Friday 28 January 2011

The other English: Some African reflections

The other English: Some African reflections

Mon 28 Feb 2011, 18.30 - 20.00
Conference Centre, British Library, London

Price: £6 / £4 concessions. Tickets available at http://boxoffice.bl.uk/, by calling 01937 546546 (9am-5pm Mon-Fri) or in person at The British Library.

The story of the coming of English to Africa is surrounded by two dominant mythologies. For some of its harshest critics, English was the language of imperial power, violently and willfully imposed on the colonised. For its strongest advocates however, English was the unwitting gift of the coloniser to the colonised, the instrument of the Africans entry into modern life. This lecture by Simon Gikandi will explore these mythologies and try to establish how English entered the lives of the colonised and the work it was asked to perform in the areas of translation, conversion, and African self-making.

Simon Gikandi is Professor of English at Princeton University. Among his many published works he is co-editor (with Abiola Irele) of The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature; easily the most comprehensive survey of its subject, and key studies of African novelists: Chinua Achebe and Ngugi wa Thiong'o.

The event will be introduced by James Currey, perhaps the most influential of all publishers of African writing, both as head of the African Writers Series, the Caribbean Writers Series and Arab Authors at Heinemann from 1967 to 1984, and since under his own imprint.

The Other English; Some African Reflections is part of the events programme accompanying the British Library exhibition Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices (running to 3 April), a major survey of English through history and around the world, told through books, letters, manuscripts, sound and images. www.bl.uk/evolvingenglish

For more information please see: http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event116352.html

Tuesday 25 January 2011

CFP: Crossing the Borders: Reality, desire and Imagination in Australian, New Zealand and the Pacific lives, literatures and cultures

11th Biennial European Association for Studies on Australia (EASA) INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE – UNIVERSITY OF PREŠOV, SLOVAKIA



SEPTEMBER 12-15, 2011

Crossing the Borders: Reality, desire and Imagination in Australian, New Zealand and the Pacific lives, literatures and cultures

In the Humanities “Reality” has become a contested term, given its dependence on widely-differing social and cultural contexts as well as on individuals’ perceptions of material and immaterial objects and phenomena. In recent times new technologies have significantly impacted upon the ways in which realities are produced, consumed and valued. From virtual, hyperreal, simulated and photoshopped realities through re-articulation of ideas of the “natural” via genetic and reproductive technologies, the instability of the concept of reality has ironically meant that its status as an ideological battleground has often emerged more clearly.

The nature and understanding of Australian, New Zealand and Pacific realities in such contexts has become multivalent and frequently ambiguous. The representation of identities in literature, arts and the media in general have oscillated between rationalistic, mimetic and more complex postmodern understandings, the latter especially in recent decades. In the case of Australia, Paul Carter argues that Australian “social and political institutions...literary and visual culture...and [the] treatment of Australia’s indigenous people, [have] been constructed mimetically” (Carter xix). But Bill Ashcroft and John Salter understand Australia as a rhizomic text and suggest that “[w]hat we understand by ‘Australia’ or Australian social reality needs to be ‘re-imagined’, which means that the imperialistic ‘borders’ which now ‘define Australia’ must come to be understood as border ‘zones’, to accommodate the ‘hybridity’ that is a defining feature of the rhizomic text” (Ashcroft and Salter 22). In addition, Livio Dobrez, commenting on the impact of virtual reality and media on the construction of Australia adds that “Australia comes into being for us as a PR excercise, an ‘image’ of national identity, presence in the form of absence” (Dobrez 44).

