"What is to be insisted upon is that the poet must develop or procure the consciousness of the past and that he should continue to develop this consciousness throughout his career."

— T.S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent”

“By refocusing our attention on the racialized bodies, experiences, and knowledges of transgendered people, lesbians, gays, and bisexuals of color, quare studies grounds the discursive process of mediated identification and subjectivity in a political praxis that speaks to the material existence of "colored" bodies. While strategically galvanized around identity, quare studies should be committed to interrogating identity claims that exclude rather than include.… Blind allegiance to "isms" of any kind is one of the fears of queer theorists who critique identity politics. Cognizant of that risk, quare studies must not deploy a totalizing and homogeneous formulation of identity. Rather, it must foster contingent, fragile coalitions as it struggles against common oppressive forms.”
— E. Patrick Johnson, “Quare’ Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know About Queer Studies I Learned From My Grandmother”

T.S. Eliot considers the connection between the interconnectivity between authors, their work, and “the canon,” as inextricably linked. Pointedly, this mode of thought creates a hegemonic divide on the basis of race, class, disability, national origin, gender, and/or sexuality—specifically, identities generated as a result of colonial societal construction. As such, writings—both fiction and non-fiction—written by ‘monstrousized’ identities inherently challenge the ‘canonized’ subjugated position in which they are written about, ultimately presenting a counter-hegemonic depiction of identity and humanity. Johnson conveys this idea in “‘Quare’ Studies…”, as he proffers a new methodology to decenter the exclusive nature of queer theory; thus, shifting the center to the experiences of black queer individuals. Authors such as Toni Morrison and Malinda Lo write alongside Johnson’s thought, against the hegemonic demand that marginalizes their work by creating counter-narratives/archives through narrative devices and dialogic choice.

Recalibrating the center can be accomplished by authors or scholars in their interactions with works in shifting the focal point from a text’s center to its margins. This session interrogates the impact of centering marginalized voices and community building endeavors resulting from counternarrative resistance. In a time of cognitive dissonance, binarization, and white fragility, this panel’s significance lies with creatives’ societal reconstructive efforts that seek to create a world in which there is no margin for people to be relegated to.

We invite papers which consider how writings speak back to the canon: how do they reframe the canons from which they, according to Eliot, cannot detach? How do methodologies like critical fabulation, narratology, hauntology, and rememory serve to recalibrate the center of who and how individuals are (re)presented? And ultimately, how does counternarrative resistance generate empowering communities?

Possible Topics include (but are not limited):

• Texts which utilize counter-hegemonic knowledges
• Counter-archive/ the reconstruction of archives
• Critical Fabulation – Saidiya Hartman
• Rememory - Toni Morrison
• Recalibrating the center
• Demythologizing canon ideologies/figures/historises
• Counter-canon narratives
• Marginalized narratives
• Narratology & text resistance
• Anthropocene/ Evolution of…
• Hauntology /Grievability/ Homo Sacer (Agamben)
• Postcolonial, Quare and Queer studies

Texts that inspired this session:

• Barracoon: The Last Black Cargo by Zora Neale Hurston
• In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
• Zong! By M. NourbeSe Philip
• Counternarratives by John Keene
• Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
• Middle Passage by Charles R. Johnson
• Milkman by Anna Burns
• Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
• American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb
• Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn
• Beloved by Toni Morrison
• “‘Quare’ Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know About Queer Studies I Learned From My Grandmother” by E. Patrick Johnson
• Feminist Theories: From Margin to Center by bell hooks

Please submit your proposal directly through NeMLA website: https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/22540.

This panel will be presented in-person and on Zoom at the 58th annual NeMLA conference from March 6-9 in Newport, Rhode Island. Please indicate if you intend to present virtually or in-person upon your abstract submission.

Please don't hesitate to contact Joelle DuFault (jdufault43@gmail.com) or Roshni Dave (daver2@tcnj.edu) if you have any questions.