal Others: Lessons from Animals in Buchi Emecheta’s Second Class Citizen.”

Choi, Sodam. State University of New York, Buffalo. “Speaking the Unspoken: From the Transnational to the Anti-Anthropocentric.”

Ihejirika, Anne. York University (Canada). “The Transnational Trend in Contemporary Nigerian Poetry.”

B) Glen Ellen: Latin Hybridity

Moderator: Latorre, Sobeira. Southern Connecticut State University.

Adams-Handy, Amanda. University of Hawaii. “Singing the Self: Testimonio and the Internalization of Racism within Americo Parades’s With His Pistol in His Hand.”

HHWilliams, Malinda. University of Denver. “Too Light to be Right: The Shifting Implications of Color in Angie Cruz’s Soledad.”

Freed, Joanne Lipson. Ohio University. “Genre, Truth, and Diaspora in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.”

Wu, Shaojing. University of Arkansas. “Garden as a Social Enclave in the Twentieth Century.”

C) Cupertino: Representation

Moderator: Kaiserman, Adam. UC Santa Barbara

Kaiserman, Adam. University of California at Santa Barbara, Center for Black Studies Research. “Media Literacy in Ishmael Reed’s Juice!”

Dietrich, Lucas. University of New Hampshire. “‘Mr. Dooley’s Discourses’: Irish-America and Popular Print Culture.”

Cristina Stanciu. Virginia Commonwealth University. “The Complicit Silents: Americanization on the Silver Screen, 1902-1920.”

D) Belvedere: Violent Vestiges

Moderator: McNeil, Elizabeth. Arizona State University.

Moynihan, Susan M. State University of New York, Buffalo. “‘Welcome Home’: The Transnational Inheritance of Violence in Vietnamese American Memoirs.”

Nguyen, Vinh. McMaster University. “The Refugee Gangster in Vietnamese American Literature.”

He, Yuemin. Northern Virginia Community College. “Past War and Present Construction of a Southeast Asian American Identity in Memoirs.”

Martin, Holly. Appalachian State University. “Mental Illness as a Trope of Resistance in Hualing Nieh’s Mulberry and Peach.”

E) Fairfield: How to Publish and Not Perish: A Practical Roundtable

Moderator: Amritjit Singh, Ohio University.

F) Atherton: Documenting Places, Placing Documents

Moderator: Yang, Lingyan. Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Xu, Wenying. Florida Atlantic University. “Chinatown, San Francisco in the Novels of Mae Myenne Ng.”

Paudyal, Binod. University of Utah, Salt Lake City. “Paper Fathers Produce Paper Sons: Documents in Kingston’s China Men.”

McCallum, Pamela. University of Calgary (Canada). “Writing at the Crossroads: Intersections of storytelling in Biyi Bandele’s The Street.”

Saturday April 21 Noon – 1:30

Club Regent Luncheon (those who have indicated special dietary needs have been supplied with a color-coded ticket in their registration packet; please place this prominently on your table setting) Speaker: Wlad Godzich

“Beyond Identity: Bearings”

IX. Saturday April 21 1:45 – 3:15

A) Piedmont: Roundtable: State of the Multiethnic Union: Archives

Moderator: Bona, Mary Jo. State Univerity of New York, Stony Brook.

Chua, Lok C. California State University at Fresno. “Maxine Hong Kingston.”

Ruvoli, JoAnne. University of California at Los Angeles. “Accessing Archives and Making Archives Accessible.”

Cutter, Martha. University of Connecticut, Storrs. “Sui Sin Far and the Southwest Museum in Los Angeles.”

Whiteman, Deborah. Santa Clara University. “Special Collections.”

Gardaphe, Fred. Queens College/CUNY. “Research Archives and Ethnic Studies programs.”

B) Glen Ellen: Hamid and Halaby

Moderator: Maini, Irma. New Jersey City University.

Altmaier, Catherine. Florida State University. “The Reluctant Fundamentalist’s “Ugly Feelings”: Founding Traumas and Cultural Stereotypes.”

Schultermandl, Silvia. University of Graz (Austria). “Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Performing Transnationalism through Narrative Ambiguity.”

Najmi, Samina. California State University, Fresno. “The Personal and the Pedagogical: Teaching as a Pakistani American Muslim Feminist.”

C) Belvedere: African Representation

Moderator: Hawley, John C. Santa Clara University.

Mueller, Anne. University of California at Los Angeles. “Where was the West? : The Implications of Europeans in the Rwandan Genocide as Read in Le feu sous la soutane and Le passé devant soi.”

Pipino, Mimi. Lake Erie College. “Where is the Where? Explorations/Representations of Africa in Contemporary U.S. Texts.”

Salzer, Maureen. Pima Community College. “How to Write About White Africa: Alexandra Fuller through the Looking Glass of Binyavanga Wainaina.”

D) Cupertino: Shifting Cartographies, I

Moderator: Kilinski, April. North Georgia College and State University.

Harris, Allison. University of Tennessee. “Azucar Loca: Transnational Neuroses and Maternal Nourishment in Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban.”

Herrera, Cristina. California State University at Fresno. “Snapshots from the Mother Road: Travel and Motherhood in Lorraine López’s The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters.”

Gonzalez, Christopher. Ohio State University. “‘Echando Palabras’: Narrative Cartography and the Innavigable Roadmap in Sandra Cisnerso’s Caramelo.”

E) Fairfield: Historical Retrieval, II

Moderator: Srivastava, Prem Kumari. Delhi University.

Bushnell, Cameron. Clemson University. “Rita Dove’s Sonata Mulattica: A New Genre for the Restoration of History.”

Andrews, Jennifer. University of New Brunswick. “Reading The Bricklin: Rethinking the Atlantic Region through the Disco Era.”

