Calibanías y Caribeñidades: Espacios y topografías
Calibans and Caribbeanisms: Spaces and Topographies
Calibanismes et Antillanismes: Espaces et Topographies
April 5-7th, 2018
Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Playing with the metaphor of the rebellious Calibán as protagonist, this interdisciplinary conference is guided by the following questions: How has the Caribbean been constructed historically as a geographic place and an imagined space both from within and without? How did the colonial encounter shape the notion of Caribbeans as “subhuman Calibans” or “cannibals,” and how has the coexistent resistance to such othering continued to revise colonial and neocolonial misperceptions? How have 20th and 21st century diasporas further led to questions of not only how to locate Caribbeanness, but challenged the notion of real and imagined boundaries of space, nation, and identity? And given 21st century political changes that have opened the Caribbean increasingly to global markets, how have the continued intertwinements between language, power, and mobility led to inventive artistic and literary production?
With the goal of bringing together papers that address any number of these topics as they manifest themselves in the humanities, the plastic arts, and the social sciences, our trilingual conference [French, Spanish, and English] will focus on the notions of “space” and "topography” as matrixes where a variety of understandings about Caribbean cultural identity are negotiated. The conference invites papers that reflect on such issues as:
• Asian Caribbean identities
• Caribbean Art, music and painting
• Caribbean discourses on disability
• Caribbean exiles
• Caribbean diasporas
• Caribbean feminisms and transfeminisms
• Caribbean literatures and the environment
• Caribbean masculinities
• Caribbean pop culture and visual arts
• Caribbean queer identities
• Cultural and literary studies
• Environmental and cultural sustainability of the Caribbean
• Indigenous cultures in the Caribbean
• Postcolonial identities and the Caribbean
• Race, gender and subalternity
• The Caribbean and the global context
• Religious discourses and Caribbeanness
• The Caribbean in the Latin American context
• The landscape of Caribbean nationalisms
• The presence of Africa in the Caribbean
• Theoretical and critical production from the Caribbean
• Transatlantic Studies: The Caribbean/ Europe/Africa
• Travel writing
• Women in Caribbean literature
We invite proposals for individual papers or panels in Spanish, English, or French. Graduate students submissions are encouraged. The panels will be composed of a maximum of 3-4 presentations. Presentations should be fifteen (15) minutes long. Please send an abstract of 250 words or less by electronic attachment (Word) to: caribbeanconference@marquette.edu by November 1st, 2017.
For further information, please contact: caribbeanconference@marquette.edu