I am seeking contributions for a panel to be held at the International
Conference on Caribbean Studies at the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort, South Padre
Island, Texas; November 2-5, 2006. From Maryse Condé's and Paule Marshall's
jaded intellectuals to Hilma Contreras' Parisian exiles, Caribbean writing is
rich with women characters who are complex, brilliant, and independent, but not
necessarily exemplary. What is the role of the anti-hero(ine) in Caribbean
literature? How do such figures, as Condé might suggest, inject disorder into
established and emerging literary hegemonies? The purpose of this panel is
two-fold: (1) to interrogate the work of Caribbean writers, particularly women,
who explicitly reject model, ideal, or even admirable protagonists and (2) to
consider the link between the estimation of a character's exemplarity and the
gendering of racial, cultural, and national identities. In other words, would
some of these characters be considered heroic if they were men instead of
women? Conversely, what are the possibilities of articulating Caribbean
identities outside of the language, rhetoric, or discourse of heroism? My
interest lies not only in the historical reach of these issues, from the
Negritudes of the 1930s to the nationalisms of the 1950s and 60s and beyond,
but also in their regional breadth—how do they play across the Anglophone,
Francophone, and Hispanophone Caribbean?—as well as linguistic and cultural
specificity.

Please send abstracts of approximately 250-350 words by May 10, 2006, to
Jennifer Wilks at jmwilks_at_mail.utexas.edu. E-mail submissions only please.

Jennifer M. Wilks
Assistant Professor of English and African and African American Studies
Department of English
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station B5000
Austin, TX 78712-0195

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Received on Sun Apr 16 2006 - 09:05:53 EDT