Chadha, Simran. Delhi University. “Ethnic Deconstructions in Writings from a Post Colony.”

Singh, Amritjit. Ohio University. “Lures of Empire and Ironies of Victimhood in World War II: Internment Camps in North America and Indonesia.”

F) Atherton: Indian Transnationalism

Moderator: Paudyal, Binod. University of Utah, Salt Lake City.

Prasad, Murari. D.S.College, Bihar, India. “Perspectives on Globalization in Indian English Writing.”

Shende, Dharamdas. Nagpur University (India). “Reading Her-stories in Daughters and Desirable Daughters: Constructing American Conscience.”

Coffee Break 3:00 – 3:30

X. Saturday April 21 3:30 – 5:00

A) Piedmont: Re-Imagining the California Dream: Developing a New Cultural Narrative

Moderator: Noy, Gary. Editor-in-Chief, Sierra College Press.

Noy, Gary. co-editor, The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology, chair of panel, Director, Center for Sierra Nevada Studies, Editor-in-Chief, Sierra College Press

Nanda, Aparajita. University of California Berkeley. editor, Black California: A Literary Anthology,

Nolan, Ruth. College of the Desert, Palm Desert. editor, No Place for a Puritan: the Literature of California’s Desert.

Heide, Rick. editor, Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California; co-editor, The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology,

B) Atherton: Revolution

Moderator: Santesso, Esra. University of Georgia.

Marrouchi, Mustapha. University of Nevada at Las Vegas. “Willed from the Bottom Up: The Postcolonial Turned Revolutionary.”

Maini, Irma. New Jersey City University. “Arab Spring and Arab American identity in Laila Halaby’s works."

Koegeler, Martina. State University of New York at Stony Brook. “Transnational Trauma Aesthetics in Laila Halaby’s Once in a Promised Land.”

Zahiri, Abdollah. Seneca College. “Another Voice from the Margin of Postcolonial Theory: An Anticolonial Reading of Forough Farrokhzad’s Poetry.”

C) Belvedere: African Locations

Moderator: Snell, Heather. University of Winnipeg.

Egbunike, Louisa Uchum. School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London. “The Commodified Body and the Restless Spirit in Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street.”

Fernandez, Jose. Western Illinois University. “The Material Side of Paradise in Dinaw Mengestu’s The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears.”

Moura- Koçoğlu, Michaela. Florida International University. “After Conflict, Into Struggle: Gender Roles and Revisions in Lusophone and Anglophone African Women’s Writing.”

Rosenblithe, Anita. Raritan Valley Community College. “On and Off ‘Colour’ in Wicomb’s David’s Story: The Legacy of Saartje Baartman in the New South Africa.”

D) Cupertino: Border-Crossing Tales

Moderator: White, Katrina. University of California at San Diego.

Nenevé, Miguel. University of Rondonia (Brazil). “Ethnicity and globalization in Pauline Melville´s The Ventriloquist´s Tale.”

Grace, Daphne. University College of the Bahamas. “The ‘Waters Where Hell Begins’: Perils of the Transnational Voyage in Contemporary Caribbean Literature.”

Latorre, Sobeira. Southern Connecticut State University. “Afro-Boricua Women’s Testimonios.”

E) Fairfield: Limits of Multiculturalism

Moderator: Zeng, Minhao. University of Alberta.

Wang, Su-ching. University of Washington. “Asian American Critique and Multiculturalist American Domesticity.”

Lee, Hsiu-chuan . National Taiwan Normal University. “Asian America in Asia/America Distance and Transference: Asian American Studies in Taiwan.”

Guttman, Anna. Lakehead University. “Jewish/Indian/American: Narrating Between Race, Faith, Ethnicity and Nation in Carmit Delman’s Burnt Bread and Chutney (2002) and Sadia Shepard’s The Girl from Foreign (2008).”

F) Glen Ellen: The Person in Context

Moderator: Anderson, Sara. University of California at Davis.

Huang, Su-ching. East Carolina University. “Racial Melancholia in Suki Kim’s Novel The Interpreter.”

Jayathurai, Nimmi Agnes. University of Houston. “Rising Phoenixes: Subjugation and Agency in Mother-Daughter Relationships in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Joss and Gold and Lydia Kwa’s This Place Called Absence.”

Patterson, Christopher. University of Washington. “Labor-Power versus Cultural-Power: Ethnicity as Symbolic Capital in Hwee Hwee Tan’s Mammon Inc.”

Stefani, Debora. Georgia State University. “National Identity Reconsidered: The Intersection of Ethnicity and Sexuality in The Book of Salt.”

Saturday April 21 5:30 – 6:45

Club Regent Plenary Bill Ashcroft

“A Borderless World: Literature, Nation, Transnation”

XI. Sunday April 22 9 – 10:15

A) Piedmont: “Ethnic and Transnational Literatures: Pedagogical Issues and Approaches.”

Moderator: Lynn, Thomas J. Pennsylvania State University, Berkshire

Lynn, Thomas J. Pennylvania State University, Berkshire. “On Teaching Chinua Achebe and ‘Other’ Writers: The Sky Is not Falling But the Canon May Be Falling Apart.”

Stanciu, Cristina. Virginia Commonwealth University. “Teaching United States Ethnic Literatures with Film and Other Media.”

Smith, Tom. Pennsylvania State University, Abington. “‘Why Should I Care About Postcolonial Theory?’: Teaching Postcolonialism in a General Education Course.”

Deka, Mayuri. University of the Bahamas. “‘Same/Different’: Empathic Reading within the Transnational Literature Classroom.”

B) Belvedere: Shifting Cartographies, II

Moderator: Bushnell, Cameron. Clemson University.

