Date: Fri, 25 Jun 2004 14:16:19 -0400
From: rromanow <rromanow-AT-mail.uri.edu>
Subject: CFP: The Postcolonial Body (9/1/04; NEMLA, 3/31/05-4/2/05)


CFP: The Postcolonial Body
Northeastern Modern Language Association (NEMLA) Convention 2005
Cambridge, MA
March 31-April 2, 2005
Convention Information: http://www.nemla.org
(Panelists must be members of NEMLA)

This panel proposes to examine the ways in which the body reflects, rehearses, 
and redefines the Postcolonial state.  As Colette Guillaumin in Racism, 
Sexism, Power and Ideology points out, the ^Ónatural characteristic^Ô of 
ethnicity, race, nation, or gender, ^Óinscribes the system of domination on the 
body of the individual, assigning to the individual his/her place as a 
dominated person.^Ô  For the Postcolonial, this inscription of dominance leaves 
traces upon the body, traces which are present in the literature, film, and 
cultural productions of previously colonized nations.  Rushdie^Òs fantastic 
metamorphosing bodies in The Satanic Verses, Salih^Òs sexual predator in Season 
of Migration to the North, and the diseased body in Ghosh^Òs The Calcutta 
Chromosome all exhibit the ways in which the body situates itself as a site of 
examination, explanation, and resistance to the colonial past and the 
neo-colonizing present.
    In redefining the ways in which this body reacts and redefines itself, 
Hardt and Negri argue that ^Ócorporeal mutations constitute an anthropological 
exodus and represent an extraordinarily important . . . element of the 
configuration of republicanism ^Ñagainst^Ò imperial civilization.^Ô  This
^Óanthropological exodus^Ô describes the points where the body can be seen as 
both reacting to and escaping the hegemonies which were imposed by the history 
of colonialism.  If resistance is enacted upon representations of the body and 
displayed in corporeality, it becomes significant and successful in enforcing 
a refusal to join anthropological normality and the disciplines of colonizing 
and neo-colonizing culture.  This is also seen when Ian Baucom, in ^ÓCharting 
the ^ÑBlack Atlantic,^Ò^Ô locates the diasporic Postcolonial subject by utilizing 
the metaphoric body as it moves through global waters, refusing to remain or 
be defined by either the point of departure or arrival.  This panel seeks 
papers that investigate the ways in which the Postcolonial body is represented 
as both a perceived conduit of ^Óabnormality^Ô and monstrosity, reflecting 
epistemic colonial constructions, or examine the ways in which the 
Postcolonial body serves as a trope for resistance and re-definition in the 
diaspora and in the homeland.

Please send 250-300 word abstracts to Rebecca Fine Romanow, University of 
Rhode Island, at rromanow-AT-mail.uri.edu by September 1, 2004.




 


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