[Bilimsel Haber] ACLALS CFP: Literature for Our Times - August 17-22, 2007, The University of British Columbia, Canada

[Sule Tarakcioglu]

*Abstract Deadline*: September 30, 2006

This conference, which uses Open Conference Systems developed by the
Public Knowledge Project <http://www.pkp.ubc.ca/>, enables participants
to submit abstracts online at http://ocs.sfu.ca/aclals/submit.php.

Presentations can include:

• Single papers (abstract max of 300 words)
and • Multiple paper sessions (overview max of 50 words)

*Call for Papers Announcement*

The Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS)

14th Triennial Conference
August 17-22, 2007, The University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


Call for Papers

Literature for Our Times

At the 2005 World Social Forum, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, Booker
Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy spoke about the function of
literature for our times: "Our strategy should be not only to confront
empire, but to lay siege to it…With our art, our music, our literature…-
and our ability to tell our own stories." In an article, "The Arduous
Conversation Will Continue," published in The Guardian on July 19, 2005,
Hanif Kureishi voiced a similar opinion: "…the only patriotism possible
is one that refuses the banality of taking either side, and continues
the arduous conversation. That is why we have literature, the theatre,
newspapers - a culture, in other words."

Are there other roles, besides the ones suggested by Kureishi and Roy,
that literature has played in the era of colonialism and continues to
fulfill now in this young Twenty First century of ours, amidst the
upheavals of regime changes, wars for resources, loss of faith in
elected representatives, genocide, suicide bombings, resistance
struggles and environmental disasters? Is literature a force for
reconciliation and cross-cultural understanding or only an instrument
for aesthetic pleasure of the privileged? Does literature provide us, in
the famous phrase of Kenneth Burke, with "equipment for living," or does
it only obscure reality and deflect resistance?

Papers are invited to engage with all aspects of the above theme. They
could address, by referring to the literary, critical and other kinds of
cultural texts, the following questions:

Literature as an institution and ideologies of 'literature'
Commonwealth versus Postcolonial versus World literature
Literature as resistance
Literature as "arduous dialogue"
Literature as "equipment for living"
Literature as pedagogy; Pedagogy of literature
Literature of human survival (including issues of poverty and prosperity)
Literature of Human Rights (including the right to access knowledge and
resources)
Literature of Apocalyptic and Utopic imaginings
Literature for promotion of Peace and Justice
Literature of real and imagined Ethnicities
Literature of cultural affiliations (Race, Gender and/or History)
Literature as a world language
Literature in a global cultural economy
Literature in translation
Literature of healing and reconciliation

Abstracts of approx. 300 words for papers of 20 minutes duration, and
approx 400 words for three-paper panels (with the names of the
panelists) which engage with these and other relevant questions should
be submitted to this Open Conference Systems site
(http://ocs.sfu.ca/aclals/admin) no later than September 30, 2006.

Address for regular mail:
Dr. Paul Matthew St. Pierre
ACLALS Secretary-Treasurer
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC
Canada V5A 1S6

ACLALS website: http://www.aclals.org