Deadline: 31 January 2006

Post-Colonial Victorians?
A Conversation across Borders
Linacre College, Oxford, 2 June 2006

CALL FOR PAPERS

The shaping force of Empire on nineteenth-century British and colonial 
cultures, as well as on the developing cultures of post-colonial states,
has 
been the subject of much of the most exciting recent work in both Victorian 
and Postcolonial studies. The heavy traffic in themes and motifs, and in
genres, narratives and plots between the metropolis and the colonies that is
evident across the nineteenth century, and which persists in residual and
reactive ways in post-colonial cultures suggests that there are multiple
points of overlap and interaction, of historical continuity and contrast.
Despite much shared ground, however, the current constitution of the
academic
fields of the historicist and British-focused Victorian studies and the more
theoretically self-conscious and globally oriented Postcolonial studies has
meant that conversations between the two areas have sometimes been difficult
or disrupted. In this one-day symposium on metropolitan, colonial and
post-colonial cultures, we wish to stage a conversation between  Victorian
and
Postcolonial studies at the present time, to consider areas of  overlap and
indebtedness, as well as points of contest and disavowal.  What  are the
points of recognition and misrecognition?

At its most obvious level then, we want to address the question, how does 
Victorian culture look under the lens of Postcolonial theory?   In what
ways 
do critical concepts regarding, for instance, race, hybridity, marginality, 
cosmopolitanism, etc., add to our understanding of Victorian literature and 
culture?   But we also want to reverse the question and interrogate the 
Victorian colonial legacy in Postcolonial studies:  for instance, to what 
extent do the critical vocabulary and the political strategies of 
Postcolonial studies draw on concepts which originate in a
nineteenth-century colonial context?  How far is the analytical work of 
Postcolonial studies framed by nineteenth-century literary and scientific 
discourses?   How useful has the notion of 'writing back' to the Empire
been 
as either a political tactic or an analytical tool?

We are looking for 250 word proposals for 20 minute papers on any topics 
relating to the interrelationships between Victorian and Postcolonial 
Studies.   Specific topics might include, but are not restricted to

  a.. Repression and resistance within nineteenth-century colonial discourse
b.. Post-colonial rewritings of nineteenth-century literary texts c.. Body, 
sexuality and/or health in colonial  and post-colonial contexts d.. Race
and/or class in colonial and post-colonial contexts
  e.. Colonial/post-colonial cities / spaces / maps
  f.. Decolonisation and the Victorian heritage
  g.. Migration / mobility / diaspora / settlement / home
  h.. Media / book circulation / networks / reception
  i.. Colonial and post-colonial visual cultures
  j.. Language/ translation

The event aims to bring together scholars from literary, cultural and 
historical studies, and other disciplines, at different stages of their 
career. We welcome proposals from established academics as well as graduate 
students working in these fields. The conference programme will leave ample 
room for discussion and debate.

Please send proposals to [log in to unmask], or
[log in to unmask]

Deadline for submission: 31 January 2006.

Conference committee:
Stefano Evangelista, Stuti Khanna, Bianca Jackson, Josephine McDonagh, Emma 
Reisz



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