cfp.english.upenn.edu

The Katherine Mansfield Society is pleased to announce its fourth essay competition, open to all, on the subject of:

KATHERINE MANSFIELD AND THE (POST)COLONIAL

Essays are invited that seek to position Mansfield as a (post)colonial modernist, as ‘the little colonial’ whose pioneering experiments in literary form situated her centrally within metropolitan modernism. We welcome studies that deal with the tensions permeating her writing between colonial life and settlement, generated by issues such as: the Maori as indigenous ‘Other’, white settler occupancy, ethnic identity and justice, and Mansfield’s European cosmopolitan geographies. Of particular relevance to the (post)colonial Mansfield is her identity as a diasporic ‘extraterritorial’ writer, semi-nomadic and rootless due to her travel between England and various European destinations, and her volatile feelings about home and belonging.

Subthemes

Mansfield and indigenous belonging
Mansfield, travel and transport(ation)
Mansfield, movement and the distancing self
Mansfield and (post)colonial childhood
Mansfield and the exile’s ‘return’
Mansfield and her (post)colonial legacy
Mansfield, race, ethnicity and identity
Mansfield and white settler ambivalence
Mansfield and roots/routes
Mansfield and (post)colonial cosmopolitanism
Mansfield and colony versus metropolis

The winner will receive a cash prize of £200 and the winning essay will be considered for publication in Katherine Mansfield Studies (the peer-reviewed journal of the Katherine Mansfield Society, published by Edinburgh University Press)

The distinguished panel of judges will comprise:

Professor Janet Wilson
Vice Chair, KMS, Professor of English and Postcolonial Studies, University of Northampton

Professor Elleke Boehmer
Professor of World Literature, University of Oxford

Dr Simone Oettli
Chargée d'enseignement, University of Geneva

Essays in Word (.doc) format should be submitted by email attachment to the Chair of the Judging Panel, Professor Janet Wilson:
kms@katherinemansfieldsociety.org by 31 October 2012.

Further details, including style guidelines, are available at:
http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/essay-prize/
For general queries, please email the Society: kms@katherinemansfieldsociety.org