With such attention focused on what was once a series of loosely-theorised assumptions, there is no going back to simple or simplistic national narratives. Nations, societies and cultures now exist multiply, necessitating the consideration of how realities are perceived, understood and represented by different constituencies. All this is well-accepted in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, but requires the factoring in of the connections between the increasingly cross-border real, imaginary and desired projections of the future generated by border-stretching media technologies and scientific discourses of the alterable and re-created self? How do these new technologies relate to the contemporary formation of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific? Do they in fact reprise the disturbances associated with earlier technological advances or do they present entirely new challenges? How do they relate to current understandings of memory as articulated in such practices as oral storytelling, truth and reconciliation commissions, the use of visual technologies to establish entitlements or records, or even the recourse to DNA testing, means of recording or re-constructing reality and the past in different genres?

This inter-disciplinary and inter-discursive conference accordingly seeks to discuss but is not limited to issues and such themes as:

• Reality, desire, and imagination in Australian, New Zealand, and the Pacific
• National-Ethnic-Gendered-Local-Migrant perceptions of reality and the future
• Crossing the borders of Identity: how real, how imaginary?
• Crossing Reality Borders – Reality as Fiction, Fiction as Reality
• Colonial, Imperial, Colonized and Native Realities, Fantasies, Dreams and Imaginations
• Reality virtual, hyper-real, simulated and media(ted)
• Memory and storytelling – how real, how imagined?
• Real, Imagined, Dreamed and Mediated Objects and Phenomena-literature, memory, story-telling, media, technology (computers, internet, facebook, DVD, cell phones...) in contemporary culture
• Real and Imagined fears of reality and of terror (ism)
• Reality, desire and imagination across the genres (realistic-modernist-fantastic-postmodern and....?)
• Reality of the Possible and Actual Worlds- Actual, Fictional, Possible and Other Worlds in Literature and Arts
• Central and East European Vision of Australian, New Zealand and the Pacific Realities
• Unified or diverse images of contemporary and future Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific?

All these topics can be treated from interdisciplinary and/or interdiscursive perspectives,calling upon disciplinary areas such as Cultural, Gender, Indigenous, Sociology, Philosophy, Media and Film, History, Literary, Linguistics, Art or other relevant Studies. The conference will also host writers (to be announced) who will be reading from their work during the conference.

Postgraduate Seminar

One of the aims of the conference is to attract doctoral scholars from Central and Eastern Europe to exchange views on Australian, New Zealand, the Pacific and post-colonial studies in general, with a view to discussing further co-operation under the aegis of EASA.

As has become a tradition of this conference, there will be a meeting and a seminar for post-graduate students dealing with these fields of study. This is still provisional, and is based around lectures and reading specific texts. The seminar may be taken as part of university studies equivalent to a course with a particular number of credits, to be acknowledged by participants’ institutions. Doctoral students are further encouraged to present their papers at the conference (these presentations will not coincide with the seminar programme which will be conceived as a separate activity).

BOOK PRESENTATIONS, BOOK LAUNCHES, READINGS

Writers, conference participants, or representatives of publishers will have the opportunity to present their works at the conference.

Deadlines:

Please e-mail 250-word abstracts to Jaroslav Kušnír jkusnir@fhpv.unipo.sk by March 30, 2011.
Acceptance of papers will be announced by April 30th, 2011
(participants requiring earlier processing may send in abstracts when ready, indicating their specific needs in this respect)

1 June, 2011 Registration (at early bird fee)
15 July, 2011 Deadline for full registration
Registration fee: 150 Euro

Selected Events at the School of Advanced Studies 24 - 31 January 2011

Selected Conferences and Seminars: 24 - 31 January 2011



Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Mon 24 Jan 17:30 - 19:00 Decolonization Seminar Series: Ariel and Propsero. West Indians listen to Britain: Bill Schwartz

Wed 26 Jan 17:30 - 17:30 Human Rights Seminar Series: Lawfare and Palestine:
Michael Kearney

Thu 27 Jan 17:30 - 19:00 India’s Elite Africans: John McLeod, Faaeza Jasdanwalla and Shihan de Silva

Fri 28 Jan 17:30 - 19:00 Singapore Seminar Series: Count on Queers, Singapore!:
Simon Obendorf