Moukhlis, Salah. California State University at San Marcos. “Localized Literatures in the Age of Multiculturalism."

Linda, Dana M. University of California at Los Angeles. “Chronicled Cartographies: Reading the U.S. South as Serial Narrative Across Yoknapatawpha and Belken County.”

Pooch, Melanie. University of Mannheim (Germany). “The Transcultural Novel: Multi-Ethnic Literature and the Global City of Los Angeles.”

Ahmadi, Farnaz University of Tabriz, Iran. “The Role of Space in Making Jim ‘One of Us’ in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim/A Postcolonial Spatial Perspective.”

C) Glen Ellen: Savage Harvest: Capital, Farm Labor, and Chicana/o Farm-Worker Fiction

Moderator: Armstrong, Jasmine Marshall. Independent Scholar.

López, Dennis. California State University at Long Beach. “The Ghosts in the Barn: Fetishism, Farm Labor, and the Body as an Accumulation Strategy in Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus.”

Ramírez, Abraham. University of California at Berkeley. “Silenced Histories, Variable-Capital, and the Zone of Non-Being."

González, Marcial. University of California at Berkeley. “Chicano/a Farm Worker Narratives: Storytelling in Lieu of Class Struggle”

D) Cupertino: A Queer Diasporic Time and Place: On South Asian and Southeast Asian American Literatures

Moderator: LaGuardia, Dolores. Santa Clara University.

Solomon, Amanda Lee. University of California at San Diego. “The Queer Trans-Nationalism of Philippine Independence.”

Kini, Ashvin. University of California at San Diego. “‘Cultural bastards, dat is what we is’: The Time and Space of Queer Diaspora.”

Tagle, Thea Quiray. University of California at San Diego. “Ifugao spirits in the opposite of Eden: On a Filipino / American Poetics of Place."

E) Atherton: Radical Displacement and Home-Seeking in African-American and Indian Narratives

Moderator: Mitra, Keya. Gonzaga University.

Maucione, Jessica. Gonzaga University. “Southern Nostalgia in Edward P. Jones’s All Aunt Hagar’s Children.”

Mullis, Angela. Rutgers University. “Reversed Migrations: Return without Renewal in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s The Sport of the Gods.”

Mitra, Keya. Gonzaga University. “Displacement and Untouchability in Arundhadi Roy’s The God of Small Things and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.”

F) Fairfield: Roundtable: Spaces of Crossing: Tracing Home in Latina/o and Chicana/o Poetics

Moderator: Esquibel, Catriona Rueda.

Alarcón, Wanda. University of California at Berkeley. “Could I Be Chicano Without Carlos Santana?: Chicana/o Subjectivity and Sound.”

Silva, Liana. Binghamton University. “Waking Up Dominican: The Myth of Assimilation and Hybrid Identity in Angie Cruz’s Soledad.”

Pérez, Annemarie. Loyola Marymount University. “Cosmopolis Aztlán: Chicana/o Poetics and Resistance to Nation.”

Garcia, George G. Univ. of Texas at Brownsville. “Poetry of Rodolfo ‘Corky’ Gonzales and Daniel Garcia Ordaz.”

Discussant: Catriona Rueda Esquibel, San Francisco State University.

XII. Sunday April 22 10:30 – 11:45

A) Piedmont: Alternative Modernities, II

Moderator: Menon, Nirmala. St. Anselm’s College.

Dar, Huma. Mills College. “Gender/Political Drag and Un(Man)ageability of Postcolonial Pakistan.”

Rohatgi, Avantika. Santa Clara University. “The Global Charge of the Bollywood Brigade: Cultural Regeneration of the Indian Ethos through Modern Cinema.”

Nexica, Irene. University of California at Berkeley. “Bollywood songs and their signification of cultural inclusion/exclusion.”

B) Glen Ellen: Leslie Marmon Silko

Moderator: Gonzalez, Marcial. University of California at Berkeley.

Silva, Marisol. University of California at Berkeley. “Un-American? Alternative? Other? Knowledge and Epistemology in U.S. Ethnic Literature and Culture.”

Le, Nhu. University of California at Santa Barbara. “Ugly Alliances, Uneasy Solidarities: Affect and Asian America in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Hemispheric Vision of Decolonization.”

Anderson, Sara. University of California at Davis. “Reading the Historial Future of the Americas: The History of Almanacs and Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead.”

C) Belvedere: Chicana Feminisms

Moderator: Perez, Annemarie Perez. Loyola Marymount University.

Garcia, Mary. University of California at Santa Barbara. “Chicana Writers and the Embodied Notion of Loss.”

Álvarez, Erin. California State University at Fresno. “La Nueva Chicana: Estrella and the Chicana Feminist Movement in Under the Feet of Jesus.”

Perez, Annemarie. Loyola Marymount University. “Sisterhood's Elizabeth Sutherland, or The Case of the Second Chicana.”

D) Cupertino: Jessica Hagedorn

Moderator: Cutter, Martha. University of Connecticut.

Crawford, Danielle. San Jose State University. “Lost Voices: Uncovering the Babaylan/Catalonan in the Postcolonial Filipino Novel.”

Lawrence, Patrick. University of Connecticut. “Multiple Perspectives, Singular Visions: Varieties of Narrative Power in Dogeaters and Tropic of Orange.”

Hemstrom, Cassie. University of Nevada, Reno. “Post-neo-neo-neocolonialism”: American/Philippines Exchanges and Linked Constructions of Race, Class and Identity in Jessica Hagedorn’s Dream Jungle.”

E) Fairfield: Disparate Forces of the U.S.-Iraq Wars

Moderator: Smith, Thomas Russell. Pennsylvania State University, Abington.

Cook, Ryan. California State University at Fresno. “Musical Seduction and Haunting Noises in Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet.”

