Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 07:11:10 -0400 (EDT)
From: Radhika Gajjala <rxgst6+-AT-pitt.edu>
Subject: CFP: Online Conference on Postcolonial Theory (fwd)



Date: Mon, 19 Aug 1996 09:25:32 +0800 (SST)
From: Talib Ismail <poco-AT-leonis.nus.sg>
To: postcolonial-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: CFP: Online Conference on Postcolonial Theory


Dear list members

Please note the Call for Papers for the following online conference.  I
would be much obliged if you could disseminate the information on it.  The
details are also available at the following URL: 

http://www.nus.sg/NUSinfo/FASS/ELL/poco/

Further changes, updates, etc. will be made on the above web page,
although I may make occasional announcements on the postcolonial list or
other relevant lists or newsgroups. 

	Best regards

	Ismail S. Talib
	<poco-AT-nus.sg>


  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
        First International Online Conference on Postcolonial Theory
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Attend an international conference while remaining at your campus or at
                                   home!

                      --------------------------------
                              Call for Papers
                      --------------------------------

Papers are invited for the First International Online Conference on
Postcolonial Theory. Contributions can be on any aspect of postcolonial
theory, especially with regard to its practical consequences in the
analysis of society, literature and history. A self-reflexive area or
perspective which is strongly encouraged arises from the nature of this
conference itself: the fact that it will be conducted in cyberspace. In
this connection amongst questions which can be asked are:

   * What will conferences or other communicative acts of this kind do to
     the reality of the contemporary postcolonial situation?
   * Will the difference between the haves and have nots with regard to
     acessibility to the information superhighway lead to a new
     configuration in postcolonial studies, where the division between
     East and West or North and South no longer prevails, but is
     replaced with a new configuration which may subvert the status of
     what was the powerful and powerless? 
   * Because the internet is a largely western phenomenon and the main
     language used is English, what do these two factors do to the 
     survival of non-Western cultures, and of the status of English as an
     international language? 
   * What will the internet do to the status of the 'old guard' in
     postcolonial theory, some of whom are less conversant in the new
     medium than younger scholars?

The above points are suggestions and are not intended as the official
sub-themes or threads for the online conference. All papers on other
themes within the purview of postcolonial theory will be considered.

                      --------------------------------
                          Submission of Abstracts
                      --------------------------------

If you are interested in submitting a paper, please send an abstract to
the organiser of the conference, Ismail S. Talib, at the following e-mail
address: poco-AT-nus.sg. The abstract should not be more than 300 words. The
deadline for the submission of abstracts is the 30th of November 1996. The
abstract should be written in ASCII characters (i.e. saved as a text file)
with the '_' character being used if you want to emphasise certain words,
or indicate that they should be italicised (for example, _Orientalism_).

                      --------------------------------
                            Selection of Papers
                      --------------------------------

Although we intend to have as wide a selection of papers as possible --
considering that this is the first conference of its kind in this area and
that definitions of 'quality' quite often display Western prejudice of
what is academically 'acceptable' -- there will be a selection committee
which will determine the suitability of the submitted abstracts. The
selection committee will, it is hoped, ensure, as in more conventional
conferences, that the likely papers will be of a sufficient degree of
academic merit -- defined in a broad sense -- or, at least be of
sufficient interest to generate further discussion. Papers which are
deemed to be racially sensitive or racist, or are designed to hurt the
sensibilities of people of either sex or of a certain culture, will not be
accepted (even if they purport to pass off as a 'critique' of the field).
The organiser reserves the right to reject papers even after their
abstracts have been selected, especially if they deviate in significant
ways from what was originally indicated in their abstracts.

                      --------------------------------
                       Submission of Selected Papers
                      --------------------------------

All selected papers should be submitted by the 15th of February 1997.
Papers should be between 2,000 and 5,000 words in length. Papers which are
received after the deadline, or exceed 5,000 words, will not be accepted.

                      --------------------------------
                           Nature of Conferencing
                      -------------------------------- 

All selected papers will be mounted on a web site; its URL will be
announced in due course. As such, the papers can be read by anyone who has
access to the World Wide Web. However, if you want to discuss any of the
papers, you should subscribe (free of charge) to the conference's
electronic discussion group. Information on how to join the group will be
given shortly. Pre-conference announcements will be made in the discussion
group. It is therefore advised that participants, whether they be
potential paper writers or discussants, join the group as soon as an
announcement on how to join it is given. It is anticipated that the
conference will be held through the month of March 1997; specific dates
will be given on when it is best to discuss specific papers or groups of
papers. The electronic discussion list will also be used for
post-conference announcements and for further or late discussions of
papers after the official dates of the conference.

                      --------------------------------
                        Form & Format of Submission
                      --------------------------------

All papers should follow the latest MLA style specifications, although
either American or British spelling can be used, so long as it is
consistent. They should be sent via attachments to e-mail messages and
should be in ASCII characters (for most wordprocessing software, saving
your document as a text file will do the job). Knowledge of HTML is not
necessary. However, it would be appreciated if minimally, at least the
following HTML tags are included:

     <P> to indicate paragraph breaks,
     <I> to indicate italic characters with </I> to close the set of
     italic characters.

All papers should be written in one electronic file. The use of frames is
therefore discouraged. All footnotes should be found within this single
document. Hypertext anchors to footnotes are not essential, and it is left
to the writers to make these themselves if they want them to be included.

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