HomeCharacterising the field of ‘postcolonial’ studies

Characterising the field of ‘postcolonial’ studies

Caractériser le domaine des études « post-coloniales »

Caracterizar o campo dos estudos “pós-coloniais”

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Published on Wednesday, October 09, 2024

Abstract

This workshop is part of a multidisciplinary international project which aims to create a digital resource portal to assemble the data (documents, publications, works) that make up this field. However, the first difficulty encountered concerns the characterization of the domain of knowledge of these studies, its extent, its limits and the definition of the structuring concepts that constitute it. Compared with other fields of study, the field of postcolonial studies is characterised by a greater diversity and fluidity, as well as resistance to the more traditional national interpretative models. This is because it lies at the crossroads of history, comparative literature and literary theory, as well as sociology.

Announcement

Digital Humanities Workshop: characterising the field of ‘postcolonial’ studies.

Avril 9-10 2025, Lyon, France (Hybrid mode)

Argument

We are proposing a workshop on the overall characterisation of the field of postcolonial and decolonial studies.

This workshop is part of a multidisciplinary international project which aims to create a digital resource portal to assemble the data (documents, publications, works) that make up this field. However, the first difficulty encountered concerns the characterization of the domain of knowledge of these studies, its extent, its limits and the definition of the structuring concepts that constitute it.

Compared with other fields of study, the field of postcolonial studies is characterised by a greater diversity and fluidity, as well as resistance to the more traditional national interpretative models. This is because it lies at the crossroads of history, comparative literature and literary theory, as well as sociology. As a result, it is an area that is particularly well suited to observing the circulation of concepts and therefore of knowledge, but it is also more complex to characterise the common basis of this work. In this sense, too, the field of postcolonial studies is innovative in the SHS as a whole, with its inherent intersectionality and multidisciplinarity.

In this context, we would particularly like to reflect here on the different points of view that make up this field of study: we will be particularly attentive to the differences in disciplinary anchoring and geographical, historical, linguistic and cultural context. In fact, unlike most other fields of study, this one is not accompanied by a body of knowledge that has been established and catalogued in a consensual manner. One of the challenges of this project is to integrate this fact into a characterisation of knowledge.

Our point of view would thus be the opposite of what is usually encountered in knowledge organisations, whereby the primary aim is to represent the unity and stability of the field. Here, the field appears to have little hierarchy, but is marked by complementary links and a plasticity that is rarely apparent elsewhere. We will enlist, as well as interrogate, the relevance of the Glissantian notion of rhizome to characterise this field.

This situation, and the mondialité (Glissant) associated with it, provides a starting point for thinking afresh about the notions of concepts, heritage and borrowing, and also for understanding the tensions and articulations of a scientific field. Moreover, it is important to take into account the fact that the players in the field express the way in which they characterise their own field according to their own perspective.

The work can therefore be structured around three sets of questions:

- Borrowings, inheritances, adaptations, translations

- Spaces, objects, positioning,

- Unifying concepts, influences, resistance and rupture.

We will therefore propose several axes:

- Roles and limits of dictionaries and glossaries in the field.

- Relevance and limitations of literary materials/productions.

- The place of artistic creation in the research process.

We solicit papers with a reflective approach that favor a multiplicity of viewpoints (theoretical, methodologies, research materials, geographical areas) so as to present how this diversity can be envisaged as a working framework. This self-questioning of actors about their own practices and their environment includes both the objects studied and the references used, and analyses the epistemological consequences of such an approach.

We will also be looking out for papers characterizing the way in which controversies emerge, what they are about, where and how they take place and how they are argued.

Questions of translation, circulation, use and reinterpretation of works and concepts have a role to play in explaining certain phenomena, as well as absences and ruptures. We will pay particular attention to studies dealing with these circulations of ideas, works and concepts, obviously associated with specific historical and generational contexts.

Finally, questions of linguistic variations and their consequences for the hermeneutics of concepts both reveal the structuring of the field and explain divergences not only between researchers but also between communities, already considered linguistically.

