Congress Announcement and Call for Papers
Society for Caribbean Research
Antwerp, Belgium
24-26 September 2003
VIII. Interdisciplinary Congress
Postcolonial Research Group
University of Antwerp
Injustice & Insubordination: the Caribbean writer as "Warrior of the Imaginary"
Injustice & Insubordination: l'auteur caribéen comme "Guerrier de l'imaginaire"
Injusticia e insubordinación: el escritor caribeño como "Guerrero de lo imaginario"
Onrecht & insubordinatie: de Caribische auteur als "Krijger van het imaginaire"
"One of the most obvious tasks of literature, poetry, and art is to gradually lead humans to the unconscious acknowledgement that the other is not the enemy, that difference does not erode me, that if I change in my contact with the other, it does not mean that I dilute myself in him . . . It is no longer dreaming the world, but entering it." (Glissant).
"We are in the intermediate space between tumults and collapses that should give birth to new values and other social systems through dynamics we cannot even imagine." (Chamoiseau)
The Society for Caribbean Research and the Postcolonial Research Group at the University of Antwerp invite you to think about the writer as "warrior of the imaginary," that is on the author / artist who uses an unheard-of dynamic to react against "ethnocentrism, enclosed identities, ethnic cleansing, narrow-minded nationalism, sectarian and fanatical fears." (Chamoiseau). What, then, is this new dynamic? What does this new imaginary consist in? Are we, readers and critics alike, obliged to rethink the raison dêtre as well as the significance of post-colonial cultures in the Caribbean and elsewhere? Is the role taken on by Chamoiseau also echoed in other writers who fight new injustices and urge to rebellion against new oppressive forces at a time when the world has gone global and inequalities are exacerbated? What is the new order now that the struggle is no longer waged between the former colonizer and the former colonized, now that we no longer read along such simplistic, binary lines as black vs white, man vs woman?
We would also like to address those areas of Caribbean studies that have been less often explored, such as the interesting and somewhat enigmatic writings of the Dutch-speaking authors from the Caribbean, cross-cultural translation, socio-linguistic analyses, etc.
Panels are planned on the following topics:
I. Injustice and insubordination:
- "Warrior of the Imaginary"
- New York City After: reflections of (a) Caribbean author(s)
- Hispanolia/Quisqueya: conflict or concord?
II. Divergent creolities
- Literature from the Dutch-speaking area
- Cross-cultural translation
- Socio-linguistics
- "Coolitude"
- Condición cangrejera
- Gender politics and rethinking masculinity
Cultural Programme (to be confirmed): Pictures of Haitian frescoes by the English photographer Pablo Butcher.
Please send 150-word proposals, in French, English or Spanish, dealing with one of these topics by Sept 30, 2002.
Papers in French to Kathleen Gyssels, University of Antwerp: kathleen.gyssels@ua.ac.be
Papers in Spanish to Rita De Maeseneer, University of Antwerp: demaese@uia.ua.ac.be
Papers in English to Bénédicte Ledent, Université de Liège: b.ledent@ulg.ac.be