South Atlantic Modern Language Association
2001 Convention, Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
Atlanta, Georgia
November 9-11, 2001.
I have a last minute opening for the upcoming SAMLA panel, "Postmodern/Postcolonial: Intersections in Literary Theory and Practice." While the contestation of these terms supplies much energy to contemporary theory, it also figures large in discussions of contemporary literature, whether conducted within the bounds of traditional national literatures or in emerging fields such as World Literature in English. The confluence of the postmodern and postcolonial is important, for instance, in recent discussions of magic realism, which, in its challenge to genre distinctions and the conventions of realism, resists both imperialist culture and the totalizing systems of modern thought. These aesthetic concerns, in turn, are integral to the theoretical work of such notable scholars as Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, Simon During, and Linda Hutcheon, who have dedicated essays to reconciling the fields or, more often, to reevaluating one through the lens of the other. If, as Hutcheon suggests, the postmodern and the postcolonial share a range of concerns--a debate with the past, a strong concern for marginalization, an emphasis on textual gaps--they also differ in their conception of history, the location of their discourse, and their evaluation of discursive effects on subjectivity. Simply put, insofar as the fields overlap they create a space for debate. Situated in this space, a paper on the present panel might address questions such as:
- Is the "post" in postcolonial the same as the "post" in postmodern?
- When are the postmodern notions of difference and positively valued marginality used to repeat colonizing strategies of domination?
- How do the foundational notions of identity offered in postcolonial discourse challenge the anti-foundational thrust of postmodernism?
- What lasting utility, if any, does postmodern theory have for postcolonial theory and for the postcolonial project, in general?
- Does one discourse offer a more useful critique of transnational globalization than the other?
- Does the postmodern threaten or facilitate the possibility of postcolonial aesthetics?
- What is lost or gained when international figures, such as Salman Rushdie or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, are placed definitively in either category?
Please send an abstract of 250 words to pbixby@emory.edu by no later than April 30, 2001.
Patrick Bixby
Department of English
Emory University
Tel.: 404-892-4809
Email: pbixby@emory.edu