Note: The deadline for submissions has been extended to December 1, =20
            2005.

Critical Essays on Meena Alexander: A Call for Papers =20
=20
Contributions are invited for a collection of critical essays on any aspect=20
of Meena Alexander=E2=80=99s work as poet, memoirist, novelist, literary t=
heorist,=20
and thinker. The publication of the tenth anniversary edition of Fault Lines=
 as=20
well as two recent volumes of poetry, Illiterate Heart (winner of PEN Open=20
Book Award 2002) and Raw Silk (2004), provides a watershed moment to examine=
 and=20
evaluate Alexander's creative oeuvre in the context of contemporary=20
transnational, multi-ethnic, and feminist theory and aesthetics. Although A=
lexander has=20
been widely anthologized and acclaimed as a contemporary South Asian America=
n=20
poet and thinker, no major collection of critical commentaries on her work=20
has yet appeared, a void that this collection hopes to address. =20
=20
How does Alexander's work intervene in the coruscating issues of the present=
=20
moment and map the circuitous routes of violence from religious=20
fundamentalisms in India, her country of birth, to the devastation and traum=
a of post 9/11=20
New York City, her current home? How does Alexander=E2=80=99s work reassert=20=
the power=20
of poetry and passionately advocate for the preservation of the aesthetic in=
 a=20
time of violence and strife? Critical essays examining Alexander=E2=80=99s c=
reative=20
work using the methodologies of transnational feminism, deconstruction,=20
psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, queer studies, narrative theory, cultur=
al=20
studies, and genre studies are welcome. We welcome essays examining intercon=
nections=20
between Alexander=E2=80=99s poetic practice and thought with grassroots or p=
edagogic=20
activism, as well as others that contextualize her contribution to the field=
 of=20
postcolonial and Asian American literatures.
=20
Given below is a suggestive but not an exhaustive list of possible topics:
=20
* The Lyric in a Time of Violence
=20
* Transnational Feminist Poetics
=20
* Rethinking Indian Nationalism
=20
* Trauma and Language
=20
* Migration, Exile, and Home
=20
* US Race Relations and Multicultural Pedagogy
=20
* Postcoloniality, History and the Personal Essay
=20
* The Body and Memory
=20
=20
=20
* Memoir as a Genre=20
=20
* Autobiographical Fiction =20
=20
Please send abstracts of 500 words by email to Lopamudra Basu of University=20
of Wisconsin-Stout at basul_at_uwstout.edu AND to Cynthia Leenerts of East=20
Stroudsburg University at srcyn_at_aol.com by the EXTENDED DEADLINE of DECEMB=
ER 1,=20
2005. Queries are welcome. Preference will be given to essays between 3000=
 and=20
4000 words.=20

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Received on Tue Aug 09 2005 - 10:00:44 EDT