world literatures and indigenous studies

Reminder: Deadline for ASLE Panel Proposals is September 1, 2018

A call for individual papers will be out this fall with a submission period of October 15-December 15, 2018.

PARADISE ON FIRE

Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) 
Thirteenth Biennial Conference

JUNE 26-30, 2019
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
DAVIS, CA

Call for Panels (PDF)

SUBMIT PANEL NOW via Submittable

This roundtable will discuss practices of teaching the literary-cultural portrayal of modern global (ethno)nationalisms and the concurrent rise and proliferation of terrorism as well as the role that the “terror threat” plays in contemporary reactionary politics and policies. Our focus will be on the teaching of texts—both literary and cultural--written not by mainstream western authors and theorists, but by non-Western/diasporic writers and commentators so as to foreground the perspective of the Western Other(s).

Editors:
◉ Tammy Lai-Ming Ho
(Assistant Professor, Hong Kong Baptist University)
◉ Eddie Tay
(Associate Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Throughout the twentieth century literary studies that focused on world literature were defined and challenged by anti-colonial and postcolonial thought. Postcolonial theory focused on a critique of modernity and especially a critique of western empires. This panel seeks to shift the focus of the study of empire and invites papers that consider representations of the Islamic Empire. We invite papers that analyze literature, film, and other media that engage with Islam as a religion and culture. We ask the following questions, among others: To what extent has Islam affected western immigration policies?

In 2015, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán justified building a border fence to prevent migrants from Asia and Africa from entering Hungary as necessary to preserve Europe “for Europeans.” East and Central European countries in general have become associated with extreme xenophobia and anti-immigrant policies following their acceptance into the European Union. Erased in current debates over these formerly communist countries’ “Europeanness” is a different history of geopolitical positioning, one where they ideologically aligned themselves not with Western Europe, but with anticolonial movements in Asia, Africa and Central and South America during the Cold War.