INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM IN HONOUR OF PROFESSOR EDWARD OBEN AKO THEME: GLOBALISATION AND TRANSITIONAL IDEOLOGIES: MOVING THE MARGINS THROUGH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
deadline for submissions:
January 15, 2017
full name / name of organization:
The Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences and the Department of English of the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon
contact email:
The Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences and the Department of English of the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon, in collaboration with colleagues, students and friends at home and in the diaspora, are organizing an international symposium in honour of Professor Edward AKO from 16 to 17 February 2017.
The momentous historical events that have shaped recent human history, namely the slave trade, colonisation and the Great Wars have offered novel perspectives on otherwise fixed notions of national, racial, cultural and ethnic identities. The twenty-first century acceleration of globalisation in the guise of information and communication technology, ultramodern transportation systems and an increasingly mobile population has unfixed and blurred the limits of these identity markers. The colonials' otherness, which triggered the colonial enterprise, was constructed through discourse, education, language and literature, which ensured the endurance of a deadly colonial mentality even after the formal end of the colonial rule. The strength of Europe's definition of its "others" relied on the discursive creation of its 'self. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have, however, seen an unprecedented escalation in global migration. The phenomenon, which cuts across cultures and geopolitical locations, has been amplified in the twenty-first century by developments in information and communication technology. These developments and the attendant migration invariably lead to an increased questioning of colonial(ist) definitions of identity, localization and confinement of the centre to the West through the colonial discourse that 'placed' the colonials on the margins while it projected the 'centrality' of Europe. There is an emerging discourse that seems to counter not only the colonial discourse but any discourse that claims to locate the centre in any geographic space. The "centre" and the "margin" seem to be concepts in an ever drifting realm in postcolonial literatures and languages.
How do contemporary studies in languages and literatures define the departure from the margin into the centre? How is this debate projected in emerging literatures and new Englishes? How does the appropriation of the Englishes dismantle the hegemony of colonial English? What alternatives to the 'imperialism' that underlies globalisation do postcolonial literatures and languages propose? In the light of this, the conference provides a platform to reflect upon the sub- themes that address, but are not restricted to:
· Migration culture and transnational identities
· National, Comparative and World Literature
· Travel literature
· Literature of the black diaspora
· American literature
· Multiculturalism
· Globalisation in language and literature
· Postcolonialism
· Nationhood in language and literature
· Race and ethnicity
· Gender and Sexual identities
· New Englishes and self-definition
· Linguistic borders
Submission Procedure: Participants are invited to submit on or before January 15, 2017, an abstract of not more than 300 words, clearly stating the purpose of the paper and its content. The proposal should contain the following information: (a) Title of paper, (b) Name/affiliation of author(s), and (c) E-mail address.
Submissions should be in Microsoft Word Format. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by January 30, 2017. After the symposium, the style guide for preparation of final papers will be made available. As a pre-view, December 30th 2016 is fixed as deadline for submission of final papers for review. Authors will be notified about acceptance/rejection of their papers latest March 30, 2017. Please e-mail all enquiries and proposal submissions to: edwardakosymposium@yahoo.com/ mentors@yahoo.com or call (+237) 677223677 // (+237)677746025 // (237) 699618653 // (237) 699984730 //
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Sarah ANYANG AGBOR, PHDProfessor,Deputy Vice - Chancellor in charge of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Business World (DVC-RCB)The University of Bamenda,P.O.Box, 39 Bambili, North West Region, Cameroon.+ 237- 233 366 031
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