[Endangered-languages-l] Fwd: Postcolonial Studies Association Convention

[Dave Sayers]

*Postcolonial Studies Association Convention, University of Leicester, 7–9 September
2015*
*
*
Call for papers:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BwobOffbNaTHMENQTC14SUlxaUE

The first PSA convention will be held at the University of Leicester (UK), from 7 to
9 September 2015. Contributions from academics and postgraduates investigating any
area of postcolonialism from any disciplinary, cross- or interdisciplinary
perspective are warmly invited.

Confirmed keynote speakers:
- Professor Paul Gilroy (King’s College London)
- Professor John McLeod (University of Leeds)
(Other keynotes to be confirmed)

_The 2015 PSA Convention Special Topic is Diasporas_
Proposals for panels and papers on the theme of diasporas will be particularly
welcome. Movement —be it of culture, capital or the human movement involved in
colonialism, slavery, indentured labour, or postcolonial migration to former colonial
metropoli— has always been central to postcolonial studies.
Diaspora has been one of the key concepts of postcolonial studies within this context
of individual and collective journeys. Within contemporary analysis, diasporas have
tended to be explored in terms of ethnicity, race, nationality, and even religion.
However, diaspora has sometimes been accused of perpetuating histories of colonial
inequality by failing to differentiate between precarious migration motivated by
exploitation and the more economically privileged transnational movements of the
global bourgeoisie. The study of human movement during colonial and postcolonial
times has taken a number of shapes across the humanities and social sciences through
the study of diaspora, migration, transnationalism, cosmopolitanism and
globalisation. It is this theme of movement that the conference special topic will
address. What social, historical and linguistic configurations does the study of
diasporas privilege? Which ones does it ignore? How has diaspora come to include
different motivations of migration beyond the more familiar ones of ethnic
discrimination and economic hardship? How has the diasporic experience been
represented and studied?

The convention will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the /Journal of //Postcolonial
//Writing/ & its
ongoing partnership with the PSA.

*Format:* Individual 20-min. academic papers, panels, performances or poster
presentations.
Please send abstracts of individual presentations (250 words) or panels of 3 (500
words) with a
brief biographical note of participants (2-3 sentences) to psa2015convention at gmail.com
*Deadline for abstracts:* _28 February 2015_. Decisions communicated by the end of
March 2015.