UPDATE

Cerpac (Research Centre for Commonwealth Studies)
http://recherche.univ-montp3.fr/cerpac

Novembre 8-9-10, 2007, Université Paul Valéry (Montpellier III), France

Guest writers: Bernardine EVARISTO and Karen KING-ARIBISALA
Keynote speakers: John McLeod (University of Leeds, UK) and Gerry
TURCOTTE (University of Wollongong, Australia)

POSTCOLONIAL GHOSTS
  From Shakespeare to the Gothic novel to Salman Rushdie, the ghost
has always been a recurrent figure in literature. This conference
aims at examining haunting phenomena in the postcolonial world: is
there a specifically postcolonial kind of haunting? Who/What are the
postcolonial ghosts? How do they show themselves? Can they be
conjured or exorcised? How? To answer these questions, and many
others, the presence of ghosts in the new literatures in English
(Africa, India, Caribbean) can be examined; issues tackled may
include magic realism, neo-gothic writings, folklore, ghosts (guilty
or innocent), and the various ways in which they manifest themselves.
Ghosts may also be more abstract : haunted texts, literary or
cultural ghosts from the past.
Writers as diverse as André Brink, Edwige Danticat, Fred D'Aguiar,
Denise Harris, Wilson Harris, Nalo Hopkinson, Margaret Laurence,
Arundhati Roy or Wole Soyinka, to quote only a few, can be looked at.
Another possible aspect is the presence of colonial "ghosts" in
institutions, politics, historiography, education, museums. The
various "truth and reconciliation commissions" established to deal
with – exorcise? – the ghosts of the past may also be looked at. Many
other examples can of course be dealt with.
Finally, linguistic ghosts also haunt the postcolonial world :
accents, creolization, "englishes" where the colonisers' language is
haunted by the colonised's (and vice versa), etc. It will therefore
be interesting to try and understand how, and to what extent,
postcolonial language(s) is/are haunted.
This conference should then be open to those who deal in literature,
as well as to those interested in cultures, history, techniques or
linguistics, in the British Empire and the Commonwealth, delivering
their paper in English or French.
Please send your proposals (title + abstract of 250 to 300 words) as
well as a short bio to Mélanie Joseph-Vilain <melanie.joseph-
vilain_at_wanadoo.fr> and to Judith Misrahi-Barak <judith.misrahi-
barak_at_univ-montp3.fr> by December 31, 2006.

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Received on Sun Nov 12 2006 - 23:48:02 EST