These questions will be used to guide the SHS and Information Science approaches to the characterization and structuring of knowledge, which in turn will enable the development of a representation of the knowledge and objects of the field with a view to building a unified and structured access portal to the resources of the field. 

In addition to our interest to knowledge organization and the exchange of knowledge facilitated by electronic portals, we are also interested in the way in which digital tools intervene in the research and creation processes. 

The papers selected will be presented during a workshop in Lyon (hybrid form), and will be intended for publication in a leading journal that meets all scientific criteria (double-blind evaluation).

Submission guidelines

Length of contributions: 4500 characters max. including bibliography

Proposals should be sent to https://orco2c.sciencesconf.org/  with a copy to christian.cote@univ-lyon3.fr.

  • Publication: September 30, 2024
  • Submission deadline: December 15, 2024

  • Notification of acceptance: January 30, 2025

Scientific Advisory Board

  • Natalia GUERELLUS, MARGE, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3 (France)
  • Pauline FRANCHINI, IHRIM, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3 (France)
  • Maria-Benedita BASTO, CRIMIC, Sorbonne, Paris (France)
  • Florence LABAUNE-DEMEULE, IETT, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3 (France)
  • Hugo AZERAD, Cambridge University (UK)
  • Charles FORSDICK, Cambridge University (UK)
  • Mabrouka EL-HACHANI, ELICO, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3 (France)
  • Corinne MENCE-CASTER, CLEA, Sorbonne, Paris (France)
  • Jean-Pierre FEWOU-NGOULOURE, LERASS, Université Toulouse 3 (France)
  • Amel FRAISSE, GERICCO, Université de Lille (France)
  • Angèle STALDER, ELICO, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3 (France)
  • Caroline WINTERGERST, MAGELLAN, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3(France)
  • Omar LAROUK, ELICO, ENSSIB (France)
  • François VIGNALE, 3.LAM, Université Le Mans (France)
  • Erika FÜLÖP, PLH, Université Toulouse 2. (France)
  • Guilaine TALENS, MAGELLAN, Université Jean Moulin Lyon3 (France)

Suggested bibliography

  • Cahen, Michel; Braga, Ruy (ed..). 2018. Para além do (pós)-colonial, São Paulo: Alameda.
  • Hiddleston, Jane. 2021. Pós-colonialismo, Petrópolis, Vozes, 2021.
  • Quijano,Aníbal. 1992. Colonialidad y Modernidad/Racionlidad. Perú Indigena, 13 (29): 11-20.
  • Maldonado-Torres, N. 2005. Thinking Through the Decolonial Turn: Post-Continental Interventions in Theory, Philosophy, and Critique – An Introduction.Transmodernity: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Productions of the Luso-Hispanic World, (1)2: 1-15
  • Tlostanova, M. and Mignolo, W. 2012. Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Ohio: Ohio State University Press. 
  • Grosfoguel, R. 2007. The Epistemic Decolonial Turn: Beyond Political-Economy Paradigms. Cultural Studies. 21 (2-3): 211 – 223.
  • Dey,S. (Ed.).2018. Different Spaces, Different Voices: A Rendezvous with Decoloniality. Mumbai: Becomeshakespeare.com
  • Huggan, Grahan. 2001. The Postcolonial exotic: marketing the margins. London: Routledge.

Places

  • Université Lyon 3 - 18 rue Chevreul
    Lyon, France (69007)

Event attendance modalities

Hybrid event (on site and online)


Date(s)

  • Sunday, December 15, 2024

Keywords

  • post-colonial, littératures, Caraïbe, organisation des connaissances

Contact(s)

  • Nethaly Berthillon
    courriel : marge [at] univ-lyon3 [dot] fr

Information source

  • Christian COTE
    courriel : christian [dot] cote [at] univ-lyon3 [dot] fr

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Characterising the field of ‘postcolonial’ studies », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Wednesday, October 09, 2024, https://doi.org/10.58079/12fzb

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