García, Adam Donny. California State University at Fresno. “Conversations in Identity: Nuha Al-Radi’s Baghdad Diaries and Misrepresentation of Iraqis.”

Zaghmouri, Lena. California State University at Fresno. “Moving Toward Empathy: Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet.”

F) Atherton: “Theater of Witness: Representations of the Post-9/11 Other in Transatlantic Drama”

Moderator: Souza, Christopher. California State University at Fresno.

Souza, Christopher. California State University at Fresno. “Radicals for Peace in American Tet and Prophecy.”

Davis, Michelle. California State University of at Fresno. “The Monsters We Make: Dehumanization in Lydia Stryk’s American Tet.”

Reed-Nolan, Yinka Rose. California State University at Fresno. “Bearing Witness in Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.”

Acknowledgments:

Sincere thanks for financial support from the following units on the Santa Clara University campus, and from local colleges and Universities:

Santa Clara University English Department; USACLALS; SCU College of Arts and Sciences; SCU Provost’s Office; SCU Dept of Political Science; Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies; SCU Law School Center for Global Law and Policy; SCU Dept of Theatre and Dance; SCU Dept. of History; SCU Law School Center for Social Justice and Public Service; SCU Women’s and Gender Studies program; SCU Dept of Liberal Studies; SCU Dept of Modern Languages; Stanford University English Department; University of California Berkeley English Department; California State University at Fresno English Department; SCU Dept of Philosophy; SCU Department of Anthropology; SCU Dept of Sociology; SCU Latin American Studies program; Mills College English Department; University of California at Los Angeles American Indian Studies Center; SCU Dept of Religious Studies.

Thanks to Jessica Norred and Jefferson Dela Cruz, administrative assistants in the SCU English department, for organizational details (Jessica) and program design and production (Jefferson); to Kim Long, who handled registrations through Paypal; to Wenying Xu and Amritjit Singh, for sage counsel; to Chris Gonzalez, for organizing the graduate student participants; to Mary Lynn Howe, of The Scholar’s Choice, for the book display.

The 27th MELUS Conference Call for Papers March 14-17, 2013 Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Theme: The Changing Landscape of American Multiethnic Literature

through Historical Crises

When we look back, what kinds of historical, global, national, institutional, political, cultural, racial, socio-economic, and sexual crises has American multiethnic literature engaged in, critiqued, reflected, challenged, reacted to artistically, and moved beyond? How have the various landscapes of American multiethnic literature changed? How has the American multiethnic literature challenged and enriched the American national literature and culture as well as contributed to the Anglophone global literature? How has the multiethnic genre changed and evolved? How have the multiple critiCalifornia categories of language, race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, culture, power, history, nation and geography complicated and enriched our scholarship and pedagogy in American multiethnic literature?

As we look forward, what are the new directions in American multiethnic literature in the 21^st century? How do globalization, transnationalism, postcoloniality, and diaspora impact the studies and teaching of American multiethnic literature? What are the new studies in American multiethnic women’s literature? What are some of the cross-ethnic comparative literary analyses that can be exiting?

We invite paper abstracts and complete panels, workshops, and roundtable proposals on all aspects of the American multiethnic literatures of the United States. We are particularly interested in proposals that explore the changing landscapes of American multiethnic literature either in the past centuries and decades through multiple global, national, institutional, or cultural crises, or the various new directions in American ethnic literature in the 21^st century. Any proposal for a complete panel, roundtable, or workshop should include a short description of the central topic, supplemented by brief individual abstracts. Please also indicate clearly if you need audiovisual equipment.

Deadline for abstracts and proposals (250 words in Microsoft Word): Oct. 31, 2012.

Please email abstracts to both Professors Lingyan Yang (lingyan@iup.edu) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Kim Long (kmlong@ship.edu) at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. They are MELUS 2013 Conference Committee co-chairs.

All presenters, chairs, and moderators must be members of MELUS. Colleagues in USACLALS are welcome to participate. MELUS membership information can be found on the MELUS website at www.melus.org. MELUS membership dues and registration fees must be mailed directly to MELUS.

MELUS 2013 Conference Hotel: Omni William Penn Hotel 530 William Penn Place Pittsburgh, PA 15219 Tel: 412-280-7100 Fax: 412-553-5252 http://www. omnihotels.com $129/night (excluding tax)

CFP: RACE AND THE SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORA

13^th Annual SALA (South Asian Literary Association) Conference

Boston, USA 2-3 January 2013

Deadline for Submission of Abstracts: SUNDAY, 5th AUGUST 2012

· How have different formulations and cultural productions of diaspora conceptualized and/or considered race?

· In what ways—historically and in the present—have geopolitical and global economic forces affected the reception and racialization of South Asians?

· How do the contested discursive practices of difference, such as assimilationism and multiculturalism, unsettle politics of identity that are couched in racialized nation-building projects?

· In what ways have diasporic artists and writers articulated or visualized these differences in literature, cinema, and other productions?

· How have South Asians responded to or positioned themselves with regards to indigenous peoples and other ethno-racial minorities?

· How might the intricacies related to the discriminatory attitudes towards the “other” implicate the racial subjectivities of South Asians?

Possible topics may include:

· Race: historical and contemporary processes

· Comparative Racializations

· Race and Colourism

· Race and Law (legal systems, immigration policies, exclusionary acts, citizenship laws, etc)

· Race and Popular culture (brown-face, Indo-chic, media representations, etc.)

· Race and Space (rural/urban, ghettoes/ethnic enclaves, local/national, etc.)

· Race, gender, and sexuality (queer diaspora, race and masculinities, honor killings, transnational feminisms)

· Race and the Body (labouring bodies, sexed subjects, outsourcing reproduction, tortured bodies, etc.)

