The Department of Letters and Foreign Languages at Tamanghasset University

                                                                                   In collaboration with

              The Linguistic and Literary Practices in the Desert of Algeria and Their Extensions in the Sahel Region Research            Laboratory and the Interdisciplinary Approaches to English, African (Sub-Saharan) and Algerian Literary                                                                                                      Texts PRFU Project 

                                                                                            Organize

                                      “Trauma and Resilience in Contemporary World Literature” International Conference

                                                              Co-chaired by Dr. Abdelkader Babkar and Dr. Khedidja Chergui

                                                                                       September 25-26, 2024

Concept Note:

Reading and tracing, in reiteration, the age of great imperial systems and the wave of revolutions following it, we are to discern that the kinds of societies they generated are still historically and culturally relegated to the margins, with a traumatic legacy that is intense to come to grips with. New societies, or a predicament of culture, in which, as Mahmood Mamdani argues in his Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities, “contests over national belonging are at the heart of extreme violence,” and where “distributional choices are made by reference to cultural, ethnic, and racial identities.” (Mamdani, 2020: 14&17). Works by other key theorists like Achille Mbembe (On the Postcolony, 1991), Edward Said (Culture and Imperialism, 1994), Samir Amin (Rereading the Postwar Period: An Intellectual Itinerary, 1994), Linnie Blake (The Wounds of Nations, 2008), Dominick LaCapra (Writing History, Writing Trauma, 2014),  among many others, are germane in alerting us to the complexities and overlapping nature of this colonial heritage as seen through language, religion, race, class and identity. A colonial heritage (traumatic) manifesting itself through stories of diasporic displacements, problems of border crossing, identity contentions, systemic racism, political unrest, and cross-generational loss, added to other manifold forms of cultural erosion.

What is of particular interest to this conference is the idea of trauma as a colonial and historical legacy and one whose ramifications still mark the present in the lives of both individuals and communities. We are interested in traumas as “wounds of nations” (to use Linnie Blake’s term), as “colonial legacies”, as “cultural crises”, and “collective experiences”  which need reconciliation and repair, and efforts towards resilience and ‘tropes of resistance’ to these traumatic experiences as they are represented in works of literature.

We are seeking proposals for 15-minute papers to be delivered at a two-day international conference. The conference aims to bring together scholars of different research levels working on questions of diaspora, identity, colonialism, postcolonialism, and migration, representing different regions and literature traditions, and diverse areas of literature and literary studies (generally conceived). Proposals may address but need not be limited to, the following themes:

Track 1: Narratives of Colonial Legacies

• Examine how traumas stemming from colonial histories are depicted and represented in contemporary world literature.

• How authors navigate the legacies of imperialism, exploring themes of displacement, cultural erasure, and resistance.

Track 2: Historical Traumas and Collective Memory

• Investigate how literature contributes to constructing collective memory surrounding historical traumas.

• How authors engage with and reshape historical narratives to address the impact of trauma on communities.

Track 3: Migration, Exile, and Narrative Expression

• Explore the narratives of migration, exile, and displacement in literature.

• How storytelling is used as an aesthetic tool to express the psychological and emotional dimensions of the migrant experience.

Track 4: Language, Hybridity, and Trauma

• Explore the role of language in expressing trauma in literature.

• How the hybridity of language reflects the complexities of diasporic experiences and contributes to the representation of trauma.

Track 5: Literature as Witness and Testimony

• Consider how literature serves as a form of witness and testimony to historical traumas.

• Discuss the ethical dimensions of representing trauma in literary works, particularly in the context of diasporic histories.

Track 6: Cultural Resilience and Alternative Futures

• Explore how literature from these contexts portrays resilience, resistance, and the imagining of alternative futures.

• How authors envision possibilities for healing and transformation in the face of historical and contemporary traumas.

- Works Cited and Further Reading:

- Amin, Samir. Rereading the Postwar Period: An Intellectual Itinerary. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994.

- Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso, 1983.

- Blake, Linnie. The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2008.

- Chatterjee, Partha. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993.

- Frans van Dijkhuizen, Jan. A Literary History of Reconciliation: Power, Remorse and the Limits of Forgiveness. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.

- Hayner, B. Priscilla. Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity. New York: Routledge, 2001.

- Jeffrey, C. Alexander et al. (Eds). Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2004.

- LaCapra, Dominick. Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

- Mamdani, Mahmood. Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2020.

- Mbembe, Achille. On the Postcolony. California: California University Press, 2001.

- Ricoeur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting. Trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004.

- Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

- Scott, Jill. A Poetics of Forgiveness: Cultural Responses to Loss and Wrongdoing. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

- Spivak, Gayatri Chakravarty. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen, 1987.

- Tal, Kali. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literature of Trauma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

- Young, Jock. The Exclusive Society: Social Exclusion, Crime, and Difference in Late Modernity. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1999.

Timeline and organisation:

-Scholars are called to submit an abstract (250-300 words), and a short bio (100 words) to traumaresilience2024@gmail.com by April 1st, 2024.

- Key dates:

• Proposal submission deadline: April 1st, 2024.

• Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2024.

• Registration for the conference: July 1st, 2024.

• Dates of the conference: September 25-26, 2024.

- Remarks:

• The conference will take place Online.

• The language of the conference and scholarly contributions is English.

• Only the participants whose abstracts have been approved by the conference reading committee will be contacted.

• Paper proposals to be included in the conference program will be selected based on their direct relevance to the conference's themes, originality, and clarity of argument (s) and/or approach.

• Participation in the conference is free of charge.

Contact details:

Should you have any questions, please contact us at: chergui.khadidja@ensb.dz

Event webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/traumaandresilienceinworldlite/home