Postcolonialism and Islam- Conference

http://www.naps-online.org/?cat=17

Call for Papers

The Northern Association for Postcolonial Studies (NAPS) and  Culture Team of 
the Faculty of Education and Society at the University of Sunderland are 
inviting abstracts and expressions of interest for a conference to be held at 
the University of Sunderland, UK, from the 16th to the 17th of April 2010.

Postcolonialism and Islam are two terms that frequently appear in tandem; 
however, the relationship between the two and the question of their 
compatibility has never been extensively investigated.  The speed and 
intensity of changes characteristic of late modernity under the pressure of 
cultural and economic globalisation has traumatised Muslims and non- Muslims 
alike.  Hybrid identity formations, very often provisional, are generated in the 
articulation of differences marked by imaginary relations to faith, nation, class, 
gender, sexuality and language.  Postcolonialism might seem to provide a 
framework for approaching the experiences of not only formerly colonised 
subjects, but emigres, exiles and expatriates and their host societies.  
However, Muslim writers and intellectuals have both adopted and rejected 
postcolonial theory as an effective tool for analysing and accounting for the 
experience of Muslims in the modern world.

This multidisciplinary conference will be relevant to specialists in postcolonial 
theory and cultural, historical, political, sociological, literary and religious 
studies who seek to problematise the terms themselves and their 
juxtaposition.  It will mainly focus on these six themes:

Muslim identity and its connection to race, cultural politics, integration;
the experience of Muslim communities in Britain and elsewhere in the West 
particularly as representative site(s) of settlement, networking, and diasporic 
mobility;
terms such as multculturalism, citizenship, secularism, ethnicity;
the way in which Muslim culture(s) become(s) embedded in and thematised by 
Muslim and non-Muslim writers in English and other literatures in translation;
the connection between Muslim women and the activities of western 
orientalism;
the conditions of possibility for ‘Islamic’ feminism; its response to the way in 
which Muslim women have often been represented and theorised according to 
western, Christian and white feminist versions of female experience.
Other related topic will also be considered.  The intension is to publish an 
edited volume based on the theme of the conference to which a selection of 
participants will be invited to contribute.  Speakers and non-speakers are all 
very welcome to participate.

Confirmed speakers are

Tahir Abbas, FRSA, currently principle analyst at Deen International

Ceri Peach, Emeritus Professorand Research Associate at the Oxford School of 
Geography

Patrick Williams, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies, Nottingham Trent

If you wish to contribute a paper please submit a proposal (300 words 
maximum) to one of the following no later than October 30th, 2009:

Dr Geoffrey Nash ([log in to unmask])

Dr Sarah Hackett ([log in to unmask])

Faculty of Educationa and Society

University of Sunderland

Priestman Building

Green Terrace

Sunderland SR1 3PZ

United Kingdom