The Postcolonial in Transition
The Postcolonial in Transition, the 7th SLACLALS conference, was held on 28, 29, 30 June, 2013 at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute (SLFI), 100, Independence Square, Colombo 07, Sri Lanka.
Plenaries
- Qadri Ismail: "Recharging Postcoloniality"
- Meena T. Pillai: "Marketing the Subaltern: Sales Tags for Postcolonial Margins"
- Suresh Canagarajah: "English Studies as Creole Scholarship"
The postcolonial in transition: Call for Papers
Some of the dominant frames of reference through which postcolonial literary and language studies expressed themselves – the migrant experience, decolonization, anti-colonial and post-colonial nationalism, etc – no longer seem to have the same degree of urgency and energy that characterized these concerns a decade or so ago. The current historical moment seems to be one of transition where new configurations are emerging but appear hazy and indistinct. The post-national and the post-secular are just two examples where scholarship is attempting to theorize such emergent trends.
However, such scholarship is also defined by the very legacies it seeks to overcome. Thus, while there is much excitement about the “death of the nation,” or the “death of the secular,” for instance, both these categories remain fundamentally important. There are interesting parallels to be drawn here between this “transitory moment” in post-colonial studies and Sri Lanka’s own history. A post-war nation, Sri Lanka is searching (some may say struggling) to find new directions and to imagine a future that is not constrained by its destructive legacies of post-colonial nation building.
This is, though, a complex and contradictory moment. On the one hand some things appear to remain the same. For instance, nationalist excesses, ethnic polarization, religious intolerance and a highly centralized state. But the nation is not and cannot ever be the same again. Boatloads of illegal migrants and their precarious journeys make regular headlines, more than a million Sri Lankans live and work abroad, Sri Lankan diasporic communities in the West and elsewhere have a significant impact both on international and local issues concerning Sri Lanka—all of which suggest that the nation-state is rather shaky despite a heightened nationalist consciousness within the country.
The 2013 SLACLAS conference calls for papers which take into account Sri Lanka’s transitory present mapped against the larger transitory moment in post-colonial studies outlined above. The conference hopes to explore themes such as diasporic writing and its relationship to the nation, post-war tendencies in literary production (both within and without the country), post-national imaginaries and their representation. Papers which are innovative and try to question existing frames of reference are especially welcome.
Some of the dominant frames of reference through which postcolonial literary and language studies expressed themselves – the migrant experience, decolonization, anti-colonial and post-colonial nationalism, etc – no longer seem to have the same degree of urgency and energy that characterized these concerns a decade or so ago. The current historical moment seems to be one of transition where new configurations are emerging but appear hazy and indistinct. The post-national and the post-secular are just two examples where scholarship is attempting to theorize such emergent trends.
However, such scholarship is also defined by the very legacies it seeks to overcome. Thus, while there is much excitement about the “death of the nation,” or the “death of the secular,” for instance, both these categories remain fundamentally important. There are interesting parallels to be drawn here between this “transitory moment” in post-colonial studies and Sri Lanka’s own history. A post-war nation, Sri Lanka is searching (some may say struggling) to find new directions and to imagine a future that is not constrained by its destructive legacies of post-colonial nation building.
This is, though, a complex and contradictory moment. On the one hand some things appear to remain the same. For instance, nationalist excesses, ethnic polarization, religious intolerance and a highly centralized state. But the nation is not and cannot ever be the same again. Boatloads of illegal migrants and their precarious journeys make regular headlines, more than a million Sri Lankans live and work abroad, Sri Lankan diasporic communities in the West and elsewhere have a significant impact both on international and local issues concerning Sri Lanka—all of which suggest that the nation-state is rather shaky despite a heightened nationalist consciousness within the country.
The 2013 SLACLAS conference calls for papers which take into account Sri Lanka’s transitory present mapped against the larger transitory moment in post-colonial studies outlined above. The conference hopes to explore themes such as diasporic writing and its relationship to the nation, post-war tendencies in literary production (both within and without the country), post-national imaginaries and their representation. Papers which are innovative and try to question existing frames of reference are especially welcome.