BRAVE NEW WORLD
Revisiting Globalization in Literature and Culture
A Multidisciplinary Graduate Conference
hosted by the English Department of McGill University
Montréal, February 17-19, 2017
Keynote Speaker
Faculty Speaker
Prof. Nirvana Tanoukhi
Prof. Sandeep Banerjee
(University of Wisconsin-Madison)
(McGill University, Dept. of English)
images: Christian Madsen, raph.ae design: Felix Fuchs
“Oh, wonder! How many goodly
creatures are there here! How
beauteous mankind is! O brave new
world, that has such people in ’t!”
Shakespeare, The Tempest
The McGill English Department’s Twenty-Third Annual Graduate Student Conference invites submissions engaging with globalization and its histories,
geographies, and cultural expressions.We are interested in discussions of globalization beyond the normative postmodern approach to the phenomenon
as the proliferation of cultural difference: What forms has globalization historically taken? What are its modern and premodern origins? What do we
mean by modernity/modernization in the context of globalization? What role do national narratives play in its evolution? What is the status of national
literatures in view of a world literature? How does translation limit and expand the possibilities or scope of a global canon? How do specific aesthetic
practices like modernism, realism, and naturalism register the world-system as a process of combined and uneven development? In what ways are social
inequality, class, race, and gender implicated in globalization? How is cultural identity mediated in a time of unprecedented mass migration and displacement?
We invite submissions from all disciplines addressing, but not limited to, the following topics:
literary geography, cartography, mapping the world; histories of globalization and modern histories; translation and cultural exchange; national
literatures and narratives in view of world literature;‘third-world’ literature and national allegories;studies of the global south;global genres:(post)modernism,
naturalism & realism; transnational theatre, performance, and film; international collaboration and transnationalist practices; global movements in the arts;
modernity/modernization as combined and uneven development; neoliberal ideology, exploitation, and primitive accumulation; universalism and human
rights discourses; class, race, and gender in a globalized world; gender, sexuality, and queer studies; global resistance and separatist movements; religion,
nationalism, sectarianism; decolonization & reconciliation; (anti-)colonial & postcolonial literatures; diasporic literature, and border studies.
We welcome proposals from any field or historical period on topics which relate to globalization. Presentations will primarily be in English, but we
welcome submissions for a French panel. Please submit abstracts (250-300 words) and a short bio including university affiliation as .doc or .pdf
to [email protected]
Submission Deadline: December 10th, 2016.