Institute of Historical Research

Mon 24 Jan 17:00 - 19:00 The Contagious Diseases Acts in 19th century Hong Kong: Imperial Edict versus Local Governance: Jane Berney

Tue 25 Jan 17:15 - 19:15 Medical authority afloat: Royal Naval surgeons on convict ships, c. 1815-68: Kirsty Reid

Thu 27 Jan 17:30 - 19:30 The freedom of speech: talk and slavery in the C18 Caribbean:
Miles Ogborn

Institute for the Study of the Americas
Tue 25 Jan 17:00 - 19:00 Annual Globalisation and Latin American Development Lecture: Regional Responses to Transnational Migration in North and Central America:
Stefanie Kron

Tue 25 Jan 18:00 - 20:00 Belize: Explorer's Guide book launch: Kate Joynes-Burgess,

Welfare state restructuring and the role of the social economy and the voluntary sector: Canadian Reflections at a time of austerity.

Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at the University of Ulster
Canadian Studies Research Programme
Seminar

Welfare state restructuring and the role of the social economy and the voluntary sector: Canadian Reflections at a time of austerity.

Wednesday, 2nd February, 1.30 – 4.00pm
Loughview Suite
University of Ulster
Jordanstown Campus

Restructuring Canadian Civil Society, 1980 - 2010: How the Politics of Redistribution was muted
Susan D. Phillips
Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration
Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Visiting Fellow, University of Cambridge and ESRC Centre for Charitable Giving and Philanthropy, Cass Business School

The political promise and perils of investing in civil society: state and third sector in Quebec
Deena White
Professor, Department of Sociology
University of Montreal

Rerouting Political Representation: Is Canada's social infrastructure in crisis?
Rachel Laforest
Associate Professor and head of Public Policy and Third Sector Initiative, School of Policy Studies, Queens University Kingston, Ontario
Visiting Professor, Trinity College Dublin

Respondent:
Dr Nick Acheson,
Institute for Research in the Social Sciences
University of Ulster

A sandwich lunch will be available
RSVP: N.Acheson@ulster.ac.uk

The current financial crisis is accelerating change in how welfare is organized, who is entitled to support and on what terms. The limits of the role of the state are set against the possibilities of voluntary action among citizens as relations between the state, market and civil society are fundamentally recast. Devolution and decentralizing administrative responsibilities, the offloading of service provision, and the upward delegation of policy orientation to transnational entities such as the EU and (for Ireland) the IMF, together with the rise of new public management, quasi-market administrative arrangements and network governance are all evoked as contributing to the “rebirth” of both an interest in civil society organizations (CSOs), and a renewed role for them in the way welfare policies are understood and delivered.

In the face of rapid change new forms of voluntarism are evident through the growth of the social economy and the emergence of hybrid organizations that combine commitments to public service, competitiveness and social value in new ways while new forms of citizen action are evoked through slogans such as the ‘big society’.

This seminar aims to review some of these issues for the future of the welfare state through Canadian eyes. It brings together three leading Canadian scholars in the field who combine a deep understanding of the Canadian experience with sensitivity towards its relevance to the UK, Ireland and other jurisdictions. Canada experienced its own austerity period in the 1990s which, together with more recent changes in Federal government policy have profoundly changed relationships between the state and civil society in English speaking Canada, whilst Quebec offers a different story that also contains insights for contemporary developments elsewhere.

The three Canadian papers will reflect on different aspects of this experience. They will be followed with a response seeking to draw out the central themes and the challenges posed to the UK and Irish experience in particular.

"With the assistance of the Government of Canada/avec l'aide du Gouvernement du Canada and The Foundation for Canadian Studies in the UK".

Thursday 20 January 2011

Prix du Quebec 2011

Prix du Quebec 2011


The Prix du Québec consists of two awards of £1,000 (each) offered by the Québec Government Office in London and administered by BACS. It is designed to assist researchers based in the UK to carry out research related to Québec by facilitating a research visit to Québec. Projects that incorporate Québec in a comparative approach (at least 50 % of the focus must be on Québec) are also eligible.All applications are welcome, including those from applicants unsuccessful in recent previous competitions.