· Race and Violence (everyday routine violence, political, hate crimes, race-riots, etc.)

· Race in/and Academia

· Race and Politics and the Electorate

· Race and Health

· Race and Religion (“clash of civilizations,” racializing of religion, etc.)

· Race and Sports

· Race and Nation/Nation-State (long-distance nationalism, cultural nationalism, etc.)

· Racial Melancholia

· Race and Visual Arts

· Race and Technology (performing race in virtual/online communities, racism in digital environments, South Asian digital humanities, etc.)

· Race and Military, Police, and other organizations

· Policing race, profiling, surveillance

· Resistance, activism, coalition-building

· Multiple migrations and racial subjectivities

· Official/unofficial categories and racial formations (visible minorities, people of color, model minority, census designations, etc.)

· “Markers” of race (accent, clothes, skin color, etc.)

· Color consciousness in South Asian societies (premium on fairness, caste-race analogies, intra-minority prejudices, etc.)

· Transnationalism and globalization (outsourcing, adoption, etc.)

Please send a 250-300-word abstract of your paper and a 5-6 line bio-note listing your institutional affiliation and current email address by Sunday, 5^th August 2012 to the conference co-chairs at the email addresses given below. The subject line of your email should contain the words “SALA 2013.” If you have any questions, please feel free to email the co-chairs

Dr. Anupama Arora, University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth aarora@umassd.edu

and

Dr. Prabhjot Parmar, University of the Fraser Valley prabhjot.parmar@ufv.ca

Insert Routledge Ad here.

CFP: 2012 MELUS and USACLALS JOINT CONFERENCE, 19-22 April, 2012, Santa Clara, CA

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:59:06 -0500

Deadline Extended: The response to our Call for Papers has been terrific, but some have asked for an extension. We are therefore accepting abstracts till the end of this month: November 30. If you've been busy about many things, but want to join us: now's the time to spend a few hours putting together an abstract, and sending it in. Thanks--this promises to be a large and very interesting conference.

2012 MELUS and USACLALS JOINT CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS

(26th Annual MELUS Conference and 6th Conference of the United States Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies)

April 19-22, 2012
Santa Clara University, California

THEME: Ethnic Literatures and Transnationalism

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS: Bill Ashcroft, Wlad Godzich, Francisco Jimenez, David Marriott

We invite paper abstracts and complete panels, workshops, and roundtable proposals on all aspects of the multi-ethnic literatures of the United States and elsewhere. We are particularly interested in proposals that explore globalization in terms of its influence on ethnic canons, and vice versa, and encourage presentations on all global frameworks of analysis, such as Atlantic studies, global feminisms, pan-Africanism, postcolonialism, transnationalism, global indigenous studies, etc. Submissions should detail requests for specific audiovisual equipment, if needed. We also ask that a proposal for a complete panel, roundtable, or workshop include a short description of the central topic, supplemented by brief abstracts of individual speakers’ contributions.

Deadline for abstracts and proposals (250 words in Word or rtf format): November 30, 2011.

Please e-mail abstracts to:

Prof. John Hawley
jhawley@scu.edu

Hotel rooms ($139) have been set aside at the Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, where the conference will be held.

170 South Market Street
San Jose, California
TEL (408) 998-1900
http://www.fairmont.com/sanjose

All presenters, chairs, and respondents must be members of USACLALS or MELUS. Membership information can be found on the USACLALS website http://www.usaclals.org/ or the MELUS website at http://www.melus.org/membership.htm. All payments of membership dues must be mailed directly to USACLALS or MELUS, not to the conference organizers.

The long-term goal of USACLALS is to study postcolonial literatures (including those of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) in relationship to the varied and vital cultural contexts of the Americas. We encourage studies which reach beyond the literatures of the British Commonwealth to use comparative frameworks in relation to francophone literatures, ethnic American literatures, and African-American literature.

To see Past MELUS conferences, go to http://webspace.ship.edu/kmlong/melus/confarchive.htm .

USACLALS & MELUS, Boca Raton, FL

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:00:09 -0500

CFP: Comparative Feminism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism: Gender and Sexual Identity in Contemporary Turkish Literature/Cinema

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:12:22 -0500

Call for Papers (Deadline 1st May, 2012)
Comparative Feminism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism: Gender and Sexual Identity in Contemporary Turkish Literature and Culture

We seek chapter proposals for our forthcoming anthology to be published in Spring 2013. Turkey is considered a space where there is a perfect balance of Eastern and Western cultural mores and traditions, but one can see conflicts and contradictions within various texts depicting gender and sexual identity constructions. Despite nearly a century of reform and advancement toward equality for women, there is a disjuncture between the ideology of modernism and the implementation of it. Upon its foundation as a nation state, Turkey embarked upon a state- centered elite driven path toward modernization and Westernization which, at the same time, sought to produce a monolithic culture. In recent years, this model of state-centered secular modernity has come under intense scrutiny and criticism as Islamists, Kurds and other minorities pressed their claims for recognition in the public sphere and force a rethinking of current understandings of Turkish identity and subjectivity.

