This ACLA seminar seeks papers that reflect on the analytical bridges that might exist between post- political theory and the study of aesthetics broadly conceived. The main question the seminar aims to answer is the following: Decades after everything was declared to be political, what are the affordances, triumphs, and pitfalls of a post-political theory of aesthetics?

Cafe Dissenus Issue 57: January 2021: Epidemics/Pandemics in Literature [Last date for submission: 30 December, 2020; Date of publication: 1 February, 2021]

Guest-Editor: Dr. Nishi Pulugurtha, Associate Professor, Department of English, Brahmananda Keshab Chandra College, University of Calcutta.

Print ISSN: 2682-4116
Online ISSN: 2682-4124
Miṣriqiyā Subject Fields
This journal publishes articles in the fields of anthropology, history, sociology, politics, geography, linguistics, literary and cultural studies and Basic Science. Miṣriqiyā is published in both print and online versions.

In his Funeral Oration, Pericles illustrates the low status of women in ancient Athens, saying “A woman’s reputation is highest when men say little about her, whether it be good or evil.” Despite Pericles’ admonition, women held a central place in Classical literature and mythology, which cast them in a diverse array of roles: goddesses, slaves, mothers, daughters, virgins, whores, and warriors. These depictions laid the groundwork for the representations of women in subsequent literature and have continued to shape our understanding of gender. This session will explore depictions of women and gender in Greco-Roman texts and its impact on the literature of subsequent periods. Possible approaches include by are not limited to:

Color and texture are often perceived as “wallpaper” – a humdrum backdrop against which the action of a literary work unfolds. Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper; Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls…; and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, among many others, purposely and effectively challenge such perception. This creative session (re)considers the author as artist, (re)casting color and texture as deliberate, meaningful components of literary experience. Open to considering a variety of authors and genres in relation to its theme, this creative session particularly welcomes papers highlighting color and/or texture as relate to either Gilman, or Shange, or Walker.

 As a preamble to this call for abstracts, we want to specify that we are using the terms “transgender” and “trans identities” as umbrella terms for people whose gender identity and/or gender expression differs from what is typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Our use of “transgender” or “trans identities” thus encompasses a variety of experiences within and outside the gender binary, and a range of expressions, as trans individuals pursue many different options (medical changes, clothing, make-up, etc.) to bring their appearances into alignment with their gender identity, or may choose not to.