CFP: "Reading After Empire: Local, Global and Diaspora Audiences," Devolving Diasporas Research Project, Stirling University, September 3-5, 2008.

How should we read colonial and postcolonial texts? Is reading an act of resistance, or the domestication of difference? Does postcolonial studies posit an 'ideal reader'? What (if anything) are the differences between local, national and transnational audiences? How can we ever adequately interpret the imperial archive? This conference focuses on the neglected but central role of reading in colonial, postcolonial and diasporic contexts. It uses reading in its broadest sense (e.g. as reception, viewing, consumption,translation) to raise questions about the politics, and the pleasures, of interpretation. We are interested in both empirical and theoretical accounts of readers and audiences across a range of genres (e.g. literary, cinematic, televisual, internet-based) and contexts (e.g. libraries, living rooms, cinemas, book groups, chat rooms). Titles and abstracts of no more than 200 words should be sent electronically, along with a 50-word biography, by March 31st 2008 to Bethan Benwell (b.m.benwell@stir.ac.uk). Suggested topics might include: contrapuntal reading; imagined and interpretive communities; catachresis; the postcolonial exotic; literacy; reception as a situated activity; colonial libraries; postcolonial history of thebook; nationalism and hermeneutics; readers within fiction and film; reading and ethics. Conference details, including Registration Forms, will follow shortly at: www.devolvingdiasporas.com/conferences.htm.