ACLA 2017—American Comparative Literature Association// Utrecht University, Netherlands// July 6-9 2017
Race Theory and Literature
Call for Papers
Emerging out of the practices of colonialism, imperialism, and slavery/slave trade, race theory has seen renewed and reinvigorated interest in the last sixteen years. Recent scholarship has started to examine the relationship between these varying theories on race from philosophical, philological, theological, historical, biological, and other disciplines and literature (particularly prose fiction) from as early as the 16th century, but flourishing prominently in the Enlightenment and later 19th century at first in European university and later in U.S. universities, developing concurrently and after these theories were developed and circulated in multiple discourses.
This seminar proposes to look at the relationship between literature and the theorization of race in academic disciplines, primarily in the 18th and 19th centuries but also extending into the 20th century. Questions we wish to explore include, but are not necessarily limited to the following:
- How and why do prominent and marginal authors adopt, reject, criticize, and/or apply theories of race to ethnic others within their works?
- Is there a theory or are there theories of race within works of literature or in larger literary traditions and movements?
- Theorists this seminar would like to examine include, but are not limited to, Buffon, Bernier, Voltaire, Meiners, Kant, Herder, Blumenbach, Hegel, Herder, de Gobineau, Darwin, Galton, Boas, Locke, Montagu, Du Bois, Appiah, Senghor, Alcoff, Hanchard, Ferreira de Silva, Omi and Winant. We will also consider theories of race from literary authors such as Céline and Tagore, for instance.
This seminar seeks research comparing race theories alongside literary works from all over the world, as well as literary works that respond either directly or indirectly to race theories. We also welcome comparisons between race theory and visual culture, music, and other forms of artistic media.
Please submit a 300-word abstract for a 20-minute presentation on the ACLA website (http://www.acla.org/race-theory-and-literature) during the submission period (September 1 - September 23, 2016.
Contact the seminar co-organizers Pauline Moret-Jankus at pauline.moret-jankus@uni-jena.de and Adam J. Toth at adamjtoth@gmail.com with any questions.