POST-COLONIAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE NEW LITERATURES IN ENGLISH (June 8-9)

nternational Conference (and Post-Graduate Seminar) organized by the Department of English Language and Literature of the Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov at Prešov, Slovakia together with the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS), taking place in Prešov, Slovakia in June 8-9, 2007.

The conference seeks contributions on authors associated with the new literatures in English which will deal with but are not limited to:

1. 1. the symbolic expression of post-colonial transformation as manifested in literature (including drama);

   2. the volatile nature of post-colonial cultural identity;

   3. the opposition between traditional (oral and mimetic) literature and new and experimental forms of representation (written, modern, postmodern, media) as the expression of a tension or conflict between tradition and innovation, colonialism and resistance, traditional and modern life;

   4. “the translation among cultures” and the linguistic and literary expression of different kinds of cultural identities within post-colonial societies;

   5. postmodern, metafictional and hypertextual narrative techniques, postmodern parody, play, irony, generic and stylistic hybridity as literary, aesthetic and cultural alternatives to the dominant literary, cultural and national(istic) discourse as manifested in post-colonial literary texts;

   6. essentialist versus non-esssentialist concepts of cultural identity (Stuart Hall, Homi Bhabha) as expressed in literary works written by post-colonial authors;

   7. local and regional, versus national and global, relationships as the expression of specificity on the one hand, and universality and generalization on the other.

One of the aims of the conference is to attract doctorate scholars from Central and Eastern Europe to exchange views on the discipline of post-colonial studies and to discuss further co-operation under the aegis of EACLALS (European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies). The conference programme will include a post-graduate students seminar which will be run by Professor David Callahan, University of Aveiro, Portugal. This seminar will be based on lecturing and the discussion of set literary texts. These doctorate and other scholars from Central and Eastern Europe can be sponsored by means of an EACLALS grant. Doctoral students are encouraged to present their papers at the conference (these presentations will not coincide with the seminar programme which will be conceived as a separate activity).

Contributions are not restricted to the themes oulined above. We prefer papers which deal with the aesthetic, artistic and literary aspects of individual works, rather than those tackling ideological, political and societal aspects. The conference is organized jointly by Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities and Natural Sciences, University of Prešov, Slovakia, and the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (EACLALS), and will take place on the University of Prešov’s main campus. The city of Prešov is easily accessible by train, bus, and car from neighbouring countries and by air from other countries (Košice airport is only 40 kilometers from Prešov). The papers should be presented in English. The conference is part of the research projects KEGA 3-3136-05 and VEGA 1-3710-06. Short abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent by electronic mail to Jaroslav Kušnír at jkusnir@fhpv.unipo.sk, or by mail to

Jaroslav Kušnír

Katedra anglického jazyka a literatúry FHPV

Prešovskej univerzity, 17. novembra 1

081 16 Prešov, Slovakia

by May 6, 2007. A selection of papers will be published in the conference proceedings. The conference fee is 700 Sk (or equivalent in Euro, which is 25 Euros).

See the newconferencecall2.doc for more information and participation form.