One award will be given in each of the following categories:

● Masters and doctoral students
● Researchers and academic staff (including postdoctoral researchers)

The award is not intended to be used to cover tuition fees for postgraduate study. Applicants are expected to be members of the British Association for Canadian Studies (they may join at time of application) but need not have an institutional affiliation.

The awards will be presented during the Annual Conference of the British Association for Canadian Studies in March, and successful applicants will be expected to present a paper on the outcome of their research at the next BACS annual conference. It is expected that the award will be acknowledged in any subsequent publication(s).

Application procedure

Applicants should provide a brief outline of their proposed research (including methodology, contextual background, plan and outcomes). Successful applications will have the following characteristics: (i) investigate issues concerning Quebec (includes comparative research where the focus on Quebec is at least 50%); (ii) constitute an excellent research proposal (originality, coherence of arguments and methodology); (iii) display applicant's abilities to deliver research (previous relevant background, experience, publications, etc); (iv) is of value to potential users outside or within the research community. A brief (one-page max.) CV should be included.

Deadline: 15 February of each year (decision within 28 days).
Maximum Length: 1000 words.

A letter of recommendation, on headed paper, from an appropriate referee is also required and should be sent with the application. Referees should address the merits of the proposal and the ability of the applicant to successfully carry out the research. The referee's letter may be sent by email as an attachment. Any Award will be paid through the Research Office of the applicant's institution.

Applications should be sent by email, please, to: canstuds@gmail.com

If further information is required, please contact Jodie Robson, Administrator, British Association for Canadian Studies, tel: 020 7862 8687 / 01289 387331 / mobile 07967 374554; email: canstuds@gmail.com

Institute of Commonwealth Studies - OSPA Witness Seminars

Institute of Commonwealth Studies - OSPA
Witness Seminars

The Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS), in conjunction with the Overseas Service Pensioners Association (OSPA) intends to hold two witness seminars. These will give OSPA members an opportunity to share their experiences with an academic and non-academic audience.

The purpose of the seminars is to encourage discussion and debate among all those attending rather than to listen to formal papers. Each seminar will, however, begin with a ‘position paper’ setting out the key issues and providing an agenda for the subsequent discussion.

The seminars will be held in Senate House, Malet Street, London from 11.30am to 5.00pm on Wednesday 25 May and Thursday 29 September 2011. There will be three sessions, one in the morning, and two in the afternoon. The sessions will be video-recorded, and the recordings will be available on the ICwS website.

The themes of the seminars are as follows:

Wednesday 25 May 2011 The ‘Westminster model’ and representative government

Subjects for discussion might include:
• To what extent was the ‘Westminster model’ of democracy considered suitable for British dependencies?
• What other forms of representative government were considered in the run-up to independence?
• How much preparation was there both for those to whom we handed over and to the general public?
• How effective and durable were the democratic structures inherited by newly-independent governments?
• What attempts were made to adjust the constitutional arrangements of British territories in the wake of independence?

Thursday 29 September 2011 Aid and trade: development in the British Commonwealth before and after independence

Subjects for discussion might include:
• To what extent was there a coherent British approach to the issue of development in the period preceding independence?
• How effective were the administrative structures devised to encourage development?
• What preparation was given to the establishment of small locally owned businesses?
• What was the attitude of newly-independent governments to the colonial legacy in the area of development?
• What parallels are there between contemporary British policies towards aid and trade and those pursued in the late colonial period?

We are currently seeking a ‘position paper’ for each of the two sessions from an established scholar with a research interest in the relevant subject area. The paper for the seminar on 25 May should set out in general terms British official policy towards representative models of government in the late-colonial period. The paper for the seminar on 29 September should provide an overview of British aid policy in the late-colonial period. The paper will be presented at the beginning of the seminar and will be circulated in advance. It should last no more than 30 minutes and should provide a framework for the subsequent discussion.

