CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: COLLECTION OF CRITICAL ESSAYS
 
The Caribbean Short Story: Contexts, Theory, Practice [working title], ed. by Lucy Evans, Mark McWatt & Emma Smith. Forthcoming with Peepal Tree Press (Winter 2009/10)
 
According to Kenneth Ramchand, 'the history of Caribbean prose fiction before 1950 is essentially the history of the short story'. This collection posits the Caribbean short story not only as vitally influential in the development of the region's literary tradition, but also as a site of continuing reinvigoration. It investigates the significance of short stories to Caribbean cultural production in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, asking: What makes this literary form so compelling for Caribbean writers? How have they employed it, and how has it been transformed in the process? At the core of the collection is an inquiry into: 1.) the historical and socio-political contexts within which the Caribbean short story has developed (its 'ecology'); 2.) the cultural specificity of its aesthetics; 3.) up-to-date critical perspectives on significant texts by established and emerging voices, which might range from the early stories of C.L.R. James, Seepersad Naipaul or Jean Rhys to the contemporary innovations of Opal Palmer Adisa, Robert Antoni or E.A. Markham. Responding to gaps in critical attention both to the short story within Caribbean studies, and to the Caribbean within short story studies, this collection will provide a unique and valuable resource for both research and teaching. 
 
Suggested topics might include, but are not limited to:
 

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	Publishing history, especially the politics of regional/metropolitan publishing and the diverse modes of literary production (from BIM or Kyk-over-al, to Caribbean Voices, to new internet resources) 
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	Reception and reading audiences
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	Island-specific literary cultures, archipelagic and diasporic perspectives, and the tensions in between
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	Francophone and Hispanic Caribbean short story writing; comparative inter-linguistic approaches 
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	Socio-political contexts: e.g. im/migration; tourism; global/local economies; island environments; urban/rural spaces; sexual identities and taboos
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	Excavating the tradition: forgotten or marginalised voices, early anthologies, uncollected stories, belatedly published collections 
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	Formal and stylistic specificities: generic conventions (and their transgression), narrative architecture, strategies of narration, use of creole, etc.
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	The relationship of Caribbean short story writing to: colonial and creolised literary practices, island/regional popular culture, folktales, orality, other short story traditions
	

Abstracts of 300-500 words should be emailed to the editors at: [log in to unmask] (Alternatively, post to: Lucy Evans, School of English, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.) Abstracts are due by Friday 7 November 2008. Invited authors will be notified by early December, and completed papers of 4000-6000 words will be due by the end of May 2009.