interdisciplinary

Call for Papers

“Trauma and Mourning in a Time of Insecurity”

(Dis)junctions 2017

Department of English Graduate Conference

University of California, Riverside

Dates: October 19 - 20, 2017

Keynote Speakers: Dr. Trinh T. Minh-ha and Dr. David Eng

https://disjunctions2017.wordpress.com/

What does it mean to mourn? Why do we mourn the loss of some, but not others? Who are these “others,” and why do we not mourn “them”? For how many can each of us mourn?

PAMLA November 2017, Honolulu Hawaii. 1 more paper needed for 2 Food Studies panels. ANY-FOOD related topic related to literature or film and culture. Any time period.

PAMLA 115th Annual Conference - Honolulu, Hawaii
Friday, November 10 - Sunday, November 12, 2017

Studying the South: Approaches and Orientations

A one-day colloquium organised by the Southern Studies in the UK Network

26th August 2017, University of Hertfordshire

The editor seeks scholarly essays that address some aspect of HBO’s television series The Leftovers (2014-2017) and/or its source text, Tom Perrotta’s novel of the same title (2011). Perrotta co-produced the series with show runner David Lindelof (Lost). Both novel and series are set three years after the “Sudden Departure” of 2% of the world’s population. In ways distinct to each form, The Leftovers serves as a study of the psychological, social, and cultural impact of a large-scale traumatic event. Perrotta’s spare, satirical, character-driven fiction lies in the lineage of modern novels set in the American suburbs. The television series’ first season exhausted Perrotta’s plot, if not its primary conceit.

Afropolitanism currently inflects many academic and popular conversations about African literature. The term is mobilized to celebrate African influence in the world and to characterize the proliferation of African literature that is disconnected from the daily lives of average people residing on the continent. It refuses victimhood for Africans in the wake of patronizing representations by the likes of CNN, BBC, and KONY 2012 and sells a version of Africa ready-made for western reading tastes.  It represents a formidable ideology formulated by Achille Mbembe, among others, and a way to sell $30 novelty T-shirts to American hipsters.