Expressions of interest should be sent to mailto:troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk

Tuesday 18 January 2011

Imperial and World History seminar series

Imperial and World History seminars


University of London

Convenors: Frank Bongiorno (KCL), Richard Drayton (KCL), Philip Murphy (ICS), Sarah Stockwell (KCL), John Stuart (Kingston), David Todd (KCL), Jon Wilson (KCL)

Germany Room, IHR, Mondays at 5.00pm, fortnightly
Winter/Spring Term, 2010

This academic year our seminars will loosely be focussed on the theme of global intellectual history, some examining the transnational history of ideas and others the interactions of ideas and imperial power.

January 17

John Stuart (Kingston), Informal Empire, Religious Liberty, Human Rights?: Egypt, 1919-48

January 31

Leslie James (LSE), George Padmore and the African anti-colonial struggle, c. 1950-56

February 28

David Scott (Columbia), Ethnography as Intellectual History: The Small Axe project and the recovery of Caribbean thought

March 14

David Armitage (Harvard), The International Turn in Intellectual History

March 21

Maurizio Isabella (QMUL), Italian debates on Empire in the Mediterranean during the
Risorgimento

Tea is available in the IHR before the seminar

The Summer term will include Frank Bongiorno (KCL) valedictory seminar on Sex in Australia, Dan Matlin (QMUL) on African-American nationalists ideas about Africa, and a roundtable on Lauren Benton (NYU)'s A Search for Sovereignty including Quentin Skinner (QMUL)

Our theme for the 2011-12 academic year will be Violence.

Caribbean Studies Seminars (ISA/ICwS)

Please see below the list of the Caribbean seminar series events for the spring term 2011 convened by the Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. All are welcome.


Venues and updates will be posted on http://americas.sas.ac.uk/ and http://commonwealth.sas.ac.uk// on their events pages. Enquiries to olga.jimenez@sas.ac.uk or troy.rutt@sas.ac.uk

CARIBBEAN SEMINAR SERIES SPRING 2011

Unless otherwise stated all seminars start at 5pm

19th January 5.30-7.30

Book Launch, Gad Heuman and Trevor Burnard, eds., The Routledge History of Slavery, Routledge, 2010

The Institute for the Study of the Americas and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies are delighted to launch this landmark publication which offers a comprehensive survey of the current state of the field in the history of slavery.

Gad Heuman, Emeritus Professor of History, Warwick University Trevor Burnard, Director, Yesu Persaud Caribbean Centre and Professor of American History, Warwick University.

2nd February

Ronald Cummings, Leeds University
‘A Queer Time and Space of Marronage: Patricia Powell’s A Small Gathering of Bones’

16th February

Clem Seecharan, London Metropolitan University ‘Cricket and West Indian Nationalism’ [title TBC]

2nd March

Tony Kapcia, Nottingham University
‘The 2011 Communist Party Congress in Cuba: real turning point or simply the usual rubber stamp?’

16th March

Panel: The Haitian Revolution and the World: Responses to Independence

Julia Gaffield, Duke University, ‘“The good understanding which ought always to subsist between the two islands”: Haiti and Jamaica in the Atlantic World, 1803-1804’

Carrie Gibson, Cambridge University, ‘Simón Bolívar, the United States, and the rejection of Haiti at the 1826 Congress of Panama’

30th March

Silvia Espelt Bombín, Newcastle University, ‘Free African-Americans in 18th century Panama City: trade and identity’

Wednesday 12 January 2011

CFP: 2011 DIASPORA CONFERENCE The Global South Asian diaspora in the 21st century, antecedents and prospects

2011 DIASPORA CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT


2011 Conference Theme: The Global South Asian diaspora in the 21st century, antecedents and prospects.

Sponsors: The University of the West Indies (St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago), The Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick (Coventry, United Kingdom), and the National Council of Indian Culture (NCIC), Trinidad and Tobago.

