cfp.english.upenn.edu

Our lives seem to be marked by the fact that the neoliberal clock can be heard ticking throughout the planet as it sets the pace of globalization. Paul Virilio, for instance, has argued that “what is being effectively globalized by instantaneity is time. Everything now happens within the perspective of real time: henceforth we are deemed to live in a ‘one-time-system.’” Yet it also seems that globalization advances with different intensities throughout the world, contributing to what could be called a “heterogeneous synchronicity.” This proposed special panel seeks papers that investigate specific locales where neoliberalism advances at a different speed with respect to the rest of the world. Are there any possible radical alternatives to the synchronicity of globalization? Can national or regional tempos slow down the speed of globalization? How can these tempos be productive for the construction of an alternative global world? What are the advantages and setbacks of an out-of-pace global movement?

Participants may consider, among others, the following topics and issues:

• National time vs. geological time
• Transnational simultaneity
• Transhistorical connections
• International trade
• Migratory movements
• Human-land relations and environmentalism
• Workers’ movements
• Postcolonialism and Neoimperialism
• Spaces of resistance
• Urban development vs. ecological preservation
• Repetition and cyclicality
• Information dissemination
• Pro-democracy activism

Papers that engage with works of literature, film, comics, digital media, and other forms of cultural representation to illustrate their arguments are highly encouraged.

Please note that this is a proposed special panel and is not guaranteed by MLA.

Please send abstracts to Juan Meneses (jmeneses@purdue.edu) by March 15, 2013.