Cfp: CARIBBEAN POSTSCRIPTS: THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Caribbean Postscripts is a series of books examining the works of the British ‘canon’ from a Caribbean perspective. The first of the series, Postcolonialisms: Caribbean Rereadings of Medieval English Discourse by Barbara Lalla, has already been published by UWI Press and there are plans to continue this initiative with future publications interrogating British texts from other periods. There is no paucity of Caribbean rewritings of British Literature; there have been numerous publications that revision The Tempest such as George Lamming’s Water with Berries and Elizabeth Nunez’s Prospero’s Daughter. There are also numerous critical essays and monographs addressing these appropriations of Shakespeare and using the colonial text to interpret the Caribbean situation. Rob Nixon’s “African and Caribbean Appropriations of The Tempest” and Margaret Paul Joseph’s Caliban in Exile: The Outsider in Caribbean Fiction are well-known examples. The aim of this collection, however, is to focus on analysing British texts from a Caribbean perspective. The premise is that the Caribbean has specific historical, social and cultural issues that can be readily applicable to a reading of British texts, and can therefore unlock these ‘canonical’ texts in new and interesting ways. You are invited to submit papers on seventeenth-century British Literature that might include the works of John Donne, John Milton, William Shakespeare, Walter Raleigh to name a few. John Donne, for example, describes the colonized lands as “islands fortunate” in “Love’s Progress”, and further praises his lover with his often quoted, “O my America, my newfound land!” Shakespeare’s Othello bemoans his skin colour and its associations in his “Haply, for I am black”; and Prospero acknowledges ownership of Caliban, again possibly in relation to his skin colour: “This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.” Milton’s Satan, rebelling against God’s established power, declares that it is preferable to “reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.” Some of these writers may deal with issues of colonization and specifically with the ‘New World’ but this is not a pre-requisite for critical enquiry. The Series Editors of Caribbean Postscripts include Giselle Rampaul, Barbara Lalla, Jean Antoine, Jennifer Rahim, Paula Morgan Topics might include: • Domination, Resistance and the Interrogation of Established Power • Defining/Inventing the Nation • The Other • Race • Masquerade • The Trickster • Exile and Shipwreck • Journeys/Exploration • Language Deadline for abstracts: 29th March, 2010 Deadline for completed papers: 7th June, 2010 Please send to Giselle.Rampaul@sta.uwi.edu.

Cfp: "Caribbeanscapes: the Vistas of Caribbean Literature," Department of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies, April 29-May 1, 2010.

29th Annual Conference on West Indian Literature. The Caribbean has been perceived in myriad and often contradictory ways: as paradisal isles; outposts of innocence offering Edenic beginnings; hedonistic beachscapes of tourist fantasies; the backwaters of civilization, condemned to mimicry and futile posturing; and vital centres of creative cultural hybridity, literally new worlds that prophesy our globalized futures. Anglophone Caribbean literature is a rich archive of such perceptions, often articulating them as visual tropes of space and place that conflate geography and history, language and cartography in the attempt to chart the imaginative and literal frontiers of psyche and society. To explore this archive of Caribbean literary vistas, the 29th Annual Conference on West Indian Literature invites papers and panel proposals on the following topics: · Tropicalized Spaces : The Power of Vistas · Home and Garden: Domestic Ecologies · Unhomely Spaces · Manscape and Womantongue Trees: the Gender of Vistas in Caribbean Literature · Rural Pastoral, Urban Dystopia? City and Country in Caribbean Writing · Plantation, Yard, Tonelle: Metaphors of Place and Identity · Spectacular Islands: The Visual Politics and Poetics of Caribbean Popular Culture · Translocal and Transnational Vistas · Travel Writing · Bordered Vistas: Border Regimes, Border Clashes, and Border-Crossings · Imagining Caribbean Space Proposals are welcomed on other topics that are relevant to the theme of the Conference. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words in length, and should include (1) a title, (2) name, status and institutional affiliation of the presenter(s), (3) a contact email address, and (4) a mailing address. Please also let us know if you require any special equipment. Papers will be a maximum of twenty (20) minutes in length. Abstracts or proposals for panels comprising three papers should be emailed to the following addresses: liteng@uwimona.edu.jm litsengmona@gmail.com The first Call for Papers will close on November 30, 2009.

Cfp: "Quiet Revolutions in West Indian Literature and Criticism," University of Guyana, April 26–29, 2009.