Venues: St. Augustine Campus, The University of the West Indies and Divali Nagar, Chaguanas, Trinidad.

Dates: Wednesday 1st June to Saturday 4th June 2011.

The St. Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies has since 1975, played a pioneering role in promoting debate, discussion and publications regarding the Indian diaspora. The following is a list of conferences held since 1975:
• 1975 -- East Indians in the Caribbean: colonialism and the struggle for identity.
• 1979 -- East Indians in the Caribbean: a focus on contemporary issues.
• 1984 -- East Indians in the Caribbean: beyond survival.
• 1995 -- Challenge and change: the Indian diaspora in its historical and contemporary contexts.
• 2000 -- Asian immigrations to the Caribbean.
• 2002 -- Religions in the New World: adaptation and change.

From these Caribbean beginnings, diasporic conferences have been held since 1987 in New York, Toronto and at the Centre for Caribbean studies, University of Warwick in May 1988. The most recent was held at Warwick in June 2010. Following that successful Warwick conference, participants agreed to conduct another meeting in Trinidad during the period Wednesday 1st to Saturday 4th June 2011.

PANELS

1. The Civilizational heritage.

This panel would seek to explore the legacies of the South Asian diaspora, embracing the whole range of the civilizational heritage and its role in shaping the South Asian experience abroad. These concerns include religio-cultural beliefs and practices, popular culture (as expressed in art, music, literature and language) and the ecological and environmental problems of the host societies. It is hoped that this panel will explore concerns such as the cultural and economic effects of the first and subsequent Diasporas and the manner in which South Asians transferred the ancestral traditions to diasporic destinations adapting these to the new environments. How did the processes take place and what can we now discern as aspects of the civilizational heritage?

2. The historical context.

This panel will incorporate three major historical phases, which may be identified in the process of the formation of the South Asian diaspora.
• The COLONIAL phase will focus on the historical forces [political, economic and social], which resulted in large numbers of Indians departing from the Indian subcontinent during the 19th and early 20th centuries for overseas colonies where the majority settled permanently.
• Then there was the POST-COLONIAL phase in which the panel would seek to examine the push and pull forces behind this second wave of emigration from the subcontinent, particularly after the formal attainment of political independence in 1947. The panel will examine the social and occupational background of the second wave of immigrants, the receiving countries, the reception by the host countries and the nature of their accommodation within the structures of those societies.
• Then there was the NEW DIASPORA in the contemporary period when we are seeing the outward movements of descendants of the first diaspora to new lands. The panel proposes to examine the forces which motivated these people to migrate from places where the forbears had migrated to the major metropolitan areas of Europe and North America, Australia and New Zealand.

3. Cultural reconstruction in diasporic communities: resistance, accommodation and survival.

This panel will examine the process whereby South Asians sought to establish a cultural presence in the new settlements. How did these arrivants in different parts of the diaspora and in different periods approach the question of the reconstruction of their cultural lives? Papers will focus on areas such as music and other performing arts, economic reorganization, festivals and other forms of community activities and the forces working against the process of cultural reconstruction.

4. Family histories and biographies.

This is an area of increasing importance in the South Asian Diaspora. The ongoing work has already produced a body of data which can provide useful insights into the very intimate world of diasporic South Asians. The everyday world of the indentureds for example, is an area which is still to be properly researched. Family histories allow a window into the world where the individual life is placed center stage. The process of tracing family histories, beginning in the present and going back into the past or beginning in the past and moving forward into the present, is an academic exercise which will provide to any interested scholar valuable methodological insights. This panel will provide the opportunity for the exchange of research experience in addition to exposing a rich world of new information not found in customary sources. Papers may deal with themes such as: the nature of family relations; cultural change within families over one, two or three generations; property relations and social change; the impact of education on social mobility as seen in the lives of family members; religion and its influence on the welfare of family members; the family as an economic unit.

