Dear all, we're delighted to share this call for presentation papers for NeMLA 2023 (March 23-26), which will take place at the Niagara Falls Convention Center in Niagara Falls, New York. Abstracts to be submitted at the link below, with a due date of September 30, 2022.

Sincerely,

Robert Glick and Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, co-moderators

Abstract:

Language has always been a debatable issue in the postcolonial world. Starting from the debate between Achebe and Ngugi to today's multilingual scenario, language has been the heart of the conversation in postcolonial literary studies. Writers and theoreticians from the African continent and South-Asia have addressed the issue and role of language in constructing postcolonial identity in their works. Given the multilingual context of today's postcolonial world, discussion on language and identity is extremely important. This panel, thus, invites paper proposals on the questions of language and identity in contemporary postcolonial literature.

Topics:

1. Language and Identity

For people of Latin America and the Caribbean, centuries of modernity/coloniality have resulted in continuous and compounding traumas that demand resilience. Yet, when we talk of resilience, are we ever naturalizing trauma and legitimizing the status quo, accepting that the way to be of oppressed peoples must always be in response to abusive conditions? Is it not possible that in focusing on resilience, we enable the continuation of unequal power structures by putting pressure on the oppressed to learn to adapt to what hurts us, rather than putting pressure on the world to destroy oppressive systems including racism, patriarchy, and capitalism? Instead of focusing on resilience, we should be imagining and enacting ways of being otherwise.