Call for Papers
Orientalism: Culture, Politics, and the Imagined Other
The editors invite contributions on all aspects, literary and non-literary, of French Orientalism for a proposed publication following up on the 2005 conference sponsored by the Ph.D. Program in French at the City University of New York.
Manuscripts should not exceed 7,500 words, including notes. Submissions must conform to MLA style, and must be in English, or prepared for translation into English. Quotations from non-English language texts must be translated in the body of the essay and accompanied by the original in the notes. Illustrations are acceptable if they are germane to the essay (authors must obtain glossy prints and reproduction rights if the essay is accepted). Submissions will be blind read by three readers, and the author's name and institution should appear only on the title page. Authors are required to submit a 150-word abstract.
In Orientalism, Edward Said wrote of “the Orient as a locale requiring Western attention, reconstruction, even redemption. The Orient existed as a place isolated from the mainstream of European progress in the sciences, art, and commerce. Thus whatever good or bad values were imputed to the Orient appeared to be functions of some highly specialized Western interest in the Orient.”
Working from this standpoint and within the current global context, the publication will explore the French and Francophone construction of the Orient. Papers on all historical periods and disciplines are welcome.
Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• Exploration, conquest, and the nation
• Literature: confrontation, appropriation, and resistance
• Religion, territory, and political relativism
• Flora and fauna: possession, domestication, classification
• Food and cultural consumption
• The French stage: Performing the Orient
• Harems, fetishism, and exotic sex
• The feminization of the Orient
• Women and agency
• Occidentalism: The returned gaze
• Orality and history
• Self-representation in literature
The deadline for submissions is 28 July 2006. Please send proposals to Desmond Hosford (dhosford@gc.cuny.edu) and Chong J. Wojtkowski (cjwojo@gmail.com).