The 28th Annual Conference on West Indian Literature. The conference theme for 2009 is designed to explore, among many other things, the several developments, preoccupations, forms or issues that may reflect "quiet revolutions" in West Indian literature and criticism, however all that may be interpreted. Since this annual conference started, West Indian literature has experienced change, sometimes unique and radical, often representing revolutionary advancements. There have been new areas of study and artistic engagement peculiar to West Indian literature as well as the inclusion of related forms and pursuits hitherto excluded or kept on the fringe of conventional mainstream "literature". These have not necessarily all been recent; some may say the literature has been attended by quiet revolutions throughout its history. Participants in the conference are invited to consider these. Examples of some relevant areas are suggested below: Film Performance Language Music Form Creole Dub / Dub Poetry Oral traditions Orality Dancehall Theatre, and Drama Developments in the literature have been accompanied by those in West Indian literary criticism, itself sometimes considered to be one of the quiet revolutions, and other emerging traditions, which may involve: Caribbean criticism Emerging traditions and literatures Ideas and approaches The East Indian ethos Comparative literature The Amerindian ethos The Francophone and the Hispanic Folklore West Indian fiction Narrative West Indian Poetry 100 Years of Edgar Mittelholzer: These "quiet revolutions" have often centred around or driven by Caribbean writers themselves (Wilson Harris, Eddie Kamau Brathwaite, Derek Walcott et al). One of the phenomena of the mid-twentieth century is a Guyanese fiction writer considered to be himself one of these quiet revolutions: Edgar Mittelholzer. The Caribbean celebrates his 100th anniversary in 2009. The University of Guyana will mark the occasion and no doubt there will be other events, particularly around December. Participants are invited to join/form a special panel on Mittelholzer. Celebrating Wilson Harris: The extraordinary originality of another Caribbean novelist who emerged after Mittelholzer is another of these revolutions. English critic Kathleen Raine declared that he changed the form of the English novel that had been static for 100 years. The conference proposes to honour/pay tribute to/recognise Harris and participants are invited to contribute to a panel on Harris. Abstracts: Abstracts of less than 250 words should be submitted by FEBRUARY 15, 2009 to the Office of the Dean, Education and Humanities, University of Guyana, Georgetown, Guyana Al Creighton Tel. 592 222 4923 e-mail deanseh@hotmail.com OR alcreightonjnr@hotmail.com

PUB: ANTHURIUM: A CARIBBEAN STUDIES JOURNAL 5.2 (2007).

Table of Contents: Acknowledgements by Jennifer Rahim Keeping an eye on Naipaul: Naipaul and the Play of the Visual by Jean Antoine-Dunne “The history that had made me:” The Making and Self-making of V.S. Naipaul by Edward Baugh Naipaul’s Sense of History by Bridget Brereton Consuming the Self: V.S. Naipaul, CLR James, and A Way in the World by Rhonda Cobham Signifying Nothing: Writing about not Writing in The Mystic Masseur by Barbara Lalla A Mala in Obeisance: Hinduism in Select Texts by V.S. Naipaul by Vijay Maharaj Consorting with Kali: Migration and Identity in Naipaul’s “One Out of Many” by Paula Morgan V.S. Naipaul and the Interior Expeditions: “It is Impossible to Make a Step Without the Indians” by Sandra Pouchet Paquet The Shadow of Hanuman: V.S. Naipaul and the “Unhomely” House of Fiction by Jennifer Rahim The Confessional Element in Naipaul’s Fiction by Gordon Rohlehr Visit the issue homepage at: http://scholar.library.miami.edu/anthurium/volume_5/issue_2/V5I2index.html.

CFP: "Carnival, 'People's Art' and Taking Back the Streets," York University and University of Toronto, July 30-August 3, 2008.

Spreading from Trinidad through the Caribbean, to Brazil, the United States and Canada, England, as well as Germany, and with analogues in Brazil, the United States and elsewhere, Carnival has developed into one of the most important global expressions of popular identity. Both as celebration, and as resistance art, it builds on the collision of cultures of Christian European colonizers and enslaved West Africans. The claiming of public space in the use of the street is a statement of presence that is as much political as artistic. Organized to coincide with the Caribana Festival on the streets of Toronto, this conference addresses such important issues as Globalization and Commercialization, the formation of Diasporas, the origins and development of Carnival, Gender and Racism, the nature of Postcolonialism today. Held as part of the Caribana Festival and Parade, and with the International Steelpan Association, the conference encourages merging theory with practice. The conference will explore the social, political and cultural aspects of Carnival and street theatre, as well as themes of exclusion/otherness, exoticism and cross-cultural acceptance, connections across the Diaspora, and comparisons between Carnival in Africa, the Caribbean, South and North America, Europe and the UK. Papers that address any aspect of these areas are welcome. While taking African Carnival and its spread across the Caribbean to other continents as its base, this conference is also intended to focus on the widest socio-cultural aspects of this performative street art: the negotiation of hybrid identity in the post-colonial context; anthropological views of historical developments, the politics of carnival and street theatre, the economics and commercial pressures. Suggested topics for papers include, but are not limited to: * Carnival and theatricality * Images of Africa / Carnival in Africa * The Trinidad Carnival Tradition * Myth, Magic and Ritual * Economics and Carnival * Social Activism & Street Theatre * Popular Art, Globalization & Copyright * Gender, Sexuality, Satire * Caribana: history, performance * New Orleans Mardi Gras * Cross-Cultural Influence: Brazil, Bolivia, Berlin * Notting Hill Carnival There are seminars for which papers may be submitted, on the following topics: * Cultural Rights in a Transnational Festival * Carnival in Literature * Anthropological Approaches to Carnival There is also still the opportunity to propose other seminar topics Submissions: Prospective participants should submit abstracts of between 100 and 300 words, for individual papers, seminars or workshops, by the FINAL deadline of MAY 15th 2008. Abstracts should be sent by email to carnival@yorku.ca. Abstracts must include the title of the paper or presentation, the name(s) of presenter(s); institutional affiliation; email address, phone & Fax numbers. Students should identify themselves as New Scholars. Special Features: * Presentation of a performance piece by Eintou Springer * Major Exhibition of Carnival Art * Kings and Queens Competition and Caribana Parade * Steelpan Music and Panels * Presentation of Carnival Videos Workshops on: * Producing Carnival * Carnival Design * Street Theatre * Calypso CONTACT: Prof. Christopher Innes, Canada Research Chair, 125 Winters College, York University Tel. (416) 736-5142. The conference website is found here: http://www.carnivalconference.ca/.