Call for Submissions

Movement Beyond Limit(s): CCLPS Postgraduate Conference 2024

“We live in an age of movement. [...] which huge amounts of materials are now in wide circulation around the globe. There are more humans, circulating and consuming more [...] Portions of the planet are literally moving more quickly and more unevenly– around axes of gender, race, and class.” (Thomas Nail, “Forum 1: Migrant Climate in the Kinocene” 2019: 375)

We have a brain for one reason and one reason only -- that’s to produce adaptable and complex movements. Movement is the only way we have affecting the world around us […] I believe that to understand movement is to understand the whole brain. And therefore it’s important to remember when you are studying memory, cognition, sensory processing, they’re there for a reason, and that reason is action.” (Daniel Wolpert, “The Real Reason for Brains” 2011)

“Through mobilization, bodies traverse a given terrain that by traversing, they constitute [...] Mobilization foregrounds th[e] process of how bodies are made, how they are assembled, and how demands for space produce a space of identifiable demands through a practical activity [...] If movement can be plotted on a grid of space and time, mobilization is what generates the grid.” (Randy Martin, Critical Moves 1998: 4)

The SOAS Centre for Cultural, Literary, and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS) is hosting a postgraduate conference on Friday, May 10, 2024. Our chosen subject is Movement Beyond Limit(s). Send your proposals by Monday, 1 April 2024 to speak, perform, or present on a relevant topic.  

We are curious about the multiplicity of meanings related to ‘movement’ and the possibilities and sites of scholarship it can open up. From the movement of ideas across time and space to shifting human bodies, we welcome explorations of ‘movement’ across disciplines. In line with the inherent motion involved in ‘movement’, we aim to involve both academic presentations as well as creative forms of engagement. Should your proposal be selected, you will be invited to present your work on campus at SOAS, University of London. Additionally, we invite SOAS academics to chair panel discussions with presenters on select themes related to the broader topic of “Movement Beyond Limit(s).” Details of the panels will be published in due course, based on the submissions we receive. 

Please send your abstracts for your proposed presentations using our Google Form (https://bit.ly/cclps-2024) no later than Monday, 1 April 2024. (Conference organisers will consider extensions on an as-needed basis.) We welcome presentations of academic papers. We also welcome creative and multidisciplinary submissions (such as dance/choreography and performance, video, digital images, sound/audio, literary and creative writing, workshops/teach-ins); however, we require you to submit a text-based abstract that theoretically grounds your work in world of movement (for example, if you are interested in submitting a proposal for a creative work, your abstract could look like an artist statement—for an example, see: https://www.headlands.org/artist/candice-lin/). The word limit for the abstract (whether academic or creative) is 250 words. If you have any queries related to the topics or the conference, please contact us via cclps.conference@gmail.com.  

Possible topics to explore: 

• Trans(formation) and embodied resistance 

• The accessibility (or lack of) of movement

• Transcendence 

• The movement through borders

• Translation 

• The inherent resistance in protest movements