These controversies, contradictions, and ambiguities are reflected in women’s lives and are indeed waged over women’s bodies by various factions. How are these disjunctures and contradictions reflected in modern Turkish literature and the media? Who writes about women and how are they depicted? Turkish television continues to portray women’s bodies as commodified and sexualized in order to sell products. These representations of rampant sexuality in music videos and commercials do not reflect the current material reality of the women in households and Turkish society. How are women rewriting themselves from being objects to subjects? Do women still feel solidarity and communal ties with each others in the modern and urban spaces, or are they increasingly isolated? What are the new formations of gender identity that are emerging? How are women reaching across what were previously seemingly unbridgable gaps to claim more than one identity space? How are the women in these intersections creating new identities for themselves?\

How about minority and immigrant women and their rights? Are there representations of the LBGTQQ community members, even if they are “invisible” in Turkish culture? How are Muslims, who continue to observe the headscarves, viewed? How do they view themselves? Can feminisms in Turkey accommodate Islam and /or observant women within its definitions and conceptualizations? Can Islam reconcile itself with feminism? How are secular identities being redefined in a post-secular globalized world? How do all of the ideological flux and flow impact ideas of feminism and the creation of new understandings of feminism in Turkey?
These and other issues will be considered for inclusion in the anthology. We welcome essays that analyze the repertoire of texts - fiction, biographies, films, documentaries, poetry, short stories, and so forth—that are engaged with examining issues of gender identity from feminist, postmodern and postcolonial perspectives.

Please send a 250 word abstract, along with a one page CV by 1st May 2012, to jsingh@nmu.edu, mloneil@khas.edu.tr, sehnaz.sismanoglu@khas.edu.tr
The editors are published scholars of a monograph, anthologies, and critical articles. Essays selected for inclusion in the final volume will be peer-reviewed by specialists in the field.

Jaspal K. Singh, Ph.D.
Professor, English Department
Northern Michigan University
Marquette, MI 49844

Mary Lou O’Neil
Department of American Culture and Literature
Kadir Has University
Cibali 34083
Istanbul, Turkey

Şehnaz Şişmanoğlu Şimşek
Turkish Language and Literature Coordinator
Kadir Has University
Cibali 34083
Istanbul, Turkey

CFP: Culture of Terror in South-East Asian Lit and Film, ESSE Conference, Istanbul, 4-8 September 2012

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:30:53 -0400

ESSE Conference, Istanbul 4-8 September 2012 Post-9/11 Cultures of Terror in South-East Asian Literature and Film The shockwave of 9/11 has generated a wealth of critical literature as well as its own literary canon with the emergence of the subgenre of terror fiction – Liter(r)ature – as writers recreated or reconstructed the terrorist attacks directly or obliquely in their fiction. However, the first edition of our conference held at the University of Turin, established that Terror is asymmetrical and complex, not monolithic as the GWOT implies with its Manichean binaries. The United States does not have a monopoly of Terror and the US and Euro-centric debates about 9/11 which predominantly focus on security and international relations issues tend to overlook the abuses of State Terror in connection with the legacies of colonialism, decolonization and the Cold War. The second edition of Cultures of Terror to be held within ESSE 2012 a the Bogazici University of Istanbul from 4th to 8th September 2012 seeks to explore the fictional representation of State oppression and brutalization of the most vulnerable, whether in the name of national security or as a result of collateral damage to domestic or foreign military operations. We welcome papers that think through and beyond the predominant rhetorics and narratives of Terror and which address violent forms of postcolonial sovereignty, or ethnically-motivated, religion-based or caste-related violence in modern South Asia. 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. Procedure for submitting paper proposals: Colleagues wishing to participate in the Seminar or round table are invited to submit a 250- 300-word abstract and a brief bio to the three convenors before 11th February 2012. We will notify the participants of acceptance of their proposals by 29th February 2012. Dr Stephen Morton, University of Southampton: S.C.Morton@soton.ac.uk Dr Veronica Thompson, Athabasca University: thompson@athabascau.ca Dr Pascal Zinck, University of Lille: cap.zinck@wanadoo.fr All the information concerning the ESSE-11 Conference in Istanbul can be found on the Conference website http://www.esse2012.org

