EXTENDED DEADLINE FOR ACLALS CONFERENCE, ST LUCIA, August 5 ­9, 2013

Abstracts of maximum 300 words for papers of 20 minutes duration, and
maximum 400 words for three-paper panels (with the names of the panelists)
which engage with these and other relevant questions along with a short bio
not exceeding 100 words should be submitted to
[log in to unmask] by 31 January 2013. N.B. As of December 30,
2012, acceptance letters will be sent out on a ³first come, first served²
basis and there are limited spaces.

³ŒThe current unbroken/ the circuits kept open¹: Connecting Cultures and the
Commonwealth²

In ³Sometimes in the Middle of the Story,² a poem that revisits the perilous
event of the Middle Passage, the eminent Walcott scholar, Edward Baugh,
gives primacy to the connecting currents of the ³ocean² as a central motif.
While the sea is viewed as an archive of history as Nobel Laureate and St.
Lucian poet, Derek Walcott has argued, Baugh mobilizes this metaphor to both
recognize the traumatic beginning of the colonial encounter in the Caribbean
and the rich ³refashioning of futures² of cultural connections that the
Middle Passage engendered. No doubt the colonial encounter of slavery and
indentureship in the Caribbean could have led to cultural enclosures, but in
Baugh¹s view, ³the paths of ocean² represent connecting currents between and
beyond the cultures of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Indigenous Caribbean.
The sea, in particular, the Atlantic Ocean, was a site of treacherous travel
and trade, yet that very sea is a source ³connecting us still².
Not all colonial encounters carry with them the violence of such ruptures;
but whether we had traumatic or benign beginnings, we wonder what future
consequently has been imagined for these and other Commonwealth lands? What
global zones of power and influence haunt the seemingly ecumenical and
liberal discourses of cultural exchange? What cultural connections and
disconnections have emerged over time? Whose cultural currents are unbroken:
whose cultural circuits have been kept open? What is the currency of
indigenous language and linguistic legacies? In the commingling of cultures
in the postcolonial circuits of exchange, what is the relationship between
indigenous and outside cultures? Is the implicit comparative critical lens
fostered in early postcolonial theory still viable? What do these connecting
comparisons obscure or reveal?  What is the relationship between economic
currencies and cultural circuits? What are the historical and critical
currents that mark postcolonial and commonwealth studies at this time? What
connections are there between different genders, sexualities and ecologies?
How valuable is the more recent deployment of concepts of desire, intimacy
and affect to postcolonial and Commonwealth studies? What useful connections
can be made between such disciplinary paradigms as globalization, diaspora
and cultural studies to Commonwealth and postcolonial literature and
language studies? In general, how might literary and language studies help
us to understand the value of cultural connections and disconnections
throughout the Commonwealth?
The 16th Triennial ACLALS Conference invites scholars working in a variety
of media (literature, linguistics, film, the visual and musical arts and
popular culture) to present papers on the theme, ³ŒThe current unbroken/ the
circuits kept open¹:  Connecting Cultures and the Commonwealth,² on the
questions raised above, and on a range of topics including those listed
below: 

Historical and cultural currents in the Commonwealth
The common wealth of nations
Identity, currency and the practices of cultural consumption
Currents in language studies
The currency of cultures and/or Cultural Studies
Linguistic circuits and circuits of identity or cultural exchange
Cultural circuits and economic currency
The Currency of trade and travel
Circuits of violence/brokenness/trauma and cultural discourse
Discursive cultural circuits on gender and sexuality
Middle Passages and stories in the middle
The Black Atlantic and the Commonwealth
Connections/disconnections throughout the Commonwealth
Circling definitions: Commonwealth? Postcolonial? Postnational?
Waves of critical, cultural or linguistic practice
Short-circuiting genre: literary experimentation?
Island currents, global changes: conversations across the Commonwealth
Imagining Commonwealth futures