5. Leadership and Power relations in the South Asian Diaspora

This panel looks at the political consequences both in the short and long term of the dispersal of the various communities from the Indian subcontinent during the pre and postcolonial phases of history. Analysis will focus on both the micro and macro levels, on the problems posed by the modes of incorporation into the state and on the strategies devised to achieve universalistic and democratic participation in the social and political order by communities of the Diasporas.

South Asians and the law.

This section will accordingly include consideration of pressure groups, political parties, coalitions, electoral activity, bureaucracy, social movements and the strategies and behavior of political elites in the context of the pressure of the global political environment and of the host society in which they are located. It could also consider scenarios for the future.

6. Gender issues in the South Asian diaspora: Critical challenges of feminism and masculinity

This panel will consider the issues of relevance to South Asian communities in the diaspora from a gender perspective. It is evident that the diverse processes of migration, which have created this evolving diasporic community, have given rise to shifts in consciousness and rapid change particularly in the area of gender roles in relations. The focus of the panel will range over a broad spectrum of gender-specific issues. Proposals for papers are invited on the following topics: the impact of global feminism; postmodern and postcolonial theories; ethnicity or race and class; sexuality/sexual politics; new reproductive technologies; aesthetics; negative silences on the emergence of voice; Women in the professions: breaking the glass ceiling.

7. a. Voices from the South Asian Diaspora

The broad purpose of this panel is to present a forum for an examination and analysis of the literary presentations of the experience of Indian communities overseas. One of the questions to be explored is what similarities and differences there might be in the experiences of the several Indian communities overseas. Crucially, what similarities and differences are there in the forms and styles in which these are presented?

This should lead into a difficult, nebulous and controversial subject: is there such a thing as an Indo Caribbean or Indo Mauritian or Indo-Whatever sensibility? How does it manifest itself in Literature and Art? Is it the same in all the territories where they are overseas or Diaspora Indians? To what extent does this sensibility, if there is one, derive from India; and to what extent is it for the recent historical experience and cultural contacts?

Genres: Prose, fiction, poetry, drama, essay, autobiography, letters and any other personal writings, blogs and social cyber networking.

Authors: Writers dealing with the subject matter outlined above. These would include authors of the Indian or part-Indian origin, authors with Indian connections, and authors of any race who deal with any aspect of the Indian diaspora experience: Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, V.S. Naipaul, Earl Lovelace, Ismith Khan, Rabindranath Maharaj, Ramabai Espinet, David Dabydeen and a host of others. The selecting of papers for the panel/s will try to ensure that the papers being presented orally shall not only be useful as individual papers, but shall form a coherent group in dialogue with one another.

b. South Asians in the Media.

This panel will focus on a number of issues of relevance to the media: representation of diasporic peoples and local/international media, changes in the perception of South Asians abroad, diasporic newspapers, journals, ephemera, representation and participation in the electronic media, ownership of media houses and significant media personalities.

8. South Asian religions in the Diaspora.

The panel will look firstly at the transference of South Asian religions to diasporic venues. What were the belief systems, rites and rituals, which came with migrants from the sub continent? Papers are invited on the role of religion in education, new religious movements which syncretised diverse beliefs, religion in plural societies, conversions and missionary activity, interfaith dialogue, religious freedom and leaders in diasporic religious movements.

9. Diaspora influences on South Asia.

This panel will look at the many ways in which diasporic initiatives have affected the ancestral places. Papers are invited on the impact on South Asia of the returnees among the Girimityas [agreement signers], collaboration between the colonies and India towards the abolition of indentureship and the effect of such joint action on the independence struggle and the role of the Mahatma in this agitation. This panel will detail the activities of Non-Resident Indians [NRI] and People of Indian Origin [PIO] vis-a-vis South Asia from the mid-20th century to the present and South Asian initiatives to encourage dialogue and projects.