CFP: Dalit Literatures - In, Out and Beyond, Horizons anglophones, 31 May 2012

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:32:50 -0400

Dalit Literatures - In, Out and Beyond Call for Contributions Series PoCoPages, Coll. « Horizons anglophones » Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée http://www.pulm.fr/index.php/collections/horizons-anglophones/pocopages.html The history of Dalit literature can be traced back to centuries. But Dalit literary/cultural expressions were never taken into consideration due to the hegemonic nature of the field of literary production. The emergence of Dalit as a political category and identity coincide with the emergence of Dalit literature. Current researches by scholars reveal the widespread character of Dalit writings in various parts of India. Research also shows that Dalit literature had long before acquired a distinct language through its heterogeneous and plurivocal character which challenged dominant literary canons. Dalit literature acquired a recognizable identity towards the middle of the twentieth century. The term ‘Dalit literature’ – 'Dalit' meaning oppressed, broken and downtrodden — came into use officially in 1958 at the first conference on Dalit literature in Mumbai. The emergence of the Dalit Panthers (a political organisation formed in 1972 in Mahrastra) is a significant moment in the history of Dalit literature which was furthered by various political/literary movements across India. Dalit literature for a long time was disregarded and not taken seriously in the literary circles. The publication of translations from modern Marathi literature entitled Poisoned Bread edited by Arjun Dangle with a prefatory note by Gail Omvedt had already sparked debates in the literary circles. Under the impulsion of such academics as Arun Prabha Mukherjee (York University, Toronto) who translated Omprakash Valmiki's Joothan (1997) into English in 2003 and wrote an introduction to it, the initial reluctance to accept new literary genres by the dominant literary discourses, has, over time, given way to wider acceptance and circulation of Dalit literature in and outside India. The recent volume on Dalit writings from two south Indian states No Alphabet in Sight edited by Susie Tharu and K. Satyanarayana, opens up a new debate on the long history of Dalit literature and its current prominence in the contemporary scene of literature and politics. It also shows how Dalit literature moves beyond the usual discourses of literary modernity. The debate between Gandhi and Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar (1891-1956), one of India’s foremost revolutionaries, an untouchable and a fierce critic of Gandhi, is a major event in Indian history. Ambedkar famously said ‘Mahatma, I have no country’. Fictionists like Avinash Dolas and others have explored the depth of this theme. This discussion between Ambedkar and Gandhi has provoked debates on nationhood and Hindu religion. The well-known book by D.R. Nagaraj, The Flaming Feet, is a case in point. Although untouchability was abolished with the 1950 Constitution of India (drafted by Ambedkar), Ambedkar’s experiences continue to be the lot of India’s 170 million Dalits today. Dalit literature in its initial stages (and in a broader sense, even today) was identified as specific protests directed against everyday humiliations that individual dalits and Dalits as a community face. In this context, contradictions between Marxism and progressive literary movements (which works on larger abstractions) with Dalit literature (and Dalit movements) have to be taken into serious consideration. Most of the debates around/about Dalit Literature have failed to adequately acknowledge the new vocabulary of imagination and aesthetical sensibility produced by these literatures. Dalit literature cannot be reduced to an engagement with victimhood. In the hands of poets like S. Joseph, it has spawned new literary cannons by disturbing the usual language available in the pre-existing canonical literary circles. Dalit Literature today has established itself as a new mode of literary/aesthetic imagination and writing. The fact that John Berger, Arundhati Roy and Joe Sacco saluted the publication of the graphic novel Bhimayana : Experiences of Untouchability (Delhi: Navayana, 2011), may be the sign that something is changing in the context of Dalit literatures. The visual, the literary and the political dimensions closely intertwine in this graphic biography of Ambedkar. The artists Durgabai Vyam and Subhash Vyam, together with Srividya Natarajan and S. Anand for the story, crafted a book that has broken new ground, not least because it did so in a controversial way. The publication of Bhimayana could be a signal that Dalit cultures are edging out of the restricted areas where they were formerly circumscribed. This could also be an opportunity to examine Dalit expression and literatures in a renewed way and from different perspectives. Far from concentrating on the historical, social and economic circumstances of the untouchable communities that are described by Dalit writers or non-Dalit writers (such as Raja Rao, Arundhati Roy or Rohinton Mistry), the editors of the projected volume of PoCoPages encourage contributions that will foreground the following issues: - the linguistic questions linked to translation from regional Indian languages into English and other international languages; more generally the question of accessibility; questions linked to sub-Indian and international distribution; magazines, books and the web; - the attention Dalit literatures are getting outside the limited circles of activists in India and outside India; more generally the question of reception; Dalit literature and its readership; who writes for whom; - the generic questions linked to the literary choices made by the writers : poetry, short story, novel, autobiography, biography, graphic novels, photo-journalism, recorded oral narratives, theatre, etc; the poetics and politics involved in such literary choices; - the gender question: male and female writers; male and female readers; the relationship between caste and gender, in the specific context of the Dalits; - the relationship between Dalit literature and Dalit politics, including the impact of literature on the social situations faced by the untouchables; the transformative value of such literature and on what grounds; - the contact zones between Adivasi literature and Dalit literature; - the marginalisation of minority Dalit literature (Christian, Muslim, Sikh Dalit literature for instance); - the resistance that Dalit literature is facing from dominant literary groups and the legitimacy it is slowly being granted, or not; - the pitfalls of literary fashion and stereotypes; - Dalit literatures and the film industry (film adaptations, documentaries, etc); - the relationship between Dalit literatures and the Indian literary canon; the relationship between Dalit literatures and other literatures (postcolonial, African-American, subaltern and trauma literatures, etc); intertextuality within Dalit literatures; - the relationship between Marxism and Dalit literature, specifically in terms of how the questions of class and caste overlap and conflict; the perspective of Indian Marxists; - Dalit self-writings and their specificities; narrative voice and perspective; - last but not least, the problematics of inside and outside: writing on or from a Dalit perspective; the academic perspective and the non-academic perspective; the perspective of Indians, and Indian writers, of the diaspora; the Indian and the non-Indian perspective; bridging the western and the eastern perspective on Dalit writing. PoCoPages is a peer-reviewed series in the collection "Horizons anglophones" published by the Presses universitaires de la Méditerranée (Pulm). India and the Diasporic Imagination is the latest volume (2011). http://www.pulm.fr/index.php/collections/horizons-anglophones/pocopages.html General Editor : Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak (Paul-Valéry University – Montpellier 3, France). This volume, to be published in 2013, will be co-edited with Joshil K. Abraham (Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi). Please submit a 300-word abstract with a short bio (200 words maximum) by January 31, 2012 to Joshil K. Abraham and to Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak . If the preliminary proposal is accepted, final essays (33,000 characters, spaces and footnotes included, bibliography on top) will be due by May 31, 2012.

