[Discussion] CFP: Ethics and Postcolonialism (UK) (9/30/05; 4/8/06-4/10/06)

[gpultar@cstgroup.org]

From: Neelam Srivastava <Neelam.Srivastava@newcastle.ac.uk>

Conference on "Ethics and Postcolonialism", 8-10 April 2006  (one and a
half days)

University of Newcastle, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, United Kingdom

CALL FOR PAPERS (250-word abstracts to neelam.srivastava@ncl.ac.uk)

Confirmed speakers:

1)	Professor Gauri Viswanathan, Columbia University, NY
2)	Dr Leela Gandhi, La Trobe University, Melbourne
3)	Professor David Scott, Institute for Research in African American Studies,
Columbia University
4)	Dr Heather Widdows, Centre for Global Ethics, University of Birmingham

This conference attempts to explore and articulate some of the visible
intersections between ethics and postcolonialism. In this field, ethics can be
described as a "hidden term" underlying discussions around the supposed "ruins"
of a universal code of human rights and the unmasking of processes of economic
exploitation in the world today. This conference is being organized in
conjunction with _Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies_.

Conceptual models of postcolonial engagement that center around Leela Gandhi's
hospitality or "xenophilia", Edward Said's secular criticism, and Jacques
Derrida's reconciliation, all can be said to stem in one way or another from an
implicit reliance on ethical premises. The aim of this conference is to excavate
such principles and to make them more readily available for discussion and
critique. Is it possible to envisage an ethics that can make sense of differing
value systems in the different cultures touched by the process of globalization?
On the one hand, there is an increasingly widespread scepticism towards the
universal applicability of ethical concepts, which is counterbalanced by the
powerful emphasis of postcolonial theory on the ethics of engagement and the
necessity of intervention. Given these premises, it appears particularly urgent
to envisage a more contextualized form of ethics that can nevertheless lay claim
to a strategic validity in terms of moral and political accountability. Numerous
and urgent questions make a discussion of the ethical approach in dealing with
postcolonial issues necessary: for example, is there an ethical aspect to
violence in contemporary postcolonial societies, indeed could violence be seen
as an ethical necessity in some cases? Or in terms of historical reparations
and reconciliations, can ethics always be seen as restorative or are there
significant failures in this vision?

Such questions demand a sustained scrutiny of the concepts of ethics, human
rights, and intervention, and will involve discussions of conscientious activism
in the inter-disciplinary overlaps between politics, literature, cultural
theory, sociology? and development. For this reason, we plan to invite speakers
across a range of academic disciplines.

We welcome proposals on any of the following topics, or others which are
related to the theme of the conference:

* the ethics of intervention
* Communitarianism versus individualism
* Ethics and development
* locality and globality in contemporary ethics
* "xenophilia", or adopting a cause that is not your own
* ethics and the multicultural public sphere
* Secular versus religious ethics
* Ethics and gender
* De-coding human rights
* Truth and Reconciliation Commissions
* Violence and liberation struggles
* A history of ethics and colonialism/postcolonialism: similarities and
differences in conceptual approaches

Please send a 250-word abstract of your proposed paper by September 30,
2005, to Neelam Srivastava at the following email address:
neelam.srivastava@ncl.ac.uk

We are planning to publish an edited volume or journal issue of the proceedings.

For more information, please go to our website:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/niassh/ethics/index.htm

Neelam Srivastava and Gemma Robinson
School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics
University of Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
United Kingdom



>From the Literary Calls for Papers Mailing List