10. Economic enterprise in the South Asian diaspora.

From the period of the plantation diaspora to the present time, diasporic peoples have significantly transformed the environments to which they migrated. They resuscitated the sugar industry in Mauritius, Natal, Fiji and the Caribbean. Punjabi migrants stimulated the economies of the Napa Valley in California and the vast spaces of Western Canada. In our own time, they have moved to the Eastern seaboard of North America, the Metropolitan centers of Canada and the plazas of Western Europe. In the Caribbean, efforts are now being made to strengthen commercial ties between this region and South Asia. This panel will look at the past, contemporary contacts and future prospects.

11. Science, Technology, Medicine and Lifestyle

This panel will focus on the way in which South Asians have participated in the creation of new technologies in their places of settlement, health issues and dietary concerns. How has the South Asian ethic influenced productivity among Diasporic South Asians?


DEADLINES: The following deadlines will guide our preparations:

a. Final date for the submission of proposals 28th February 2011.
b. Final date for the submission of papers 30th April 2011.

Please note that the conference organizers feel no obligation to entertain offers submitted after the deadline dates.

FORMAT: All conference participants whose proposals have been accepted will receive, in advance, from the respective panel coordinators a sample sheet showing the format for the preparation of all papers. Some of these papers will be selected for oral presentation at the conference but all papers accepted will be tabled at the conference and made available to participants so that the benefits of scholarly discussions and exchange would be shared as widely as possible. All papers are to be submitted in typewritten form. Papers should be approximately 6000 words in length, should reflect original, unpublished work and should be of publishable quality.

REGISTRATION: There will be a registration fee of US $100.00 for participants. This fee will cover copies of the conference papers and refreshments on the conference days. Paper presenters will be exempted from these registration payments, and full-time students will pay a registration fee for full attendance, of US $50.00, or US $ 20.00 per day.

AFFILIATED ACTIVITIES: As in previous conferences, there will be cultural evenings, outreach presentations to the wider community and tours to places of interest. There will be a book fair at the main conference venue and an exhibition of memorabilia from past conferences. This will include publications from previous conferences.

CONTACTS:

Dr. Amar Wahab (Conference Secretary),
Lecturer in Sociology,
Criminology Unit, Department of Behavioural Sciences,
Faculty of Social Sciences,
The University of the West Indies,
St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
Tel: 1-868-662-2002 ext. 4422
E-mail: Amar.Wahab@sta.uwi.edu

Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh,
Lecturer in History,
Department of History,
Faculty of Humanities and Education,
The University of the West Indies,
St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago.
Tel: 1-868-662-2002 ext. 2022
E-mail: jerome.teelucksingh@sta.uwi.edu

Monday 10 January 2011

University of Warwick Caribbean Studies Seminars

University of Warwick


YESU PERSAUD CENTRE FOR CARIBBEAN STUDIES

Seminars - Spring 2011

Tuesday, 18th January 2011
Esther Mijers (University of Reading)
“From Nieuw Walcheren to Tobago: Competition and Settlement in 17th century Tobago'
5.00pm, H1.02 Humanities Building

Tuesday, 1st February 2011
Kate Quinn (Institute of the Americas, University of London) “Reflections. relevance and Continuity: Caribbean and Global Perspectives on Black Power”
5.00pm, H1.02 Humanities Building

Tuesday 22nd February 2011
Joe Jackson (University of Warwick)
'Caribbean Journeys in Contemporary Scottish Historical Fiction'
5.00pm, H1.02 Humanities Building

Tuesday, 1st March 2011
Fabienne Viala (University of Cambridge)
“Columbus in Caribbean Fiction”
5.00pm, H1.02 Humanities Building

Tuesday 15th March 2011
David Howard (University of Oxford)
“Land Rights, Development and Governance: landmark changes in Barbuda”
5.00pm, , H1.02 Humanities Building

All Welcome

For further details please contact
Kerry Drakeley at k.j.drakeley@warwick.ac.uk