CFP: Diasporas and Race, Wake Forest University, NC, 25-27 October, 2012

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:30:27 -0400

CALL FOR PAPERS: International Conference Title: “DIASPORAS AND ‘RACE’” Conference dates: October 25-27, 2012 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS: February 1, 2012 Place: Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA) In the wake of the 2011 conference on “Diasporas and Cultures of Migration” that was held at Montpellier, University Paul Valéry, the convenors of this conference wish to extend and expand the reflection on the concept of diaspora, its uses, its limits, or even its outright rejection as a useful concept, by focusing on the links between diasporas and “race.” Diasporas have always had to negotiate new articulations of ethnic/ racial identities while individuals had to make do with contexts already defined by certain types of racial relations and the evolutions of racial transnational references. The emergence of new racisms and of new racialized identities reconfigures class hierarchies, which often results in violence against migrants. Does the prism of diaspora allow for a clearer conceptualization of the concept of “race” as a socio-historical construction and a surface of projection that depends on context? Does diasporic belonging constitute a response to racism and imposed ethno-racial identities? How have populations appropriated it to foster local and global socialities and practices? The terms creolization, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism, which certain scholars prefer to diaspora, entertain certain specific relations to “race”: do these new concepts help or create blind spots when it comes to racial identity, racialization, multiracialism or the erasure of “race”? What happens when we also address these issues in terms of gender and class? What role does the mediation of art and literature play in these evolutions? Are there specific artistic creations that emerge from/at this juncture? Is there an aesthetics that simultaneously addresses issues of race and diaspora? Can one point to the appropriation, the creation and the circulation of images that translate diasporic sensitivity? Is race a component of this aesthetics or is it left out as irrelevant? If diaspora moves “beyond race”, how does diaspora intersect with gender relations, religious identities and concepts of geography and space? Can we address the link between the environment and the migrations linked to diasporic movement? Can we speak of a postcolonial ecology? Can these issues ultimately be thought within the wider frame of the human and the natural? DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS (maximum 250 words): February 1, 2012 Please submit a short bio-bibliographical notice as well (maximum 200 words) and copy the five co-convenors of the conference in your email. “Diasporas, Cultures of Mobilities, ‘Race’” Conference series This will be the second meeting in the series organized by the research center EMMA (University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3, France) over 2011-13 which gathers leading scholars in the field to identify and assess the joint evolutions of “Diaspora Studies” and “Race studies” to better understand: 1) how these approaches can be cross- fertilising; 2) how socio-economic and political changes have affected race relations and diasporic communities; 3) how literature and the arts, the social sciences and cultural studies have seized that question. This project entails a redefinition of terms and concepts and the confrontation of different, but not necessarily divergent, perspectives. A preparatory symposium, “Diasporas and Cultures of Migration” was held at University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3 in June 2011, in partnership with CAAR (Collegium for African-American Research), the Centre de Recherches Littéraires et Historiques de l’Océan Indien (CRLHOI, University of La Réunion), the Centre of South Asian Studies (CSAS, University of Edinburgh, UK), the Department for Continuing Education (University of Oxford), the Institut de Recherche Intersite Etudes Culturelles (IRIEC, University Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3), the International Institute of Migration (IMI, University of Oxford), the MSH-Montpellier (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme-Montpellier), Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA), Wesleyan University (USA). Leading scholars assessed the state of the debate in preparation for this second event. The third conference, “African-Americans, ‘Race’ and Diaspora”, scheduled for June 13-15, 2013 at University Paul- Valéry, Montpellier 3, will be specifically dedicated to the interlocking issues of “race” and the Black Diaspora. The concluding symposium, scheduled for October 25-26, 2013, at the University of Oxford, UK, will allow for final reflections. Partners for the conference at Wake Forest University: CAAR (Collegium for African American Research) (to be confirmed) Department for Continuing Education (University of Oxford, UK) IRIEC (Institut de Recherche Intersite Etudes Culturelles, Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3, France) EMMA (Etudes Montpelliéraines du Monde Anglophone, Université Paul- Valéry, Montpellier 3, France) MIGRINTER (CNRS, Université de Poitiers, France) Wake Forest University (North Carolina, USA) Co-convenors: Dr Sally Barbour (Wake Forest University, USA) barbour@wfu.edu Dr David Howard (University of Oxford, UK) david.howard@conted.ox.ac.uk Dr Thomas Lacroix (IMI, Univ. of Oxford, UK; MIGRINTER, Université de Poitiers, France) thomas.lacroix@univ-poitiers.fr Dr Judith Misrahi-Barak (EMMA, Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3, France) judith.misrahi-barak@univ-montp3.fr Pr Claudine Raynaud (EMMA, Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3, France) claudine.raynaud@univ-montp3.fr

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

Sun, 20 May 2012 19:33:17 -0400

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. Terri Tomsky 3-5 Humanities Centre University of Alberta Edmonton, AB Canada T6G 2E5 Email: tomsky@ualberta.ca

USACLALS - Conferences

CFP: Uncommon Wealths Riches and Realities, EACLALS, Innsbruck, 14-18 April 2014

CFP: MLA, Chicago, January 2014

CFP: 'The current unbroken/the circuits kept open': Connecting Cultures and the Commonwealth, ACLALS, St. Lucia 5-9 August 2013

CFP: De-territorializing Diversities: Cultures, Literatures & Languages of the Indigenous, Delhi, India, 6 & 7 February, 2013

CFP: Race and The South Asian Diaspora, SALA (IN CONJUNCTION WITH MLA IN BOSTON, WITH GAYATRI SPIVAK), 2-3 January 2013

2012 MELUS USACLALS Conference Registration

2012 MELUS USACLALS Conference Registration

FINAL 2012 MELUS USACLALS Program

Armstrong, Jasmine Marshall. Independent Scholar. “Hybrid Heritages, Transnational Concerns and Living in La Frontera: The Mexican American Poets of California’s Central Valley.” F) Atherton: Women of Color Caucus: Teaching Across Difference

CFP: 2012 MELUS and USACLALS JOINT CONFERENCE, 19-22 April, 2012, Santa Clara, CA

USACLALS & MELUS, Boca Raton, FL

CFP: Comparative Feminism, Postmodernism, Postcolonialism: Gender and Sexual Identity in Contemporary Turkish Literature/Cinema

CFP: Culture of Terror in South-East Asian Lit and Film, ESSE Conference, Istanbul, 4-8 September 2012

CFP: Dalit Literatures - In, Out and Beyond, Horizons anglophones, 31 May 2012

CFP: Diasporas and Race, Wake Forest University, NC, 25-27 October, 2012

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

Armstrong, Jasmine Marshall. Independent Scholar. “Hybrid Heritages, Transnational Concerns and Living in La Frontera: The Mexican American Poets of California’s Central Valley.”
F) Atherton: Women of Color Caucus: Teaching Across Difference