Calls for Papers: Caribbean Literature: Racialized Voices, Hybridized
Identities

We invite essays on the diasporic implications of multiracial and
multicultural characters and their hybrid cultural consciousness in
Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean texts. The site of the diasporic cultures
may be in the Caribbean itself or in transnational locations--in the
Metropole or in the various sites of migration common to Caribbean nationals.

In spite of a large presence of Indo-Caribbeans, works by authors coming
out of the Caribbeanother than a few well known names, such as
Naipaul--rarely reflect their experiences. When we do read available
literature, it focuses on ideas of cultural hybridity or créolité and
creolization in separate racialized spaces. When interracial mixing is
represented, it is usually between a White and Black character. In
postcolonial and transnational locations, we are still struggling with
ideas regarding the fear of miscegenation or construction of colonial
desire that Albert Memmi in The Colonizer and The Colonized and Frantz
Fanon in Black Skin, White Mask brought up in terms of racial
hybriditybetween a Black man and a White woman, or between a Black woman
and a White man. Where is the literature that reflects collaborations and
interethnic mixings in sexual and cultural terms? For example, in Gurinder
Chadha' s Bhaji on the Beach, for the first time, an Afro-Caribbean man and
an Indian woman in the UK were linked romantically in British cinema. The
focus on race will not be simply the one traditionally associated with
Caribbean writings, but will, hopefully treat interactions of Caribbean
personages of African and Indian ancestry and cultures as in Earl
Lovelace's The Dragon Can' t Dance. Additionally, seldom do we read
literature by Indo-Caribbean women writers, nor do we hear voices of GL/Q
(Gay, Lesbians, and Queer) community. What is lacking is voices from the
margins and those especially tackling racial, ethnic and sexual hybridity
and intra-racial collaboration or conflicts. Caribbean literature is
typically read as Afro-Caribbean literature, with a few Indo-Caribbean
voices thrown in the mix to make it interesting. What this project hopes
to accomplish is the showcasing of literature reflecting the merging and
intermingling of racialized voices locating hybridized identities in the
interstices of Afro-Caribbean and Indo-Caribbean literarily landscape. How
are the two diasporas shared and commingled, reflecting historical and
cultural roots of each in literature of hybridityracial and inter-ethnic as
well as cultural?

  The editors are prominent writers in the area of postcolonial and
immigrant literature, and would be appreciative of reading any manuscripts
which might fulfill stated vision in the collection. All essays will be
refereed by independent scholars in the field of Caribbean Literature.

  Please send one-page abstracts, a bio, along with a completed 20 page
paper to <mailto:trose_at_nmu.edu>trose_at_nmu.edu or
<mailto:jsingh_at_nmu.edu>jsingh_at_nmu.edu by the end of the new
deadline--August, 2006. Please indicate Title, Name and Affiliation of
author. We will notify you by the end of August as to the selection of
your essay for the collection.

Jaspal K. Singh
Associate Professor, English Department
Gries Hall, Northern Michigan University
1401 Presque Isle Avenue
Marquette, MI 49855
Phone: 906-227-1832
Email: jsingh_at_nmu.edu
Fax:906-227-1096

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Received on Tue Apr 25 2006 - 10:18:50 EDT