Canadian Comparative Literature Association / Association Canadienne de Littérature Comparée (CCLA/ACLC) Conference

May 29 to June 1, 2023 at York University, in conjunction with the 2023 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences. 

Call for Special Topic Panel Paper Presentations 

The Post-Magical Realist Worlds research group invites contributions to the special topic panel: "Salman Rushdie’s Oeuvre in the Reckoning and Re-imagining Conversation.”

CCLA/ACLC Congress Theme: Reckonings and Re-imaginings in Comparative Literature

A global pandemic, and escalating movements for social justice and climate change have led us into unprecedented times. Comparative Literature, with its generous hospitality to the diverse linguistic, cultural, and ideological approaches in literary studies and comparative analysis, appears to be an ideal discipline for the conversation of reckoning and re-imagining a more equitable and sustainable society. Through close reading of expressions from different civilizations in a wide range of interdisciplinary areas, such as humanities, social sciences and natural sciences, we promote commitment to understanding and caring for each other across our differences, and respond to the call of re-imagining “a new set of social relationships grounded in decoloniality, anti-racism, justice, and preservation of the earth.” (York Scholarly Committee, “Congress 2023: https://www.yorku.ca/congress2023/).  For the CCLA/ACLC Congress 2023, we invite contributions to the 2023 Annual Conference on the theme of “Reckonings and Re-Imaginings in Comparative Literature.” We welcome submissions related to the discussion of racial and climate justice, and the United Nation’s sustainable development goals, including food insecurity, gender disparities, racial inequities, forced migration and others as linked to an accelerating climate disaster, and Black and Indigenous futurities.

Post-Magical Realist Worlds research group Special Topic Panel: "Salman Rushdie’s Oeuvre in the Reckoning and Re-imagining Conversation.”

The focus of our special topic panel call is the great Salman Rushdie, his oeuvre, the attacks on him and his writing, with its magical realism, irony, humour, and religious topics in literary freedom, examining their role in reckoning and re-imagining a more equitable and sustainable society.  Ajay Chaubey suggests Rushdie writes “diasporic experiences of his own and of other migrants,” pioneering himself “in Diaspora writing and world literatures . . . as a major voice of decolonization, multiculturalism, diasporic experiences and also of new humanism.”

Your paper can address Rushdie in general terms in the context of one or more of the socio-economic, political issues outlined in the CCLA’s topic, or focus on a specific work on topics that might include:

• Narratives and “truth”
• Literature and “truth”
• Rhetoric, literary schema, inter-textuality
• Autobiography or meta-Autobiography
• Globalization and cosmopolitanism
• Displacement and rootlessness
• Religious conservatism and violence
• Exploring and sharing ideas across borders
• National, linguistic, cultural productions and disciplines
• Decolonization, multiculturalism, diasporic experiences
• Multiculturalism and hybrid ethnicity

To participate in the session, please submit 250-300 word abstracts for 15-minute presentations as MS Word attachments (indicating the title of the panel in the subject of your email) to the Post-Magical Realist Worlds panel organizers by January 20th, 2023

Panel Format: 3-4 speakers to present 15-minute papers, followed by a 30-minute discussion (1 hr. 30 mins).

Agata Mergler agatamer@yorku.ca

Jill Planche jillplanche@gmail.com

Sanjukta Banerjee sanjukta1@sympatico.ca

About the Post-Magical Realist Worlds Research Groups:

Post-Magical Realist Worlds research groups

If you are interested in participating in this group please contact: Agata Mergler agatamer@yorku.ca

Works Cited.

Chaubey, Ajay, K. Salman Rushdie: An Anthology of Critical Essays in New Millennium. GRIN Verlag, 2014. http://dnb.dnb.de