CALL FOR PAPERS

Fifth International Conference of Caribbean Women’s Writing
Goldsmiths, University of London
Caribbean Studies Centre

27 – 28 April, 2007
THEME: Writing, Diaspora and the Legacy of Slavery

The year, 2007, with its centennial focus on the 
abolition of the slave trade and its impact on 
the Atlantic world including slave colonies of 
the Caribbean is no better year in which to 
further the debate concerning Caribbean women’s 
writing. Specifically, the conference theme seeks 
to embed the central motif of burden of 
production/ reproduction which fell to 
African-Caribbean women in the immediate 
aftermath of abolition and to extend this to 
contemporary issues of writing and representation 
within the region and the diaspora. Assuming 
Creole culture to be a significant part of the 
legacy of Atlantic slavery, how might meanings of 
creolisation inscribed within artefacts of the 
culture be fruitfully read? In engaging with 
creolisation, is the breadth of responses limited 
in their applicability to the region or is the 
dispora also to be considered relative to issues 
of creolisation? How are power dynamics and 
resistance implicated in cultural forms that have 
emerged and how has the racialisation of Atlantic 
slavery impacted on these as well as on issues of 
voice within the diaspora and the Caribbean 
region? We welcome exploration of these and many 
more questions interrogating cultural responses 
to the complex knowledge and experience of trans-Atlantic slavery.
             While the conference, ‘Writing, 
Diaspora and the Legacy of Slavery’ is grounded 
in a concern with Caribbean Women’s Writing, 
papers that are interdisciplinary and / or 
stretch the limits of this theme to include other 
forms of cultural expression like music, film, 
visual arts and digital technology are of particular interest.


Possible topics for consideration include:

• Caribbean Writing in Britain
• Women, Representation and Diaspora
• Creole languages, Creolisation, Diaspora and Region
• Theoretical Discourse and the Creole Cultural Artefact
• Slavery and the Gendered Body
• Absent Mothers / Absent Fathers
• ‘Creative friction’ and Conditions of Cultural Production
• Oral Word/ Written Word: / Visual Art/ Verbal Art
• ‘Relation’ and Women’s Writing

Proposal/ Submission Deadline:        5 February, 2007
Notification of Acceptance:                   26 February, 2007

Abstracts
Submit an abstract of not more than 250 words and 
a brief biography with the following details:
Name
Institutional affiliation (if applicable)
Postal address
Phone number
E-mail address
Title for the proposed presentation.


Please send abstracts to the Conference Committee <[log in to unmask]>,
or post to:
The Conference Organising Committee
Fifth International Conference on Caribbean Women’s Writing
Caribbean Studies Centre
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
London, SE14 6NW
UK
http:// www. goldsmiths.ac.uk/caribbean


********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************
Conference Organising Committee
5th International Conference on Caribbean Women's Writing
Caribbean Studies Centre
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
London SE14 6NW
T +44 207 919 7396
F +44 207 919 7395
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web Site: www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/caribbean
********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************